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Media Fail: News Orgs Neglect To Critically Assess Mike McQueary’s Self-Exonerating Email

by Tommy Christopher | 2:01 pm, November 16th, 2011

» 26 comments

A disturbing pattern is emerging in the coverage of the Penn State alleged child rape story, in which media outlets employ varying degrees of dereliction that have the effect of softening the wrongs of its participants. The latest iteration of this is the reporting on an email from Penn State assistant Mike McQueary, to a friend, in which McQueary tries to mitigate his sickeningly inadequate reaction to witnessing Jerry Sandusky raping a child in the Penn State showers.

McQueary has become something of a tangential lightning rod in the Penn State story, in some ways being portrayed as a more heinous villain than accused child rapist Jerry Sandusky. McQueary told a grand jury that he walked in on Sandusky raping a ten or eleven year-old boy in the Penn State showers, caught Sandusky’s eye, then “immediately left,” waiting until the following day to report the incident to Penn State personnel. This began a long string of cowardice, as everyone involved failed to report the crime, or really do anything about it. Between Sandusky and those Penn State officials who covered up for him sits McQueary, singled out for extra helpings of public scorn.

Mediaite founder Dan Abrams recently wondered about that phenomenon, and while there’s no easy answer to that, the closest I can come is to observe that Sandusky’s alleged actions are those of a monster, and Penn State’s inaction was that of an unfeeling, inhuman bureaucracy. McQueary, though, is the human proxy for everyone who reads about the story, the guy who saw it with his own eyes, and utterly bungled the pass/fail equation for that situation. At every step thereafter, the onus remained on McQueary to do what we would do, to say, “No, you don’t understand, he was raping a child in the shower!” until somebody did the right thing to Sandusky.

McQueary seems to know this. Suspended with pay out of fear for his safety, he sent an email to a friend last week, trying to take some of the heat off of himself. The contents of that email are widely being reported as a claim by McQueary that he “stopped” the rape of that child by Sandusky, and that he spoke to police about the incident. The latter is an accurate, if not entirely credible, paraphrase of what McQueary said, but the former is a gross oversell. Here’s how the Associated Press reported on the McQueary email:

In the email dated Nov. 8 from McQueary’s Penn State account and made available to The Associated Press by his friend on Tuesday, the assistant coach writes that he stopped the sexual assault and discussed it with police afterward.

“I am getting hammered for handling this the right way … or what I thought at the time was right,” he says. “I had to make tough impacting quick decisions.”

Like a Reuters report on Sandusky’s lawyer a few days ago, this AP report curiously neglects to include the direct quote that pegs to their headline. Here’s the full content of the email: (emphasis mine)

… you are the first person I have told this … and I don’t know you extremely well … and I have been told bye officials to not say anything …

I did stop it, not physically … but made sure it was stopped when I left that locker room … I did have discussions with police and with the official at the university in charge of police …. no one can imagine my thoughts or wants to be in my shoes for those 30-45 seconds … trust me.

Do with this what you want … but I am getting hammered for handling this the right way … or what I thought at the time was right … I had to make tough impacting quick decisions.

This is off record … again … I have not and will not say anything to anyone else.

The AP, and other outlets, should not be abetting McQueary’s image rehab by misleadingly paraphrasing that email, especially when it costs nothing to simply quote it directly. “Not physically?” Did McQueary cut Sandusky down with Mind Bullets?

Now, the reader can decide how important the distinction is, but “making sure it was stopped” is not the same thing as “stopping it.” Coupled with his grand jury testimony, McQueary seems to be happy to take credit for the obvious fact that catching Sandusky’s eye in mid-rape probably ruined the mood for him. Yes, “it stopped,” but “McQueary stopped it” the same way I “stop” the rain when I open an umbrella.

In much the same way, when McQueary fled that locker room, it is almost a certainty that the rape continued, if not that night, then for years thereafter. It is for the reader to decide what measure of “credit” McQueary deserves for catching Sandusky’s eye (maybe mouthing the words “Ix-nay on the ape-ray?”), then leaving the child in that shower with his rapist to go home and talk it over with his dad. If you missed it, here is what McQueary told the grand jury. See how it squares with his email:

It was about 9:30 p.m. As the graduate assistant entered the locker room doors, he was surprised to find the lights and showers on. He then heard rhythmic, slapping sounds. He believed the sounds to be those of sexual activity. As the graduate assistant put the sneakers in his locker, he looked into the shower. He saw a naked boy, Victim 2, whose age he estimated to be ten years old, with his hands up against the wall, being subjected to anal intercourse by a naked Sandusky. The graduate assistant was shocked but noticed that both Victim 2 and Sandusky saw him. The graduate assistant left immediately, distraught.

McQueary also claims, in his email, that he “did have discussions with police and with the official at the university in charge of police,” which is partially consistent with his grand jury testimony. About a week and a half after the alleged rape, McQueary met with Gary Schultz, who oversees the University police, but according to the grand jury report, McQueary “was never questioned by University Police and no other entity conducted an investigation until he testified in Grand Jury in December, 2010.”

Was McQueary rationalizing a stretch of his meeting with Schultz in a private email to save face with a friend, or did Schultz and McQueary lie under oath to a grand jury in a way that was detrimental to both of them? That’s another judgment for the reader to make, but they can’t make it if it’s not presented to them.

Presenting the claim that McQueary “stopped an alleged assault by Jerry Sandusky on a 10-year-old boy in 2002 and went to the police about it,” without the crucial context that his “off the record” email to a friend is contradicted by sworn grand jury testimony, is journalistic dereliction. So is subtly altering the content of that email through paraphrasing, rather than directly quoting it.

Mike McQueary should be asking for forgiveness, not making excuses, and journalists ought to be vetting those excuses, not abetting them.

Associated Press, Dan Abrams, Jerry Sandusky, Joe Paterno, Mike McQueary, Penn State, Penn State Rape Scandal, Penn State Scandal

Anonymous

I hate to pile on when someone is down, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. Every Penn State coach should have been immediately fired. They may not have known the gory details, but they knew Sandusky could not be trusted with their children and they permited him to still use their facilities. If they have to hire the best high school coach in Pennsylvania to finish the season so be it. They also should grant a release to every player on their team to play for another university if they wish, without sitting out a year. You can point all you want at SMU for what they did. However, SMU’s conduct does not ever compare to protecting child molestation.
Anonymous

Sandusky is the true monster in this story. McQueary is nothing but a cowardly, dickless, piece of shit. He should be shunned by those that find his inaction disgusting. The fact that he remains employed by Penn while Paterno was fired is just amazing. Penn fired the big fish and hoped this would go away. They are covering each other but hopefully everyone who had knowledge of this and did nothing should be fired. I have to ask, where is a statement by Ed Rendell on this? He was on the board during this time and yet the media has not sought a comment. Looks to me like another cover up.
Not Impressed

“. no one can imagine my thoughts or wants to be in my shoes for those 30-45 seconds .”

Ya know, I bet the boy being sodomized would’ve happily traded places with you for those 30-45 seconds, Mike.
Kid Dynamite

What a moronic post. The AP says: “In the email dated Nov. 8 from McQueary’s Penn State account and made available to The Associated Press by his friend on Tuesday, the assistant coach WRITES THAT he stopped the sexual assault and discussed it with police afterward.” McQueary WROTE “I did stop it” and “I did have discussions with the police….” The AP isn’t stating what McQueary DID, it is accurately summarizing what he WROTE. Leave journalism to journalists.
Kahlid Shiek Yerbouti

I was going to make a joke about how I thought “McQuery” was the gay toys name in a McDonald’s Happy Meal, but I won’t.
Anonymous

Why don’t ya let the legal system decide was is and what is not.
Moderate

I would have to assume that McQueary’s walking into the room is what stopped the rape, I can’t imagine it continuing after that. All colleges are different but how much is campus police the final authority or a group of rental cops. It is obvious the head of the police department covered up or minimized the incident.
Anonymous

McQueary abandoned the child. If he had physically stepped in and ended it, had called the police, he could have ended that boy’s suffering right then and, hopefully, begun the boy’s recovery. Instead the boy was let down by another adult. Even if the physical abuse stopped right then, how much longer did that 10 year old boy have to suffer alone with what had happened to him before someone was able to begin to help him? The real story here isn’t about Sandusky, Penn State, McQueary, it is those children, everyone involved here, it seems, allowed the continued rape of that boy, and probably others, if not physically, emotionally and mentally, for God knows how long.
Searle6

Honestly. Tommy Christopher: who ARE you?
Anonymous

McQueary’s wording was slippery and I am sure was vetted by his attorney or Penn State personnel. He said he “did have discussions with police and with the official at the university in charge of police”. It’s pretty clear that if he talked to any “police” at all, it was only Schultz, the head of the Penn State campus police, and not a police force with real authority. Yet his wording is vague enough to lead us to believe (just as he intended) that he had discussions with “real” police — i.e. State College city police or sheriff or whomever — as opposed to the Penn State Campus Police.

Tommy is right — a lot of reporters have stupidly and uncritically pulled the quote “I did have discussions with police”, while ignoring the other part of that sentence (and the utterly contrary statements in the grand jury report) and have given McQueary the cover he wanted. McQueary’s whole purpose in sending out this email was to have it leaked and for reporters to do exactly the sloppy work Tommy is talking about.

P.S. This is the second post in a row where I have completely agreed with Tommy. What is happening? Worlds are colliding. Dogs and cats are living together.

P.P.S. This morning, Matt Lauer called it the “Penn State Sex Scandal”. Aarrgh!
Anonymous

You’re right.

I was in high school in Dallas during the SMU scandal. SMU had hookers, free Corvettes, unauthorized summer jobs and a serving Texas governor on the board of regents who covered it all up. Compared to Penn State, SMU in the 1980s was almost quaint.

SMU’s coaching and athletic department staff resigned or got fired, as did administrators at the top. The football program was destroyed and they had to start over from scratch. Like an alcoholic hitting rock bottom, they had the clean break they needed to rebuild and become a different kind of school, which they did. Penn State probably won’t have that clean break, so the school and their football program will remain tainted.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_FSPIVAFYI672OH5NOKVRTEZA4U MadCharles

The media failed 16 years ago and continues to dig deeper day by day.
Moderate

Penn State Greater Allegheny Police Services and Safety Department is a Commonwealth of Pennsylvania fully-authorized police agency. The Department employs both sworn police officers with arrest powers and unsworn patrol officers who patrol the campus and respond to emergencies. Penn State Greater Allegheny Police Services and Safety officers complete state mandated training requirements established for law enforcement officers and have the same legal authority as any other police officer in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
http://www.ga.psu.edu/Information/Safety/default.htm
http://www.facebook.com/people/Brian-Kirkland/100000195274498 Brian Kirkland

Well said, but the same can be said about all the coverage. Anyone on that staff knew what was happening, but the press is allowing Bradley to go about his business and refuse to discuss the story that he is intimately involved in. He’s playing the aggrieved coach having all this terrible stuff imposed on him. He coached with Sandusky. He was at PSU for over 30 years.

What did he know and when did he know it?
Joeconch

Love it when Tommy Christopher, the guy who doesn’t have a degree in journalism, criminal justice or political science…the guy who tweeted during his own heart-attack, is now playing judge and jury on the media.
http://twitter.com/darrenmcgeary Darren McGeary

Taking McQueary’s email at face value, this is what I would assume happened also. The rape stopped due to McQueary walking in on it. What else would you have had McQueary do at that point, Tommy? Beat the crap out of Sandusky then and there? You wouldn’t have done anything else either, and you know it.

What Tommy is doing now is moral grandstanding. Everyone knows what happened has heinous and evil. The cover-up afterward was just as bad. Absolutely NO ONE disagrees with that. What Tommy is doing now is simply shouting the loudest to try to prove to himself that he cares more than others, and therefore is better than everyone else.
Darr247

All the professors, too. Obviously, anyone that worked for PSU knew all about Sandusky and colluded with area high school guidance counselors to get them to send Sandusky fresh ‘meat’ every few weeks.
Anonymous

Well that didn’t take long.

From CBS News:
Police: McQueary didn’t report abuse to us
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_UBU76MOHER77VZTAVRZ7KYSOOQ KimB

Most University Police forces in the United States have the same authority as City, County or STate Police. They can investigate, detain and arrest someone. They then turn them over to the district attorney. In the case of major crime, they typically request that the local police take over because of their connection to forensics and larger force to deal with the necessary investigations. They aren’t just rent-a-cops. In fact, most states require that anyone who is hired for the University force go through the same academy as a local police officer.
Ralph

And after all that training, those who were supposed to investigate crime failed to protect the child and the one person who had no training, education, or expectation that he would be confronted with a child rape, and who nonetheless reported the rape to the coach and the police,, is suspended without pay. Everyone is better off because McQueary entered the locker room late that night, except for McQueary.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Adam-Hemmer/1061080208 Adam Hemmer

I love when the media talks about the “media!” as if they’re not part of it.
Anonymous

Howdy Doody is a gutless wonder. I bet he avoids mirrors and introspection.
Ralph

Penn State police and College, PA police having no record of a report is something different from a person making a report. Remember, the police are the fine folk who could have arrested Sandusky in 1998 but chose not to. They really don’t have much credibility. Neither does the parent who accepted Sandusky’s apology in 1998.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1017522898 Karki Meade

“I would have totally stopped those terrorists if I was on one of them 9/11 flights.”

–everyone and their mothers
Anonymous

Update: I appears McQueary DID give a statement to the police after all but, um, just prior to his grand jury testimony. So maybe that’s what McQueary was talking about when he said he said “I did have discussions with police”. Of course, he wanted us to think he meant he spoke to them in 2002, not 2011, but he and his lawyers still crafted the email so that it wasn’t technically a lie. Nicely done, ginger man!

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2011/11/mcquearys_statement_in_line_wi.html#incart_mce

“Penn State assistant football coach Mike McQueary never mentioned that he talked to police in 2002 after witnessing an alleged sexual assault by Jerry Sandusky of a young boy, according to a hand-written statement McQueary gave to police during the recent grand jury investigation.The Patriot-News has viewed a copy of the statement and verified it through a source close to the investigation.

In it, McQueary states that he witnessed a boy, about 10, being sodomized in a shower and hurried out of the locker room. He does not mention stopping the assault, and does not mention talking to any police officers in the following days, the statement says.”
Anonymous

Can only wonder what Paterno would have done if it was his son that was raped ?