Posts filed under ‘The Penn Stater magazine’
In Which We Take to the Airwaves
KDKA radio was a fixture in our house in my early childhood, and I spent many summer evenings listening to Pittsburgh Pirates games on the AM radio. My parents were big fans of Rege Cordic, an on-air personality on KDKA until the mid-1960s. At 50,000 watts and one of the first radio stations in the United States, KDKA was a big deal.
So when I got a call from a KDKA talk-show host the other day asking if I’d be interested in being a guest on his show, it got my attention. The host is a guy by the name of Rick Bergman and the hour-long show will air tomorrow (Saturday) night, Jan. 21, at 9:00 p.m. Eastern. I said yes.
Rick tells me we’ll be talking about—and taking calls on—”the new issue of the magazine and other stuff.” The magazine, I can handle; the “other stuff” worries me just a little. I am not a spokesperson for the University in any way, shape, or form, so it’ll be interesting to see which questions I’m able to answer and how many times I’ll just need to say, “Uhhhhhhh, clearly you mistake me for someone much higher up on the food chain.”
Depending on where you live, you should be able to catch the show on the radio at 1020 AM (KDKA’s website says the station’s signal “at night reaches 38 states and several Canadian provinces”), or via live streaming at this link. Just click on the red button that says “Listen Live.” And feel free to call in! Go easy on me, though, OK?
Tina Hay, editor
Why Child Sexual Abuse Goes Unreported: A Sociologist Explains
“Everybody likes to think they would be the whistleblower. What I told my class was this: Statistically, you’re full of crap.” —Eric Silver
Of the 28 pages of essays we published in our January/February issue, which we devoted to the Sandusky scandal and its aftermath, none has received more responses than Eric Silver’s. Silver, a professor of sociology and crime, law, and justice, contributed a piece we titled “Bureaucracy, Loyalty, and Truth.”
We introduced the piece like this: “Everyone says they’d report suspected child abuse to the authorities, but most don’t. A Penn State sociologist dissects the powerful forces that prevent us from doing so.”
Silver’s perspective—based largely on his specialty, the sociology of deviance, and a class lecture he gave just days after the charges against Sandusky were filed—really struck a chord with readers. Because of the large response, we’ve decided to make the piece available here. —Lori Shontz, senior editor
I teach a class in the sociology of deviance, and we were covering the topic of adult-child sexual contact when this happened. The students had a homework assignment related to it due the night before all this broke. It was an eerie thing.
I felt like I needed to say something in class—to put the crisis in a sociological context. Two ideas came to me—one is bureaucracy, and the second is loyalty.
Everything in our world is organized by bureaucracies. You go to the grocery store, and your food’s always there, it’s on the shelves—that’s a very complex task, and it’s organized by a bureaucracy. Bureaucracies are very good at complex tasks, because they break up those tasks into small pieces that individuals can be responsible for. We’re all familiar with that in our own work lives: If we run into trouble, we tell so-and-so, and that’s it. It’s off our plate, and we continue to do what we’re supposed to do.
In this case, I don’t know the facts any more than anybody else does, but it seems as though there was reporting upward, which most of the time you’re encouraged to do. The big question is: Why didn’t people follow up after they reported upward? In some ways, it’s not a fair question. Our job descriptions aren’t to police our bosses.
I realize that everybody likes to think they would be the whistleblower. They are the ones who would risk their job, their livelihood, their future, their letters of recommendation. This belief fuels our righteous indignation at those involved. What I told my class was this: Statistically, you’re full of crap. For every 1,000 people, you’re lucky if there are two or three whistleblowers. (more…)
Our 15 Minutes of Fame
We knew we’d get some feedback on our January-February issue, which is devoted almost entirely to coverage of the Sandusky scandal. We figured we’d get some emails, some letters, maybe a phone call or two. We hoped the comments would be more positive than not, but you never really know; you just have to wait for the magazine to start hitting mailboxes and see what happens.
Well, the feedback so far has been overwhelmingly positive. The mail is heavy, and it’s running 4 to 1 in favor of our approach. (More on that another time.)
Beyond that, something else happened that I never would have predicted: We’re getting some attention in the news media.
I’ve been interviewed by reporters from the Harrisburg Patriot-News, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Associated Press, the Wall Street Journal, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. They all want to know what it was like to throw out the previously planned Jan-Feb issue and start from scratch to cover the explosion of events. And, given the candid way in which we covered the crisis, they all want to know what kind of interference we got from the Penn State administration.
As I’ve told each and every reporter, (more…)
Meet Our New Intern
We thought we’d give our new intern a chance to introduce herself. You’ll be seeing much more of her on the blog throughout the spring semester. —RJ
My name is Emily Kaplan, and I’m very excited to announce that I’ll be The Penn Stater‘s editorial intern this semester.
In my introductory blog post, I could recite the same spiel I’ve given in all my classes so far: “I’m a junior from Montclair, N.J., majoring in journalism. I spent the last two years covering a variety of sports for the Collegian, including women’s volleyball and men’s basketball. I love Chipotle, the beach, and hockey. A fun fact about me is that I coached Stephen Colbert’s son in t-ball. No, Colbert never showed up.”
However, I’d rather tell you about the things I’ll be doing for this blog and why I can’t wait to get started.
Not that I needed any reminding, but it’s clear Penn State alumni are wonderful ambassadors of what’s great about our university. Just last Sunday, I was at the Giants playoff game when I struck up a conversation with the woman sitting next to me. She could whistle louder than anyone in our section and knew just as much about the X’s and O’s of football as a veteran sportswriter. I was quickly impressed.
She asked me where I went to school, and I sheepishly responded “Penn State,” hoping not to (more…)
A Note About an ‘Unknown’ Coach
Let me start by saying that I have no idea whether Bill O’Brien will turn out to be the right coach for Penn State, and I’m certainly one of the people who knew him only as Guy Who Yelled at Tom Brady until recently. But while I was flipping through decades of old issues to gather nuggets for our 100th anniversary issue, I came across these paragraphs in the “Old Main Columns” department in the April 1966 issue:
The announcement of Rip Engle’s voluntary retirement was expressed through the radio and press on Friday morning, February 18. On that evening Rip was scheduled for an appearance at a dinner meeting of the Bucks County Penn State Club. Alumni in attendance were conscious of having been privileged to be with the popular Engle on a very special occasion and at a significant time in the coach’s life. The public was not to know officially of Joe Paterno’s appointment until Monday.
Rip was in a very light-hearted mood and willingly answered most of the questions put to him following his formal talk. However, he hesitated when some alumnus asked him about next season’s team. “I don’t think I should talk about that,” he replied, slowly. “You’ll be having Joe down here one of these days …” Realizing what he had said, Rip quickly continued, “Any more questions?” “Yes,” someone replied from the back of the room. “Who’s Joe?”
Lori Shontz, senior editor
Behind the Scenes and Below the Surface
When the Sandusky scandal broke, my husband and I were heading out of town for a long weekend away. I’m not a good passenger, so I was distracting myself by scrolling through Twitter on my phone as he drove, and that’s how we got the news on Friday afternoon. Awful, we both agreed.
Our lazy Saturday morning was interrupted when both of our phones started buzzing like crazy; friends and colleagues were alerting us to perjury charges and a shockingly graphic grand jury presentment. We were floored. And we knew that although we weren’t in State College, we weren’t really on vacation anymore.
The thing about being a journalist is this: You can’t really turn it on and off. News doesn’t keep hours, and often my best laid-plans go awry. (Just ask the guy I was dating the semester I was a candidate at The Daily Collegian: “You used to be normal,” he said, not unkindly, “and then you joined the Collegian.”) I wouldn’t have it any other way. (It’s also not a coincidence that I married another journalist; who better to understand how you think and work?)
By Sunday, everyone at the B&B’s communal breakfast table was waiting for the “two writers from Penn State” to explain everything to them. (As if that were possible.) They’d seen the story on the front page of the New York Times. We got pelted with more questions Monday morning. When we checked out, the owner gave us (more…)
We Can Tell the Magazine is Out…
…by the calls and emails we’re starting to get from readers.
First of all, no, that’s not a black box you see on the left. It’s the cover of our new January-February issue. There actually is text in there—really! The cover doesn’t render very well on screen, and it looks even worse after the blog software gets done compressing it. If you click on the image at left, you can see a much bigger and more accurate representation.
Even so, it’s definitely a dark cover, and a decidedly unusual one for us, with the masthead letters piled up at the bottom and all that. We realize that you’ll either love it or hate it. And already we’re hearing opinions about it, ranging from “I am impressed by this cover decision. Stunning” to “Seeing the cover … further plummeted me into despair! How is a cover like that moving PSU forward?!”
We might ask our art director, Carole Otypka, to talk more about the cover design in a blog post sometime.
In the meantime, readers are also commenting on what’s inside the issue, and those reactions, too, span the continuum from enthusiastic appreciation (“I already feel better about my beloved Alma Mater. What a wonderful collection of words from people who have been affected by the darkest days”) to passionate disapproval (“I found the latest edition … an ill-conceived idea and equally horrifying to read. Every page made me shake more with anger. How dare you attempt to assuage alumni with pandering articles and quotations”).
To us, the number and variety of reactions is a good thing. It means readers care, and it shows that there’s a wide range of opinions out there. Please keep the comments coming. Feel free to use the “Leave a reply” box after this post, or send us an email at pennstater@psu.edu. Thanks.
Tina Hay, editor
New Issue on the Way
We haven’t seen the finished product ourselves yet, but our printer tells me that the January-February issue of The Penn Stater is in the mail and should be arriving in mailboxes any day now.
We’re always interested in hearing how readers react to the magazine, but that’s especially true this time. We devoted more than 40 pages of the new issue to the Sandusky scandal and related news. You can get a feel for what’s in the new issue by clicking on the image above—that takes you to a larger, more readable version of the table of contents.
We think the coverage is pretty honest and unflinching. We also hope it doesn’t just rehash all the stuff you already know; instead we’ve offered—among other scandal-related stories—22 thoughtful mini-essays, by contributors ranging from Adam Taliaferro ’05 to survivors of child sexual abuse to Penn State’s first Rhodes Scholar, Tess Thompson ’97.
Please let us know what you think, either by posting a note in the Comments section here or by sending us an email at pennstater@psu.edu. We really look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Tina Hay, editor
Coming Soon: Your Concert Memories
Back in August, we asked readers to send us their memories from concerts they attended at Penn State. It’s been my job to sift through and edit the submissions for a feature that will run in our Jan./Feb. issue—which, in the magazine world, is just around the corner.
Given my own embarrassing history of concert-going (we’re talking boy bands, people), I expected the job to require plenty of Google searches for artists I’d never heard of and various one-hit-wonders of the past few decades.
Boy, was I wrong. Not only has Penn State drawn some of the biggest names in music, but readers had keen ears, sensing the genius in Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, and Simon and Garfunkel before the rest of the world caught on.
Pearl Jam: Live from State College. The 2003 show at the BJC was the band's longest concert ever.
One of the coolest stories mentions a 2003 Pearl Jam concert at the Bryce Jordan Center. The show was the band’s longest ever, and the three-disc recording was one of only six bootlegs from the tour sold in stores. Another reader remembers that jazz legend Thelonious Monk performed two sold-out shows in the Schwab Auditorium in 1964, the same year he made the cover of Time magazine.
Unfortunately for me, no musical history was made on Nsync’s 2001 Celebrity tour—though my teenage self would have argued otherwise.
Mary Murphy, associate editor
Our November/December Issue is on the Way
A couple of Saturdays ago, I arrived at the gym early, too early to snag my favorite bike for the 10 a.m. spinning class. So I ended up chatting with a couple of other early arrivals, and I mentioned how much I like 3:30 football games because I have more time to get in a workout before kickoff.
Turns out, they love any home football games. Because they can buy groceries, pick up whatever they need at Target—without having to wait in line. I was incredulous; in my three “tours” of State College, I’ve missed one home game. Under duress. “You never go to football games?” I asked. Turned out, they wouldn’t even think of it.
My spinning classmates aren’t alone. You can meet more people who ignore Penn State football—and learn what they do during the games—in our November/December issue, which should be making its way to your mailbox if it’s not there already.
We’ve got a couple of other good stories in this issue:
—English professor Sandra Spanier ’76g, ’81g talks about the first volume of The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, a project she’s spearheading, and recommends the one Hemingway book you should read if you’re going to read just one. (It’s not my favorite book, A Moveable Feast, but of course it’s an excellent choice. And, no, I’m not going to give it away here.) Still to come: about 15 more volumes of letters.
—And we’ve got a profile of Beverly McIver ’92g, an artist I’m ashamed to say I knew nothing about until I read the story. She paints beautiful portraits of herself and her loved ones, paintings that, as my colleague Ryan Jones writes, “offer unflinching takes on race, gender, and mortality.” You can get a sense of her work here, and the backstory in Ryan’s article.
Please let us know what you think!
Lori Shontz, senior editor
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