Posnanski and the Paterno book

Many of Posnanski's answers sounded like someone sitting for a deposition, not an interview. Noncommittal, almost evasive. He doesn't want to badmouth his subject, and he wouldn't mind selling a book or two through vagueness. Why should he reveal too much of what he thinks?

 

The only thing I really get from a lot of the discussion is the urgency with which people feel the need to pile on and a lot of opportunism, both in those praising and bashing the book in their reviews.

There are over 100 comments on the Barra article already -- an article which is rife with factual inaccuracies and bias in its own right -- and I have a great deal of difficulty believing that so many of these people have actually read a book, cover-to-cover, which has only been out two days.

I haven't read the entirety of the book yet. I'm about a fourth of the way through. The treatment of Paterno though, particularly the stuff on his earlier life, is par for the course. So I'm baffled as to why there is so much disdain for the idea of its presence (aside from the obvious, which is there is a lot of self righteousness and a lot of folks cleaning the skeletons out of their own closets as a result of this.)

This is a biography, after all, right? It's as if Posnanski should have ignored that people actually did like Paterno in 1961 and 1971 and 1981 because they stopped liking him in 2011. That's not how history works, nor is it how good writing works. It's how the media sometimes works, but that's why rational people have a real disdain for the media.

 

That would actually involve laying down Yankee dollars for it . . . and given the broad stench surrounding it, and the clearcut, sustained biases of the author, there's no chance of that. None.

I will not hesitate to briefly finger a library copy, to read the pertinent chapter. The rest is a waste of time, for those of us who have been conscious and paying attention throughout JoePa's coaching career.

 

As has been noted, Paterno's biography has been done and re-done several times.

For most people beyond his circle of family, friends, cronies and sycophants, whatever good Paterno did during his life was rendered wholly irrelevant by his participation in covering for a predatory pedophile.

As a journalist, that's the story I'd like a chance to tell. The rest of it is basically old news -- especially the "Saint Joe" stuff that has since been proven to be total, unmitigated bullshit.

 

jeffpearlman ‏-- @jeffpearlman

I was critical of some of Joe Posnanki's initial approach, but I think much of the post-release grief he's receiving is jealousy

 

Bullshit tweet by Jeff. If he has specific issues with the review points, then he should address them. The ad hominem drive-by is weak.

 

So you're saying that Jeff Pearlman was trying to negate or otherwise drown out the truth by pointing out negative characteristics of people speaking it, or what it is perceived to be? Isn't it possible to be both factually accurate and jealous at the same time?

I think the disgusting part of the way sports writers have covered this is not whether or not they've got the general minutia right, but rather how eager they are to spike the football.

 

What is the jealousy angle? In the specific circumstance, I don't think anyone envies the position Posnanski was in. Or is this just the larger "let me know how things are going in Podunk" that writers will trot out when someone beneath them weighs in.

 

It depends who he's directing the criticism at, which I guess can't be accomplished in 140 characters. Is it at posters here? Is it at The Atlantic? Is it at sports talk radio?

 

I envy his check.

 

The most common criticism I keep reading of Posnanski's book - and the promotional interviews - is that he fails to take a stance one way or the other. This is not some invented criticism of a biography, ginned up for these circumstances and these circumstances only. And it is not a reach. It is the same criticism I frequently saw attached, for example, to Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs biography. There is an expectation that a biographer provide insight, not merely deep reporting.

 

I had the same complaint about George Vecsey's recent biography of Stan Musial. There wasn't much in there that wasn't covered in Musial's autobiography four decades earlier. I respect Vecsey's career, so I was surprised at that. Posnanski (him again!) had a better read with his 2010 tribute in Sports Illustrated.