NBC is hyping an “interview,” to be aired Monday, with convicted child rapist Jerry Sandusky. But what they don’t tell you is the interview wasn’t conducted by NBC. Rather, NBC is airing excerpts of an interview by John Ziegler, right-wing documentarian and propagandist. Ziegler has been publicly skeptical of the charges against Sandusky, who was convicted of 45 counts of child sexual abuse, writing that at the time the grand jury was convened “the legal case against Jerry Sandusky was actually remarkably weak.”
Ziegler insists he is “not supportive” of Sandusky and does acknowledge he engaged in “criminal behavior.”
The interview being aired by NBC as news content is part of a larger documentary called “The Framing of Joe Paterno.” On his website, Ziegler lambasts the Freeh Report of the Penn State scandal, which concluded Joe Paterno “failed to protect against a child sexual predator harming children for over a decade.” Ziegler attacks the testimony of assistant coach Mike McQueary who said he observed Sandusky sexually assaulting a child in the shower. Ziegler says “the evidence indicates that McQueary did not witness an assault, but rather a botched ‘grooming’”
Previously Ziegler has produced films such as “Media Malpractice: How Obama Got Elected” and “Blocking The Path to 9/11,” a film defending an error riddled mini-series seeking to pin blame on Bill Clinton for the 9/11 attacks.
Ziegler is also defending Reno Saccoccia, the Steubenville football coach who “knew about the rape of a 16-year-old girl by two of his players, but didn’t say a word about it to school administrators or local law enforcement.” On his website, Ziegler asserts Saccoccia is “not culpable” and reveals he has been “advising him for the past several months on how to handle the media firestorm.”
Scott Paterno publicly opposes Ziegler’s efforts to defend his late father. He wrote on Twitter, “If John had a credible way to exonerate Dad, why would we oppose it? Think about that.”
One child advocacy group has called on NBC to cancel the segment featuring the Sandusky interview.
0 comments:
Post a Comment