Wednesday, December 22, 2010

USA Swimming sex abuse debacle wins ABC News an Award: ABC News 20/20 Wins duPont Award for 'The Coach's Secret'

The media, the press, and finally us "peons"; (pee-ons?), the news bloggers are suppose to be a "quality control" mechanism for the public. Most of the above news media sources; (except for me), profit by uncovering screw-ups, malfeasance, and corruption.

With that preface in mind, the best press or media is a non-profit media. Once a media outlet accepts advertising and any other monetary compensation, then, in my humble opinion, that media becomes biased! NBC News would have never run this story since they profit from the Olympic Games and swimming is a big part of that profit. ABC was able to do this story since they had no direct or indirect monetary ties to the IOC.

I congratulate Megan and the other contributors who received the duPont award, it was so well deserved and it created a tsunami-like shift within USA Swimming and how children are protected. I would like to say that USA Swimming has all the right policies in place now and all is perfect; (it is not), but I can say that the parents are closely "watching the watchmen" and for that I sincerely thank you for making the sport better.

Congratulations Megan - it was nice speaking with you! :-)

From ABC News:

An ABC News 20/20 investigation that uncovered a sex abuse scandal involving dozens of male swim coaches of teen female swimmers today received one of journalism's most prestigious awards -- the duPont Silver Baton from Columbia University. The report by ABC News Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross and producers Megan Chuchmach and Avni Patel found some 36 coaches for USA Swimming, the sport's national governing body, had been quietly banned from the sport for sexual abuse of young female team members.


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