The Penn State situation and sports talk radio

These are the moments when sports radio hosts make their most meaningful contributions. During certain mundane stretches of the calendar year, shows struggle to fill the time and often recycle story lines fans are tired of hearing about. One familiar example would be all the recent talk about the merits of Tim Tebow as a quarterback. This turns some people off of the medium, but serious and troubling stories like the Penn State scandal call for the type of informed commentary provided on certain shows.

I listened to Dan Patrick and Jim Rome this morning, and both of their takes helped me process a truly upsetting situation. It makes me angry and frankly I don't know how to talk about it yet. Two hosts with chops like Patrick and Rome can focus that collective anger into the larger arc of the story as they give their own opinions. This gives us different ways to think about the issue.

It's not that they tell us how to feel, but they help us make sense of the different strands of the story so that we can decide how we feel.

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