Mike Bianchi: Hail to local journalists who uncovered Northwestern hazing, put Larry Nassar in prison

ORLANDO, Fla. — Pat Fitzgerald and Dr. Larry Nassar.

These two names should make us realize just how important dogged, in-depth, local journalism still is in a social media society addicted to clickbait and Twitter litter.

They both were in the news for the wrong reasons Monday when Fitzgerald was fired as Northwestern’s head football coach amid an abhorrent hazing scandal while Nassar — the infamous sports doctor who was convicted of sexually abusing hundreds of youth, Olympic and college female gymnasts — was stabbed multiple times by another inmate at a federal prison right here in Central Florida.

What do they have in common?

They both were brought down because of hardworking journalists who uncovered the ugly truth that the Establishment was shamefully trying to hide.

Let’s start with Northwestern, which originally tried to sweep the hazing scandal underneath the rug. The firing of Fitzgerald on Monday came only three days after the school initially announced on Friday that the coach would be slapped on the wrist and suspended without pay for two whole weeks (during the summer, no less) as a result of a university-commissioned investigation into hazing allegations made by a former Northwestern football player. The school conveniently did not make the findings of the investigation public but claimed the probe — conducted by a purported independent law firm — did not uncover “sufficient” evidence that Fitzgerald knew about the widespread hazing.

It was only after the student newspaper — The Daily Northwestern — published a story on Saturday graphically detailing the hazing allegations made by the former player that the school reversed field and fired Fitzgerald. School president Michael Schill quickly and laughably wrote in a letter to the university community that he “may have erred” in his original two-week suspension of Fitzgerald.

And then, after firing Fitzgerald on Monday, Schill wrote another letter in which he said “11 current or former players acknowledged the hazing within the program” and that “the hazing included forced participation, nudity and sexualized acts of a degrading nature.”

Although he quickly deleted the tweet, running back Isaiah Bowser, who transferred from Northwestern to UCF two offseasons ago, tweeted after Fitzgerald’s firing: “It’s all true. Good riddance.”

Of course, it was true — and Northwestern school leaders knew it was true all along, but they were more concerned about protecting their hoity-toity reputation as a bastion of academic integrity than they were in protecting their student-athletes from just another draconian college football coaching staff.

If student reporters can dig up this stuff, it certainly makes you wonder about the veracity of the school’s months-long in-house “investigation” conducted by this “independent” law firm. What law firm are we talking about here — Curly, Moe, Larry and Shemp?

I would like to personally thank the student reporters at The Daily Northwestern — Nicole Markus, Alyce Brown, Cole Reynolds and Divya Bhardwaj — for refusing to accept the flimsy investigation of their own university and living up to the mantra of The Society of Professional Journalists: “Seek truth and report it.”

Now let’s talk about Nassar, whose prison stabbing earlier this week understandably did not elicit any sympathy from the public at large. Nassar — a serial child molester who sexually abused hundreds, if not thousands, of underage female gymnasts — is serving a life sentence without parole at a federal prison in Sumter County.

Let us not ever forget one of the main reasons Nassar is behind bars in the first place. After hundreds of women came forward and said they were sexually abused by Michigan State doctor Nassar, Michigan Assistant Attorney General Angela Povilaitis stood up in the courtroom and hailed the real heroes who uncovered Nassar’s sickening trail of abused kids amid botched FBI investigations and institutional neglect by USA Gymnastics. Povilaitis singled out reporters at the Indianapolis Star — the newspaper in the city where USA Gymnastics is headquartered — who did what USA Gymnastics and the FBI couldn’t or wouldn’t do.

“We as a society need investigative journalists more than ever,” Povilaitis said in court five years ago. “What finally started this reckoning and ended this decades-long cycle of abuse was investigative reporting. … Without the Indianapolis Star, he [Nassar] would still be practicing medicine, treating athletes and abusing kids.”

As more and more newspapers in this country slash their staffs to the bare bones, lay off reporters (or don’t replace those who leave) and simply don’t have the manpower to watch-dog their communities as they once did, let us remember the role of true investigative journalism.

In a polarized nation that has become addicted to the crack cocaine of the slanted cable “news” networks, don’t ever forget that local reporting is what matters most.

The great newspaper pioneer Walter Lippmann said it best decades ago:

“There can be no higher law in journalism than to tell the truth and to shame the devil.”