There are many to blame in the recent University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill scandal. At least 3,100 students and dozens of members of the faculty, staff and administration have been implicated in instances of academic fraud dating back 18 years. Surely, the coaches, administration, athletes and University itself are deserving of blame, but what of the media?
Professor of the Cultural Study of Sports at the University of California at Berkley, Murray Sperber, in an essay for Insider Higher Ed, suggests the media is just as guilty as those directly involved with the scandal.
However, to my knowledge and Google search, no one has asked one obvious question: how could the sports media, both local and regional, not have known about the academic transgressions and investigated them? In fact, the local paper, The News & Observer, has a long and proud history of investigating local college sports teams.
But where was The News & Observer during the 18-year UNC scandal?
Murray proposes a possible solution in the form of professionalization of collegiate sports. This would end the need for faux courses and all types of academic fraud connected to student-athletes, whom would no longer exist on campus.
