Joe Posnanski can’t escape conflict with Joe Paterno book

• Joe Blog
• Joe Posnanski is a throwback in a lot of ways.

As writers, we often agree to trade a degree of access for a degree of discretion. Some journalists will tell you that nothing is “off the record.” While they’re not wrong, they also probably aren’t working the same source twice.

And then you have Joe Posnanski, the former Kansas City Star columnist who is leaving Sports Illustrated to write for an as-yet undefined Web venture underwritten by Major League Baseball. The subject of an extensive feature story in The New York Times over the weekend – he also just so happens to be working on a book about the late Penn State football coach Joe Paterno. And he just so happened to be in Pennsylvania when the Jerry Sandusky scandal broke. And now, Joe Posnanski must face a story that is incapable of being shaped. He must face a story that simply has to be told.