Sports Illustrated writer Joe Posnanski visited a Penn State class today and defended Joe Paterno, while ripping the way the media has handled the story. Posnanski, who has been working on a book about Paterno, said that the media has moved too quickly on the story, and that Paterno has become a scapegoat.

The course, entitled "Joe Paterno: Communications and the Media" (COMM 497G), has been offered at Penn State since the Fall semester of 2008.

Posnaski has been conspiculously silent on Paterno and the Jerry Sandusky scandal since the story first broke on Saturday. Posnanski wrote this very thoughtful post on his blog explaining why we was going to take time to process what was going on. Speaking on Thursday morning, however, Posnanski was quite forceful.

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A student in the class tweeted quotes of what Posnanski said to the class. Yahoo! writer Pat Forde was also at the class, and expressed similar sentiments as Posnanski, but was said to be not as quotable. All quotes in the tweets were said to be from Posnanski, unless they are specifically attributed to Forde. Here are the tweets related to Posnanski and Forde, in chronological order:

• "The rush to judgment here has been extraordinarily. The lesson to learn might be that we screwed this thing up." -Joe Posnanski

• "You're going to have to guess. I think that's tragic for journalists, that we're going to have to guess." -Joe Posnanski

• "The colossal judgmental tone, the hanging jury, in a sense, that can warp your opinion on things." -@YahooForde on role of Twitter.

• "I've never been involved in a story that moves as fast as this one." -Posnanski.

• "Everybody is trying to top one another. 'No, I'm more against child molestation than you are.'" Posnanski taking shots at the media.

• "A lot of people came here to bury Joe. As a writer, I'm mad with that, as someone who's come to know the Paternos, I'm heartbroken."

• "I think this happens because of Twitter, because of quick judgment, because of 24 hour news cycles...this doesn't happen 20 years ago."

• Posnanski, on reporters who have done a good job covering this story: "There are not many."

• Posnanski: "I've never seen anything handled worse. Maybe how New Orleans, post-Katrina....Paterno was always dangled by this university."

• For those tuning in, Posnanski and Forde are speaking to #JoePaClass today. Most important class of my college career.

• Posnanski:"It's already shameful. It'll be ten times more shameful to think that they fired him with a personal messenger sent to his home."

• JoePos "When was the last time anyone said the name Sandusky? Where are the Sandusky headlines?" Stresses that presentment is only one side."Other than unbelievable statement about the unconditional support-they should've fired him when he turned it in-who else's said anything?"

• "I think [Paterno] is a scapegoat. I definitely think that...I think he tried to do the right thing, and the right thing didn't happen."

• "The only thing people remember about Woody Hayes is that he hit a player. I don't want that to happen to Joe. He didn't hit a player."

• .@yahooforde: "McQueary is the one I can't figure out at all. I can't believe he's going to coach on Saturday."

• Forde: Spanier should've been fired 5 minutes after he released that statement. That was the worst statement I've ever seen. Reprehensible.

• "If this happened at the University of Miami, no matter how bad it was, it wouldn't have elevated to this level." –Posnanski

• "I think Joe is legally allowed to talk now. I think he was being kept quiet by the university." Looking for good setting to tell his story.

• Posnanski: "We're only hearing one side of the story, and it's not an impartial story...very, ver hard to say 'lets wait this out.'"

• Unless attributed to Forde, all quotes are from Posnanski. 

• To clarify Miami quote, for those curious, Pos said squeaky clean reputation of Joe/PSU made this an even bigger deal.

• And to everyone vilifying Posnanski, @YahooForde was saying basically the same thing. Just not as quotable.

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