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UVA Rape Story Collapses; Duke Lacrosse Redux
Topic Started: Dec 5 2014, 01:45 PM (60,395 Views)
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http://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2017/06/phi-kappa-psi-settles-with-rolling-stone

Phi Kappa Psi settles with Rolling Stone
The fraternity reached a settlement agreement of $1.65 million from Rolling Stone's attorneys
by Anna Higgins | Jun 13 2017

The fraternity plans to put some of the money won in the case towards sexual assault awareness education, prevention and services for victims of sexual assault.

The University chapter of Phi Kappa Psi has reached a settlement in its lawsuit against Rolling Stone, Wenner Media Inc. and Sabrina Rubin Erdely, according to fraternity spokesperson Brian Ellis. According to NBC29, the fraternity won $1.65 million. Its original lawsuit asked for $25 million.

According to Ellis’s release, the fraternity plans to put some of the money won in the case towards sexual assault awareness education, prevention and services for victims of sexual assault.

“It has been nearly three years since we and the entire University of Virginia community were shocked by the now infamous article, and we are pleased to be able to close the book on that trying ordeal and its aftermath,” Ellis said in the release.

The trial was scheduled to take place Oct. 25. A Charlottesville Circuit Court judge ruled last April that Phi Kappa Psi had to produce documents following a subpoena filed by Rolling Stone’s lawyers. Under the subpoena, the fraternity had to provide documents from its University chapter, national organization and other chapters.

The settlement also comes after former Assoc. Dean of Students Nicole Eramo reached a settlement agreement with Rolling Stone, Wenner Media Inc. and Sabrina Rubin Erdely last April.
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http://hotair.com/archives/2017/06/14/rolling-stone-wasnt-one-paid-uva-frat/

Rolling Stone wasn’t the only one who should have paid that UVA frat
Jazz ShawPosted at 6:41 pm on June 14, 2017

Yesterday John wrote about the settlement between Rolling Stone magazine and the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity at the University of Virginia. It was the result of the widely touted gang rape allegedly suffered by the still (generally) pseudonymous “Jackie” at the hands of the frat brothers. In his conclusion, John wrote the following:

Perhaps. I’m sure that the $1.6M went some ways toward assuaging the injured parties at the fraternity and it might (with a major emphasis on the “might” portion) have taught Rolling Stone a smidgen of a lesson about checking their sources more closely and not prioritizing a social agenda over the facts. Still, one might believe that there were a lot more debts to be settled here. The Boss Emeritus has an article at National Review this week in which she points out that Sabrina Erdely was involved in many more questionable cases. And it’s not just her. Both the campus kangaroo court system and too many judicial actors are culpable as well.

I don’t disagree, but I would take it one step further. Malkin makes reference to the real source of the problem here but we need to call her out by name. The real damage to the members of the fraternity has not been addressed and, far more importantly, the real culprit who was the cause of those damages in the first place hasn’t been held to account one bit.

The fact is that Rolling Stone would never have had the opportunity to lay the frat low had it not been for the person who caused all of this trouble in the first place. And that person is Jackie herself. She defamed numerous people, ruined lives and, at least in some ways, caused damage to Rolling Stone. Far worse than that, by perpetuating the “campus rape culture” myth in such an ugly , high profile fashion, she damaged the credibility and future court prospects for actual victims of horrible sexual assaults.

Where is the accountability on that end? There were obviously false reports given to the police. Last time I checked that was a crime. The allegations she made defamed the accused and not one shred of evidence has been presented to substantiate those claims in the least. I understand that we live in a culture where the idea of “prosecuting the victim” is a touchstone of liberal journalism. It’s unthinkable to go after a rape victim in court, right? But what about when they aren’t a victim at all? At what point does the umbrella of protection provided to real victims fall away and allow the hoaxer to be held to account?

This was a big enough case to merit a fresh look at this question. Bring “Jackie” out of the shadows and let’s see if criminal charges are called for or financial remuneration to the wrongly accused justified.
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https://thefederalist.com/2017/06/14/uva-fraternity-may-give-part-hoax-settlement-rape-crisis-groups/


UVA Fraternity May Give Part Of Hoax Settlement To Rape Crisis Groups
June 14, 2017 By Ashe Schow

Facing a second court loss—this one to the fraternity its 2014 rape hoax story falsely maligned—Rolling Stone has agreed to settle out of court. The magazine will pay a reported $1.65 million to the University of Virginia (UVA) chapter of Phi Kappa Psi, which Rolling Stone claimed held gang rapes as part of member initiations.

Here’s the kicker: In a statement, the fraternity chapter said it would donate “a significant portion” of this settlement to groups that raise awareness about sexual assault and victim counseling. Now, many of these organizations are worthy causes, but this fraternity was falsely accused and they’re giving the money not to groups that provide legal services for those who are falsely accused, but to groups that often support people like Jackie, the woman who falsely accused them.

Phi Psi was the victim of a malicious false accusation, and they’re giving their money to groups that support the moral panic that led to their mistreatment.

The settlement with the fraternity follows a first court decision regarding former UVA dean Nicole Eramo, who was also maligned by the magazine. Eramo’s lawsuit went to trial, where Rolling Stone, its publisher Jan Wenner, and article author Sabrina Rubin Erdely were ordered to pay the former dean $3 million. Eramo and the magazine reached an undisclosed settlement later.

For a refresher on how we got here, remember that in November 2014, Rolling Stone published “A Rape on Campus” about a UVA student named “Jackie” who said she was gang-raped as part of an initiation ceremony at Phi Psi. She claimed to have gone on a date with a handsome guy two years older than her, who brought her back to the fraternity during a party, led her upstairs, then orchestrated the gang rape with seven pledges.

Jackie also claimed her friends were indifferent to her story, and told her not to seek medical attention. Eramo also allegedly tried to keep her from going to the police.

The story quickly unraveled when it was discovered that Jackie’s “date” from that night didn’t exist. She used a photo of an old high school classmate and used a fake text messaging service to pose as him and message her friends.

She made all of this up to try and get a young man to like her. He didn’t like her romantically when they first met, so she claimed to be terminally ill. When that didn’t work, she made up the rape story. Shockingly, that didn’t win his affection either.

Eramo sued Rolling Stone in 2015, claiming she was falsely portrayed as callous toward sexual assault accusers. Listening to such accusations was part of her job. The magazine went so far as to doctor a photo of her to make it look like she was smiling and giving a “thumbs up” as a victim cried in her office. During the trial, Wenner said he wished they hadn’t retracted the story.

Although Eramo’s lawsuit received the most attention, Phi Psi also filed a lawsuit, along with a third lawsuit from three individual members of the fraternity (which was dismissed).

With two lawsuits settled, this means the Rolling Stone saga is coming to a close. If only the fraternity could use this moment to bring awareness to false accusations instead of buying into the notion that doing so detracts from victims of sexual assault, rather than virtue signal.

Ashe Schow is a senior contributor to the Federalist and senior political columnist for the New York Observer. She also contributes to a weekly segment on the Enough Already podcast. She has previously worked for Watchdog.org, the Washington Examiner and the Heritage Foundation.
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Quasimodo

Quote:
 
UVA Fraternity May Give Part Of Hoax Settlement To Rape Crisis Groups


They are the victims, and now they must bow further to PC correctness? How about setting up a fund
to defend falsely-accused males?

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Jun 15 2017, 04:43 AM
http://hotair.com/archives/2017/06/14/rolling-stone-wasnt-one-paid-uva-frat/

Rolling Stone wasn’t the only one who should have paid that UVA frat
Jazz ShawPosted at 6:41 pm on June 14, 2017

Yesterday John wrote about the settlement between Rolling Stone magazine and the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity at the University of Virginia. It was the result of the widely touted gang rape allegedly suffered by the still (generally) pseudonymous “Jackie” at the hands of the frat brothers. In his conclusion, John wrote the following:

Perhaps. I’m sure that the $1.6M went some ways toward assuaging the injured parties at the fraternity and it might (with a major emphasis on the “might” portion) have taught Rolling Stone a smidgen of a lesson about checking their sources more closely and not prioritizing a social agenda over the facts. Still, one might believe that there were a lot more debts to be settled here. The Boss Emeritus has an article at National Review this week in which she points out that Sabrina Erdely was involved in many more questionable cases. And it’s not just her. Both the campus kangaroo court system and too many judicial actors are culpable as well.

I don’t disagree, but I would take it one step further. Malkin makes reference to the real source of the problem here but we need to call her out by name. The real damage to the members of the fraternity has not been addressed and, far more importantly, the real culprit who was the cause of those damages in the first place hasn’t been held to account one bit.

The fact is that Rolling Stone would never have had the opportunity to lay the frat low had it not been for the person who caused all of this trouble in the first place. And that person is Jackie herself. She defamed numerous people, ruined lives and, at least in some ways, caused damage to Rolling Stone. Far worse than that, by perpetuating the “campus rape culture” myth in such an ugly , high profile fashion, she damaged the credibility and future court prospects for actual victims of horrible sexual assaults.

Where is the accountability on that end? There were obviously false reports given to the police. Last time I checked that was a crime. The allegations she made defamed the accused and not one shred of evidence has been presented to substantiate those claims in the least. I understand that we live in a culture where the idea of “prosecuting the victim” is a touchstone of liberal journalism. It’s unthinkable to go after a rape victim in court, right? But what about when they aren’t a victim at all? At what point does the umbrella of protection provided to real victims fall away and allow the hoaxer to be held to account?

This was a big enough case to merit a fresh look at this question. Bring “Jackie” out of the shadows and let’s see if criminal charges are called for or financial remuneration to the wrongly accused justified.
I don't understand this either: why is Jackie able to walk away scot-free
from all the carnage that she wreaked?

Think about all of the resources, money, and time spent as a result of her lies,
in addition to the reputations and lives she tried to destroy and the physical
damage that she caused to the frat house.

It's a sad commentary of society today that she can just walk away from all
the burning fires she caused.
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http://www.mindingthecampus.org/2017/06/the-curious-provisions-of-the-rolling-stone-settlement/

The Curious Provisions of the Rolling Stone Settlement
June 16, 2017 KC Johnson

Rolling Stone magazine recently settled a defamation lawsuit over their falsely reported article about a gang rape at UVA’s Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. The $1.65 million settlement seems like a win/win for the two parties. It’s hardly surprising that Rolling Stone settled. If the magazine couldn’t prevail against Dean Nicole Eramo, it certainly faced a loss against the people Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s article falsely deemed monstrous rapists. For the fraternity, a settlement now allows the process to be brought to a close and avoids lengthy litigation.

There was, however, one striking aspect of the settlement. In a statement released to the Washington Post, Brian Ellis, a spokesperson for the fraternity, revealed that “the chapter looks forward to donating a significant portion of its settlement proceeds to organizations that provide sexual assault awareness education, prevention training and victim counseling services on college campuses.”

This struck me as a very odd decision, given the specifics of this case (the students were wrongly accused, and these “organizations” joined the crusade against them). It would be as if, after the Duke lacrosse case, the wrongfully accused students would have ignored the Innocence Project (with which they have, in fact, been actively involved), and instead focused on raising funds for the North Carolina NAACP. That organization might well do good work—but its sole role in the lacrosse case was to harm the students.
Rolling Stone Rape Hoax
Rolling Stone Rape Hoax

So, I asked Ellis if the statement meant that the fraternity would not be donating to organizations that promoted campus due process (such as FIRE) or that advocated on behalf of the wrongfully accused (such as the Innocence Project)—issues that seemed more relevant given the experience of the fraternity members. His response: “They just reached a settlement, so the fraternity has not reached the stage of determining how it will allocate the funds. The statement is a demonstration of their commitment to helping to address the issue on the UVA campus.”

Of course, I hadn’t asked for the how the funds would be allocated; I only had wanted to know which type of groups would receive settlement funds. Given that Ellis was able to identify three types of groups to the Post—sexual assault awareness education, prevention training, and victim counseling services—it’s hard to interpret his statement as anything other than an admission that no settlement money will go to advocates of due process or the falsely accused.

Moreover, at least with regards to UVA, the primary “issue” associated with this case was how the UVA administration, much of its faculty, the leadership of its campus newspaper, and a variety of student groups (including the student government) rushed to judgment when facing heinous allegations against their students—and then, once the case collapsed, acted as if the allegations were true anyway. Examples included a high-ranking figure at the campus newspaper chastising the national media for doing too much fact-checking and the student government (after the story had been discredited) urging that the state of Virginia learn from the case and change state law to make all rape trials secret. (Stuart and I cover these examples, and many others, in the final chapter of

Examples included a high-ranking figure at the campus newspaper chastising the national media for doing too much fact-checking and the student government (after the story had been discredited) urging that the state of Virginia learn from the case and change state law to make all rape trials secret. (Stuart and I cover these examples, and many others, in the final chapter of our book.)

Indeed, it seems likely that Rolling Stone would never have targeted Phi Kappa Psi but for the actions of a UVA employee, Emily Renda—someone hired, to borrow Ellis’ words, to address “sexual assault awareness education, prevention training, and victim counseling services on” UVA’s campus. It was Renda who first publicized Jackie’s tale (in testimony to Congress that does not appear to have been retracted), and who then passed on information about Jackie to Erdely.

So, in the end, the wrongfully accused fraternity members have promised to give a portion of their settlement money to the very type of organizations that produced the Renda hire. Quite remarkable.

The settlement money, of course, is Phi Kappa Psi’s; they can donate it to whatever groups they wish. But the fact that a group that was defamed as rapists would turn around and give money to the type of groups that amplified the defamation they experienced speaks volumes as to the frenzied atmosphere on campus today.
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http://www.fredericksburg.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-legacy-of-the-u-va-rolling-stone-case/article_28117f81-cec0-5941-b53d-7808e5cc73ad.html

Editorial: Legacy of the U.Va., Rolling Stone case

BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD STAFF OF THE FREE LANCE-STAR 8 hrs ago (0)

ROLLING STONE and the University of Virginia fraternity defamed in the magazine’s retracted story about the never-happened gang assault that the story claimed had occurred there have settled the fraternity’s $25 million lawsuit. Rolling Stone will pay Phi Kappa Psi $1.65 million.

The fraternity’s settlement is described as the closing chapter of the “A Rape on Campus” debacle, in that Rolling Stone had reached a settlement in April in the other lawsuit spawned by the story. It was brought by U.Va.’s former associate dean of students, Nicole Eramo, who also sued for defamation and was awarded $3 million by a jury. That settlement was reached after Rolling Stone contested the verdict’s size, citing a lack of evidence that reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely had acted with actual malice.

But there is no final chapter whatsoever in the effort to curb campus sexual assault, which continues to make headlines under the glow of a national spotlight.

It was exactly two months prior to the Rolling Stone story’s publication in November 2014 that the Barack Obama administration launched its anti-campus assault initiative. The then-president acted in light of the appalling statistics collected on the far-reaching problem.

The litigation may be over in the Rolling Stone case, but the damage inflicted by the report is not forgotten. We hope the false story doesn’t impact efforts to combat sexual assault on and off campus, unacceptable behavior that has by no means abated.

Campus sexual assault needs to remain among the nation’s front-burner issues because it carries serious criminal and social implications. Cultural change usually takes time, but we must not be willing to put up with this shameful and degrading conduct any longer.
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Assistant to The Devil Himself
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Jun 19 2017, 11:47 AM
http://www.mindingthecampus.org/2017/06/the-curious-provisions-of-the-rolling-stone-settlement/

The Curious Provisions of the Rolling Stone Settlement
June 16, 2017 KC Johnson

Rolling Stone magazine recently settled a defamation lawsuit over their falsely reported article about a gang rape at UVA’s Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. The $1.65 million settlement seems like a win/win for the two parties. It’s hardly surprising that Rolling Stone settled. If the magazine couldn’t prevail against Dean Nicole Eramo, it certainly faced a loss against the people Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s article falsely deemed monstrous rapists. For the fraternity, a settlement now allows the process to be brought to a close and avoids lengthy litigation.

There was, however, one striking aspect of the settlement. In a statement released to the Washington Post, Brian Ellis, a spokesperson for the fraternity, revealed that “the chapter looks forward to donating a significant portion of its settlement proceeds to organizations that provide sexual assault awareness education, prevention training and victim counseling services on college campuses.”

This struck me as a very odd decision, given the specifics of this case (the students were wrongly accused, and these “organizations” joined the crusade against them). It would be as if, after the Duke lacrosse case, the wrongfully accused students would have ignored the Innocence Project (with which they have, in fact, been actively involved), and instead focused on raising funds for the North Carolina NAACP. That organization might well do good work—but its sole role in the lacrosse case was to harm the students.
Rolling Stone Rape Hoax
Rolling Stone Rape Hoax

So, I asked Ellis if the statement meant that the fraternity would not be donating to organizations that promoted campus due process (such as FIRE) or that advocated on behalf of the wrongfully accused (such as the Innocence Project)—issues that seemed more relevant given the experience of the fraternity members. His response: “They just reached a settlement, so the fraternity has not reached the stage of determining how it will allocate the funds. The statement is a demonstration of their commitment to helping to address the issue on the UVA campus.”

Of course, I hadn’t asked for the how the funds would be allocated; I only had wanted to know which type of groups would receive settlement funds. Given that Ellis was able to identify three types of groups to the Post—sexual assault awareness education, prevention training, and victim counseling services—it’s hard to interpret his statement as anything other than an admission that no settlement money will go to advocates of due process or the falsely accused.

Moreover, at least with regards to UVA, the primary “issue” associated with this case was how the UVA administration, much of its faculty, the leadership of its campus newspaper, and a variety of student groups (including the student government) rushed to judgment when facing heinous allegations against their students—and then, once the case collapsed, acted as if the allegations were true anyway. Examples included a high-ranking figure at the campus newspaper chastising the national media for doing too much fact-checking and the student government (after the story had been discredited) urging that the state of Virginia learn from the case and change state law to make all rape trials secret. (Stuart and I cover these examples, and many others, in the final chapter of

Examples included a high-ranking figure at the campus newspaper chastising the national media for doing too much fact-checking and the student government (after the story had been discredited) urging that the state of Virginia learn from the case and change state law to make all rape trials secret. (Stuart and I cover these examples, and many others, in the final chapter of our book.)

Indeed, it seems likely that Rolling Stone would never have targeted Phi Kappa Psi but for the actions of a UVA employee, Emily Renda—someone hired, to borrow Ellis’ words, to address “sexual assault awareness education, prevention training, and victim counseling services on” UVA’s campus. It was Renda who first publicized Jackie’s tale (in testimony to Congress that does not appear to have been retracted), and who then passed on information about Jackie to Erdely.

So, in the end, the wrongfully accused fraternity members have promised to give a portion of their settlement money to the very type of organizations that produced the Renda hire. Quite remarkable.

The settlement money, of course, is Phi Kappa Psi’s; they can donate it to whatever groups they wish. But the fact that a group that was defamed as rapists would turn around and give money to the type of groups that amplified the defamation they experienced speaks volumes as to the frenzied atmosphere on campus today.
They didn't learn anything at all.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/17/business/rolling-stone-magazine-sale.html

Rolling Stone, Once a Counterculture Bible, Will Be Put Up for Sale
Sydney Ember
9/17/17

From a loft in San Francisco in 1967, a 21-year-old named Jann S. Wenner started a magazine that would become the counterculture bible for baby boomers. Rolling Stone defined cool, cultivated literary icons and produced star-making covers that were such coveted real estate they inspired a song.

But the headwinds buffeting the publishing industry, and some costly strategic missteps, have steadily taken a financial toll on Rolling Stone, and a botched story three years ago about an unproven gang rape at the University of Virginia badly bruised the magazine’s journalistic reputation.

And so, after a half-century reign that propelled him into the realm of the rock stars and celebrities who graced his covers, Mr. Wenner is putting his company’s controlling stake in Rolling Stone up for sale, relinquishing his hold on a publication he has led since its founding.

Mr. Wenner had long tried to remain an independent publisher in a business favoring size and breadth. But he acknowledged in an interview last week that the magazine he had nurtured would face a difficult, uncertain future on its own.

“I love my job, I enjoy it, I’ve enjoyed it for a long time,” said Mr. Wenner, 71. But letting go, he added, was “just the smart thing to do.”

The sale plans were devised by Mr. Wenner’s 27-year-old son, Gus, who has aggressively pared down the assets of Rolling Stone’s parent company, Wenner Media, in response to financial pressures. The Wenners recently sold the company’s other two magazines, Us Weekly and Men’s Journal. And last year, they sold a 49 percent stake in Rolling Stone to BandLab Technologies, a music technology company based in Singapore.

Both Jann and Gus Wenner, the president and chief operating officer of Wenner Media, said they intended to stay on at Rolling Stone. But they said they also recognized that the decision could ultimately be up to the new owner.

Still, the potential sale of Rolling Stone — on the eve of its 50th anniversary, no less — underscores how inhospitable the media landscape has become as print advertising and circulation have dried up.

“There’s a level of ambition that we can’t achieve alone,” Gus Wenner said last week in an interview at the magazine’s headquarters in Midtown Manhattan. “So we are being proactive and want to get ahead of the curve.”

“Publishing is a completely different industry than what it was,” he added. “The trends go in one direction, and we are very aware of that.”

The Wenners’ decision is also another clear sign that the days of celebrity editors are coming to a close. Earlier this month, Graydon Carter, the editor of Vanity Fair and a socialite and star in his own right, announced he planned to leave the magazine after 25 years. Robbie Myers, the longtime editor of Elle, Nancy Gibbs of Time magazine and Cindi Leive of Glamour also said last week that they were stepping down.

Wenner Media has hired bankers to explore its sale, but the process is just beginning. BandLab’s stake in the company could also complicate matters. Neither Jann nor Gus Wenner would name any potential buyers, but one possible suitor is American Media Inc., the magazine publisher led by David J. Pecker that has already taken Us Weekly and Men’s Journal off Wenner Media’s hands.

The Wenners said that they expected a range of opportunities, and Jann Wenner said he hoped to find a buyer that understood Rolling Stone’s mission and that had “lots of money.”

“Rolling Stone has played such a role in the history of our times, socially and politically and culturally,” he said. “We want to retain that position.”

Jann Wenner tried his hand at other magazines over the decades, including the outdoor lifestyle magazine Outside and Family Life. But it was Rolling Stone that helped guide, and define, a generation.

It filled its pages with pieces than ran in the thousands of words by standard bearers of the counterculture, including Hunter S. Thompson — whose “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” was published in the magazine in two parts — and Tom Wolfe. It started the career of the celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz, who for many years delivered electrifying cover images, including an iconic photograph in 1981 of a naked John Lennon curled in a fetal position with Yoko Ono.

Music coverage in all of its forms — news, interviews, reviews — was the core of Rolling Stone, but its influence also stretched into pop culture, entertainment and politics. A bastion of liberal ideology, the magazine became a required stop for Democratic presidential candidates — Mr. Wenner has personally interviewed several, including Bill Clinton and Barack Obama — and it has pulled no punches in its appraisal of Republicans. In 2006, Rolling Stone suggested George W. Bush was the “worst president in history.” More recently, the magazine featured Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of Canada, on its cover with the headline, “Why Can’t He Be Our President?”

The magazine also published widely acclaimed political stories, including one in 2009 on Goldman Sachs by the writer Matt Taibbi, who famously described the company as “a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity.” The next year, the magazine ran a piece with the headline, “The Runaway General,” that ended the career of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal.

But that was perhaps the last Rolling Stone cover piece that gained significant journalistic acclaim. And the magazine’s reputation as a tastemaker for the music world had long since eroded, as Mr. Wenner clung to the past with covers that featured artists from his generation, even as younger artists emerged. Artists like Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan have continued to secure cover spots in recent years.

Rolling Stone suffered a devastating blow to its reputation when it retracted a debunked 2014 article about a gang rape at the University of Virginia. A damning report on the story by the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism cited fundamental journalistic failures. The article prompted three libel lawsuits against Rolling Stone, one of which led to a highly publicized trial last year that culminated with a federal jury awarding the plaintiff $3 million in damages.

The financial picture had also been bleak. In 2001, Jann Wenner sold a 50 percent stake in Us Weekly to the Walt Disney Company for $40 million, then borrowed $300 million five years later to buy back the stake. The deal saddled the company with debt for more than a decade, preventing it from investing as much as it might have in its magazines.

At the same time, Rolling Stone’s print advertising revenue and newsstand sales fell. And as readers increasingly embraced the web for their news and entertainment, Mr. Wenner remained skeptical, with a stubbornness that hamstrung his company.

Wenner Media was already a small magazine publisher. But the sale of Us Weekly and Men’s Journal, which together brought in roughly three-quarters of Wenner Media’s revenue, has left it further diminished.

Regardless, the sale of Rolling Stone would be Jann Wenner’s denouement, capping his unlikely rise from dope-smoking Berkeley dropout to silver-haired media mogul. An admirer of John Lennon and publishing mavens like William Randolph Hearst, Mr. Wenner — who invested $7,500 of borrowed money to start Rolling Stone along with his mentor, Ralph J. Gleason — was at turns idealist and desperado, crafting his magazine into a guide for the counterculture epoch while also gallivanting with superstars. He once boasted that he had turned down a $500 million offer for Rolling Stone, more than he could ever dream of getting for the magazine today. (BandLab invested $40 million to acquire its 49-percent stake in the magazine last year.)

Though he said he still cared deeply about Rolling Stone, Mr. Wenner has placed the magazine’s fate firmly in Gus’s hands, and he appears content to let someone else determine its path forward.

“I think it’s time for young people to run it,” he said.

Sitting in his second floor office surrounded by a collection of rock ’n’ roll artifacts, Gus Wenner expressed hope that a new owner would provide the resources Rolling Stone needed to evolve and survive.

“It’s what we need to do as a business,” he said. “It’s what we need to do to grow the brand.”

Then, as only someone who had spent his life around rock ’n’ roll could, he gestured confidently to a tome of Bob Dylan lyrics on his desk. “If you’re not busy being born,” Mr. Wenner said, “then you’re busy dying.”
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http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/appeals-court-rolling-stone-face-defamation-lawsuit-rape-story-1041014

September 19, 2017 7:39am PT by Eriq Gardner

Appeals Court: Rolling Stone Must Face Defamation Lawsuit Over Rape Story

The 2nd Circuit rules two UVA fraternity members have plausibly made claims how the story was "of and concerning" them while also accepting a group defamation theory.

In unfortunate timing for Jann Wenner, who just put Rolling Stone up for sale, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals has revived a defamation lawsuit over the magazine's infamous story about the gang rape of a freshman identified as "Jackie" at a University of Virginia campus fraternity.

For that since-retracted article from author Sabrina Erdely, Rolling Stone has faced several lawsuits including one by University of Virginia associate dean Nicole Eramo, which went to trial and was later settled for $1.65 million.

Another lawsuit came from members of Phi Kappa Psi, but in June 2016, U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel granted a motion to dismiss, finding "the article's details about the attackers are too vague and remote from the plaintiffs' circumstances to be 'of and concerning' them."

In an opinion (read here), Judge Katherine Forrest, sitting on the 2nd Circuit panel by designation, decides the lower court prematurely rejected claims from George Elias and Ross Fowler while correctly rejecting those from Stephen Hadford.

"[W]hile it is a close call, we conclude on balance that the complaint plausibly alleged that the purportedly defamatory statements in the Article were 'of and concerning' Elias and Fowler individually," she writes ."At this stage of the litigation, Plaintiffs need only plead sufficient facts to make it plausible—not probable or even reasonably likely—that a reader familiar with each Plaintiff would identify him as the subject of the statements at issue. With regard to the Article, Elias and Fowler have met this burden."

As far as Elias, he alleged to have been identified in the story because he was a fraternity member on the night in question and was known to live on the second floor where the rape was reported to have occurred. His claims were initially dismissed upon the observation that the article contained no details about the bedroom, but his suggestion of having the only bedroom at the fraternity house large enough to fit the description of the rape is deemed by the appeals court as being enough at this stage.

Fowler gets the benefit of the doubt on his claims because of two main allegations. One, that he was the rush chair for the fraternity. And two, that he regularly swam at the university's aquatic center. The article decribes how Jackie met one of the fraternity brothers at a pool and suggested that the rape was related to the fraternity's initiation process.

Unlike the other two, Hadford's own individual claims don't survive scrutinty. He may have been a member of the fraternity, but the fact that he rode a bike on campus isn't enough of a connection to the article's statement that she had seen "one of the boys riding his boke on the grounds."

According to the opinion, "there is no allegation that it is unusual for UVA alumni to bike through campus such that a reasonable reader familiar with Hadford’s biking habits would conclude that the Article plausibly referred to him."

However, quite notably, the 2nd Circuit accepts a group defamation theory.

Forrest writes that the size of the fraternity does not present an obstacle because 53 members of Phi Kappa Psi is "sufficiently small." Under New York law, a plaintiff is more likely to succeed in a group defamation when the community is small enough so that individual members are redily associated with the group.

The lower court agreed in that regard, but also came to the conclusion that the article didn't expressly or impliedly state that the fraternity required all initiates to participate in a rape.

"The District Court erred by evaluating the Article’s various allegations against Phi Kappa Psi in isolation, rather than considering them in the context of the Article as a whole," states the opinion. "Taking the allegations in the Article together, a reader could plausibly conclude that many or all fraternity members participated in alleged gang rape as an initiation ritual and all members knowingly turned a blind eye to the brutal crimes. Indeed, Erdely suggested such an interpretation in her Podcast interview."

Forrest articulates.

"Consider first the description of Jackie’s purported rape," she writes. "Not only did nine men associated with the fraternity participate in the alleged offense, but several made comments—'Don’t you want to be a brother' and 'We all had to do it, so you do, too'—implying the event was part of an initiation ritual."

http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/2017_0919_rolling_stone_2nd_circuit.pdf
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Forrest writes that the size of the fraternity does not present an obstacle because 53 members of Phi Kappa Psi is "sufficiently small." Under New York law, a plaintiff is more likely to succeed in a group defamation when the community is small enough so that individual members are redily associated with the group.

The lower court agreed in that regard, but also came to the conclusion that the article didn't expressly or impliedly state that the fraternity required all initiates to participate in a rape.

"The District Court erred by evaluating the Article’s various allegations against Phi Kappa Psi in isolation, rather than considering them in the context of the Article as a whole," states the opinion. "Taking the allegations in the Article together, a reader could plausibly conclude that many or all fraternity members participated in alleged gang rape as an initiation ritual and all members knowingly turned a blind eye to the brutal crimes. Indeed, Erdely suggested such an interpretation in her Podcast interview."


Again, making we wish the lax players had sued in New York instead of NC; and that they had initiated
multiple suits in multiple jurisdictions; and that they had had imho better (not necessarily more expensive)
attorneys for their suits.

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http://reason.com/blog/2017/09/19/appeals-court-sides-with-uva-fraternity


Appeals Court Sides with UVA Fraternity Brothers, Against Rolling Stone in 'Jackie' Rape Dispute
"A reader could plausibly conclude that many or all fraternity members participated in alleged gang rape."

Robby Soave|Sep. 19, 2017 3:06 pm

WennerRick Maiman/Polaris/NewscomTwo former members of the University of Virginia's Phi Kappa Psi fraternity have a strong enough defamation argument against Rolling Stone that the case should proceed to trial, an appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The decision is a major blow to Rolling Stone's publisher, Jann Wenner—who put the magazine up for sale earlier this week—and to Sabrina Rubin Erdely, the disgraced author of a now thoroughly debunked RS article about a gang rape on UVA's campus.

Wenner and Erdely probably thought their legal ordeal was over: RS has already paid out millions of dollars to former UVA dean Nicole Eramo for badly misrepresenting her, and also to Phi Psi for staging the fraternity as the scene of a crime that never happened. But three Phi Psi brothers—George Elias, Ross Fowler, and Stephen Hadford—also filed suit as individuals, arguing that the story specifically and individually defamed them. This suit was dismissed by a New York district court more than a year ago.

That dismissal was unsound, according to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. In her decision to revive the case, Judge Katherine Forrest argued that the lower court had incorrectly ruled out defamation as a plausible verdict with respect to two of the three brothers, Elias and Fowler.

You will recall from Reason's exhaustive coverage of the story that a former UVA student, "Jackie," told Erdely that she was lured to an upstairs bedroom at the Phi Psi fraternity by her date, "Drew," a lifeguard and member of Phi Psi. At least nine frat brothers then allegedly beat and raped her, apparently as part of some frat initiation. This claim became the central element of Erdely's story on sexual assault; it collapsed when scrutinized by other journalists—myself among them—after Jackie's numerous lies came to light.

No one disputes that Jackie's story was inaccurate—RS eventually retracted—and that no such assault took place at Phi Psi. The question is whether Erdeley and her editors screwed up so colossally that the magazine can actually be held liable for defamation. And now, for a third time, a court has said, yes.

The story did not specifically name Elias, Fowler, or Hadford, so at first blush it might seem like their lawsuit is legally unmerited. Under New York law, a person can only be found responsible for defamation if their false statements were "of and concerning" the defendants. But the court of appeals thinks Elias and Fowler, at least, could plausibly meet that test, because "it is not necessary the world should understand the libel; it is sufficient if those who know the plaintiff can make out that she is the person meant," according to earlier decisions in 1980 and 1966.

Elias and Fowler contend that they were presumed to be involved in the crime by people who knew them personally, since key details relating to them appeared to match Jackie's descriptions. Elias lived in one of the only rooms on the second floor that would have been capable of holding 10 people. Fowler was, like "Drew," a swimmer and a senior member of Phi Psi responsible for initiating new members.

The court of appeals is also letting their "small group defamation" claim proceed. "Taking the allegations in the Article together, a reader could plausibly conclude that many or all fraternity members participated in alleged gang rape as an initiation ritual and all members knowingly turned a blind eye to the brutal crimes," write the judges.

This does not mean that the brothers are guaranteed to win at trial. Their case is in some ways weaker than both the suits filed by Eramo and Phi Psi itself, since the article called out both Eramo and Phi Psi by name.

"We are disappointed with the Second Circuit's ruling today, but are confident that this case has no merit," said a spokesperson for RS in a statement.

But there's no question whether the violent actions attributed to the fraternity brothers were invented, there's no question whether they suffered reputational harm because of this, and there's no question whether Rolling Stone should have known better than to trust a single source who refused to provide any evidence of her claims and who threatened to cease cooperating whenever Erdely came within striking distance of the truth. The only thing left for a judge or jury to decide is whether the three people filing this lawsuit were the ones defamed.

Good luck with the sale, Jann Wenner.
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"Good luck with the sale, Jann Wenner." As abb so delicately implies, Wenner brought it on himself.
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https://www.courthousenews.com/rolling-stone-faces-long-road-trial-campus-rape-article/

Rolling Stone Faces Long Road to Trial on Campus-Rape Article
October 25, 2017 JOSH RUSSELL

MANHATTAN (CN) – A federal judge pushed for a settlement Wednesday while taking stock of defamation claims over a now-retracted Rolling Stone article on campus rape culture.

The afternoon status conference before U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel in Manhattan came five weeks after a Second Circuit reversal brought new life to the claims by three former members of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity at the University of Virginia.

Castel gave the parties six months to complete discovery, a window he described as “generous,” saying he did not anticipate any extension beyond the April 27, 2018, deadline.

Discovery is set to include deposition transcripts and trial testimony that the Rolling Stone defendants collected while fighting two other lawsuits related to the article, one by former University of Virginia associate dean Nicole Eramo, the other by the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity.

Rolling Stone published the 9,000-word screed from writer Sabrina Erdely in late 2014, recounting the supposed gang rape of a University of Virginia student identified only as Jackie.

After Charlottesville police found Jackie’s claims unsubstantiated, a number of news organizations began to poke holes in Erdely’s work, and Rolling Stone quickly retracted the piece. In addition to earning a spot in the Columbia Journalism Review’s list of “The Worst Journalism of 2014,” the article was criticized by the Poynter Institute as the “Error of the Year” in journalism.

Erdely never explicitly identified the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity members Jackie accused of attacking her, but George Elias IV, Stephen Hadford and Ross Fowler claimed in a federal complaint that the article offered enough clues to tarnish their reputations.

Elias IV, Hadford and Fowler were represented at Wednesday’s status conference by Alan and Evan Frank, a father-and-son attorney duo based out of Pennsylvania.

Alan Frank, the elder of the two, said he looked forward to moving ahead toward trial after the Second Circuit’s thoughtful reversal.

The attorney argued in Wednesday’s settlement conference that a number of confidentiality agreements were “adding complexity” to the discovery process.

Elizabeth McNamara from Davis Wright Tremaine represents the Rolling Stone defendants.

Though she declined to grant an interview after the conference, McNamara told the court today that the Rolling Stone defendants had a “massive amount of material” that they were willing to provide in discovery but have tried to withhold “an enormous volume of third-party” documents, limiting discovery to only include publicly available materials not covered by protective orders.

Judge Castel hinted that if the parties aim to settle, the time to start that process would be “up front.”

Phi Kappa Psi settled its suit against Rolling Stone for a reported $1.65 million in June 2017.

Eramo, the former UVA dean, meanwhile took her claims to trial, winning $3 million in damages.

Castel scheduled a May 18, 2018, hearing for Rolling Stone and its fraternity adversaries to return to court after completion of discovery.
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http://www.sfchronicle.com/tv/article/HBO-s-Rolling-Stone-doc-tracks-50-years-12318815.php


HBO’s ‘Rolling Stone’ doc tracks 50 years through rose-colored glasses

By David Wiegand
October 30, 2017 Updated: October 31, 2017 3:44pm

Directors Alex Gibney and Blair Foster made a telling decision about how they would film the story of Rolling Stone magazine and its place in American culture during the past 50 years: Almost no one would be allowed to grow old.

Co-founder Jann Wenner does, so do photographer Annie Leibovitz and Ice-T, but we only see others like Mikal Gilmore, Greil Marcus, Jon Landau, Cameron Crowe and Ben Fong-Torres in archival images when they were younger. We hear many of them in the present day in HBO’s four-hour, two-part “Rolling Stone: Stories From the Edge,” airing Monday and Tuesday, Nov. 6 and 7. But visually, it’s like no one ever grew older.

The decision may have been made for financial reasons, or simply to avoid the talking-heads template favored by many documentarians. But in this case, the decision underscores the Peter Pan element of the Baby Boomers who came of age in the 1960s and early ’70s. Every generation believes it will change the world in special ways, but the political, social and cultural upheavals of the 1960s seem to have fueled an exceptional sense of youthful transcendentalism, a kind of “you think you’re going to live forever and somehow find me there,” in the words of J.D. Souther.

“Stories From the Edge” is informative and self-congratulatory, at times seeming to inflate Rolling Stone’s role in the culture somewhat beyond truth. That may have something to do with the fact that Wenner is a producer of the film and Rolling Stone Productions is one of the producing partner organizations.

One assumes that Wenner had better luck influencing how the film came out than he apparently did when he asked Joe Hagan to write his biography, only to denounce “Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone” once he read it.

The archival material is priceless, as much a summation of a generation as it is of the magazine that Wenner and the late San Francisco Chronicle critic Ralph J. Gleason founded in 1967. A younger Wenner is asked in an interview about the magazine’s founding and the importance of its first decade in San Francisco.

“The important thing about San Francisco is that it’s a scene,” a smugly cherubic Wenner tells a reporter back in the day. “It’s a warm, friendly city. … Historically it had the bohemians, the beats, (it) supports the arts, poetry, jazz, and similarly today, it supports rock ’n’ roll.”

Wenner says Rolling Stone was founded because “music — and the kind of cultural revolution that was attached to it — wasn’t being covered.”

Charles Perry, an assistant keeper at the San Francisco Zoo who also volunteered for the magazine, became its first employee. Crowe was so young when he hooked up with the magazine that he had to be excused from high school classes to do his job. The magazine offices were ramshackle, littered with pizza boxes and overflowing ashtrays, marked, at least in the vintage images, by barely controlled chaos.

Ten years later, the magazine’s move to New York made sense. Not only was New York the center of the publishing world, but the magazine had grown in its first decade, expanding into social and political coverage that eventually overshadowed its music coverage. It began as a chronicle of counterculture, but now the counterculture was growing up. In more recent times, we see a conference room in the present-day office looking like something out of Showtime’s “Billions.”

The documentary traces the magazine’s history through several benchmark stories, from the early coverage of rock groupies and the Plaster Casters, to the celebration of icons John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, Dylan, the Patty Hearst kidnapping, Jimmy Swaggart’s secret sex life, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, ’N Sync, Britney Spears, the war in Afghanistan and, yes, the costly and destructive retraction of the detailed story about a young woman at the University of Virginia who claimed she had been gang raped at a fraternity party. The case is covered factually and fully because it could not be ignored.

We get a sense of Wenner’s style, that he is decisive, autocratic but also smart enough to know that even if he doesn’t like a particular form of music, it merits coverage in the magazine. That was true with the punk movement and of hip hop and rap. At times, writers had to push hard to get Wenner’s OK, but they got it and that’s how journalism should work.

There is an unconvincing effort to make the case that Rolling Stone still matters, but even if the UVA rape story hadn’t been such an egregiously revealing embarrassment, the publishing world has changed radically in the past recent years. As hard as the magazine may have worked to remain relevant, it is having trouble identifying its target audience.

The film’s emotional high point is in Rolling Stone’s coverage of John Lennon. The magazine published its first interview with Lennon on Dec. 8, 1970. It isn’t mentioned in the film, but you can see the dateline on the story. Ten years later to the day, Lennon was shot to death outside the Dakota. Leibovitz had taken what would be the last photo of Lennon only hours earlier.

The magazine’s stories on Lennon are superb, filled with insight and an important part of the collective documentation of the life of a great artist. But they also represent the apotheosis of Rolling Stone’s influence on culture. Pieces on Springsteen come close, but stories on Spears, ’N Sync and Ice-T are “just” good journalism. This was Rolling Stone trying to get a handle on moments in pop culture. With Lennon, there was a special symbiosis, a demonstrated understanding of, and even an involvement in, what the former Beatle was up to and who he was.

It’s probably a good idea to show Leibovitz talking to Wenner in the present day at the start of the film because while she says “those years at Rolling Stone formed me,” her photography defined the magazine for years.

That said, as you watch the film and hear all the writers recalling “how I got that story,” you may be struck by the obvious: Most of them are men. When we think of the great wordsmiths of Rolling Stone, we think Hunter Thompson, Crowe, Fong-Torres, Landau, Tom Wolfe, Gilmore, Robert Sam Anson, Michael Hastings, Marcus, Charles Young, Matt Taibbi. There were female writers, and a couple, such as Janet Reitman and Vanessa Grigoriadis, are mentioned, but it almost feels like ladies’ night at the Bohemian Club. Why are an overwhelming majority of the magazine’s “Stories From the Edge” written by men? At the very least, the imbalance suggests that the magazine may not have been quite as in touch with the times as it always claimed to be.

Oscar winner Gibney and Blair bring convincing directorial style to what is a useful and entertaining infomercial about an important chapter in American culture and journalism.

So now Rolling Stone is for sale. If it were a piece of property, it might be listed as a fixer-upper with a solid foundation and a rich history, in need of a seismic retrofit.

David Wiegand is an assistant managing editor and the TV critic of The San Francisco Chronicle. Follow him on Facebook. Email: dwiegand@sfchronicle.com

Twitter: @WaitWhat_TV
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