| UVA Rape Story Collapses; Duke Lacrosse Redux | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 5 2014, 01:45 PM (60,490 Views) | |
| abb | Dec 8 2014, 10:43 AM Post #196 |
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http://hotair.com/archives/2014/12/08/two-key-figures-in-uva-story-rolling-stone-didnt-talk-to-us/ Two key figures in UVa story: Rolling Stone didn’t talk to us posted at 8:31 am on December 8, 2014 by Ed Morrissey Share on Facebook 138 169 SHARES It’s too bad too, Hanna Rosin writes, because Sabrina Rubin Erdely and Rolling Stone might still have had a story — if not the one they originally thought. Or better yet, they may have had reason to rethink publication at all had they talked to “Jackie’s” friends, because their recollection of the University of Virginia student’s allegations were a lot different than what Jackie told Erdely. The differences explain why some of Jackie’s friends are now starting to doubt her too. Rosin focuses on the part of the story where Jackies friends fret over their future invitations to frat parties rather than their bloodied and assaulted friend. Instead of calling the police or taking her to a hospital after a brutal and ritualistic gang rape that took place for hours over broken glass, they worry about her reputation. “She’s gonna be the girl who cried “rape,” and we’ll never be allowed into any frat party again,” one supposedly says, and another wonders, “Is that such a good idea? Her reputation will be shot for the next four years.” Rosin thinks those quotes sound like something from an ABC Afterschool Special, and it turns out that Erdely didn’t bother to check the quotes with the friends at all. And they claim Jackie told a much different story at the time: Well, apparently she didn’t talk to the friends, or at least one of them, who told theWashington Post last night that the account of what transpired after the alleged rape was not accurate. “Andy” said that he and the other two friends did not find Jackie in a bloody dress with the Phi Psi house looming in the background, as it was told inRolling Stone. Neither, he says, did they debate the “social price” of taking her to the hospital. He said Jackie told him that she had been at a frat party and a group of men forced her to perform oral sex, although she did not specify which frat. He said she did not have any visible injuries but the friends offered to get her help, and then spent the night with her in her dorm room to comfort her at her request. (Update, Dec. 7, 2014: It appears Erdely also did not talk to the friend identified in the Rolling Stone article as “Cindy,” who told the Washington Post a similar story to Drew’s.) The baffling thing here is, if what Jackie told Andy is true, that would have made an explosive enough story about campus sexual violence. A group of men force a freshman to perform oral sex. She reports it to the university and they don’t investigate. That’s a disturbing story. But if Andy is to be believed, that means Jackie told an exaggerated story to Erdely, and that Erdely was all too happy to create an even more perfect victim, one who was brutally gang raped and then left at the curb by her so called friends, thus further traumatizing her, and leaving her to fend for herself in a culture too backward for progressive thought. Rosin has some experience with fabulists. She wrote for The New Republic during the Stephen Glass scandal, and recently wrote a fascinating essay about speaking with him during Glass’ attempt to get licensed as an attorney in California. (Former Forbes reporter Adam Penenberg, who exposed Glass, wrote another in January that’s at least as good.) Rosin doesn’t make a living as a debunker, nor does she in this case argue that the entire event was fabricated. That’s not the scope of her focus; she’s targeting the journalistic failures rather than Jackie herself. However, Rosin makes it clear that the dramatic difference in stories wounds the source’s credibility to the point of uselessness. Most victims may not remember all of the details of their assault, but the escalation in narrative here raises “red flags” for anyone basing a news report solely on her word. Had Erderly simply done due diligence even with Jackie’s friends, she and the editors at Rolling Stone would have had plenty of reason to spike the story. Erdely got the narrative she wanted and never looked back, though, and so did Rolling Stone itself. And it may not be the first time, either. In the wake of the collapse in Erdely’s story on UVa, Ralph Cipriano at Big Trial suggested that critics take another look at a September 2011 Erdely story in Rolling Stone about a rape cult in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. The victim in that case kept changing his story too, only this time people went to prison because of it: Attention Rolling Stone: if you think the factual discrepancies in Jackie’s story are “deeply unsettling,” wait till you read all the factual discrepancies in Billy’s story, documented for the past two years on this blog. Sadly, the stakes here are a lot higher than in Virginia, where none of the alleged attackers have even been outed. In Philly, three priests and a school teacher wound up going to jail over Billy’s story, which has since unraveled. One of those priests died in prison last month after he spent his last hours handcuffed to a hospital bed while suffering from untreated coronary disease. This time, though, Erdely may have more of an excuse: In Erdely’s defense, she, like many other members of the media, made the mistake of relying on an intellectually dishonest grand jury report containing more than 20 factual errors. Cipriano lays out the discrepancies and changes in “Billy Doe’s” story in great detail. Read through it all, but bear in mind that this differs from the UVa case in one key aspect — the grand jury report. This case went through the criminal justice system, unlike “Jackie’s” allegations, in a manner which should have checked those contradictions out. It’s difficult to fault a reporter for using a grand jury report as a basis for a story. However, Cipriano faults Erdely for not checking out the obvious contradictions and changing stories as part of her research, accusing her of leaping to the easy conclusion: The details, however, kept changing. In the case of the school teacher, Billy gave three different locations for the alleged rape — in the classroom, in the back seat of the teacher’s car, and in a park. … In the Erdely article, however, she does not mention any possible credibility issues or contradictions regarding Billy Doe, who’d been arrested six times, including one bust for possession with intent to distribute 56 bags of heroin. At the time, there was a gag order in place, so neither the defendants or their lawyers nor any prosecutors are interviewed in the story. The author, however, quotes a former priest, a former seminarian who got kicked out for disciplinary reasons, a former monk who treats abuser priests, a victim of sex abuse and a couple of former prosecutors, all of whom took turns teeing off on the church. It’s completely one-sided. … In short, Billy’s crazy stories defied logic, common sense, all the evidence gathered by the D.A.’s own detectives, and established patterns of abuse as laid out in the secret archive files. They were also riddled with endless contradictions. Yet, since Billy’s story fit a pervasive media stereotype, innocent victims being victimized by predator priests, it was fit to print. Without a doubt, sexual abuse has been a huge scandal in the Catholic Church here in the US and abroad. That was well known by 2011, though, and the Rolling Stone story was a rather late entry. What made it unique was that it not only alleged a conspiracy of silence in this archdiocese, but also a conspiracy to commit the abuses and share victims. The same story quotes from secret files obtained from the church that details investigations into the priests by the archdiocese, but never mentions any such finding. On the other hand, Erdely in this case did have a grand jury report which apparently accepted the narrative even if it later proved to be erroneous in several aspects. The failure may not be as egregious in the Billy Doe case, but Rolling Stone should take a second look at that Erdely story while it’s reopening the books. Correction: In several places, I misspelled Erdely’s name as Ederly. I have fixed them above. |
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| MikeZPU | Dec 8 2014, 10:48 AM Post #197 |
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This is a really, really good piece written a by a female student, a member of a sorority at UVA. Thanks for sharing abb! Everyone should read this ![]()
Edited by MikeZPU, Dec 8 2014, 10:49 AM.
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| abb | Dec 8 2014, 11:16 AM Post #198 |
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http://dailycaller.com/2014/12/07/11-job-ideas-for-disgraced-slimeball-journalist-sabrina-rubin-erdely/ We Have 11 Job Ideas For The Disgraced Journalist Behind The UVA Rape Story Posted By Eric Owens On 9:31 PM 12/07/2014 In | No Comments Tweet Rolling Stone has apologized for publishing Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s blockbuster article about a gruesome gang rape at the University of Virginia because holes a mile wide have appeared in the story of Erdely’s star “witness,” Jackie, and because Erdely’s egregiously terrible and amateur reporting methods have been called into question. Obviously, no publication with an ounce of self-respect will ever publish Erdely again. Her journalism career, such as it may have been before she penned these bizarre allegations, should certainly be over. The Daily Caller wants to help. Here, then, are 11 new careers for Erdely to consider pursuing since she’s going to need a new one. Used cars saleswoman: This one is obvious. Erdely could work at any number of retailers dealing secondhand automobiles that dot the American landscape. She could soothe customers by telling them that she has an Ivy League degree, so she must be honest. And this beautiful 1971 Chevrolet Vega here has less than 50,000 miles and was owned by a kindly nun who kept it in the convent’s heated garage. Intern at a small-town newspaper: This job would be perfect for Erdely. She could learn the basics of journalism — integrity, honesty, how to report facts, that sort of thing — at a comfortable pace. After eight or nine years of unpaid practice, she might be ready to step into a low-paying position as a real journalist. Personal injury lawyer: Three years laying low in law school almost worked for Stephen Glass, the disgraced writer at The New Republic who spun ridiculous tales catering to shallow leftist prejudices. Glass was not able to pass the character and fitness portion of any state bar, unfortunately. But, hey, that problem is three years down the road. Democratic politician: Electoral politics would be an ideal next step for Erdely. Voters love to hear things that confirm their biases, even if those biases are hopelessly stupid and wrong. She would have to start small — perhaps dogcatcher or coroner. But, with some patience, the sky is the limit. Fry cook: The fancypants graduate of the University of Pennsylvania probably thinks serving up America’s deep-fried potatoes is beneath her. Really, though, working a vat of oil is perfect for a person of her professional caliber. Tour guide: This job is another one which Erdely likely feels is beneath her, but it fits her skills set to a tee. She could stand atop a bus rambling about urban legends and things which are in no way true. Gullible tourists who know no better would believe her, and she’d feel good about herself for instructing them. Science fiction writer: Erdely would slide very easily into a job in which she would sit behind a keyboard spinning fabulous sagas about some dark parallel universe where evil villains who couldn’t possibly exist wreak havoc upon naive, helpless women. It’s really the occupation for which she was born. Ditch digger: Some serious manual labor which produces something of value for society would be good for Erdely. Sadly, of course, she almost certainly isn’t up to such important work and would fail miserably. Professional poker player: These guys sit around in tedium for hours, bluffing, in an attempt to take each other’s money. It could definitely work. However, Erdely appears to have a pointless degree in journalism, so there’s no way she could handle the intermediate-level math required to succeed in pro poker. Retail dealer of heroin, meth and cocaine: There will always be jobs for people brave enough to enter bad neighborhoods to sell illegal drugs. It’s a tough job, though, and most of America’s street corners worth owning are already owned. Still, with a strong dose of courage, and the right connections with the Vagos Motorcycle Club or some high-level Crips, Erdely could perhaps make a run at it. Pimp: Running a prostitution ring is hard work that requires long hours and nerves of steel. There’s no way Erdely is cut out for it, but it would be hilarious to watch. And it’s not like she has many other career prospects given her embarrassing, disgusting failure as a journalist. |
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| abb | Dec 8 2014, 11:18 AM Post #199 |
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http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/09/us/fraternity-and-sorority-groups-call-for-uva-to-lift-ban-on-greek-life.html Fraternity and Sorority Groups Call for UVA to Lift Ban on Greek Life By ALAN SCHWARZDEC. 8, 2014 CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Three national fraternity and sorority organizations have called upon the University of Virginia to lift and apologize for its ban on Greek life activities that resulted from Rolling Stone’s vivid portrayal of a brutal gang rape whose specifics have since been disputed. A statement released on Sunday by the North-American Interfraternity Conference, the National Panhellenic Conference, which represents sororities, and the Fraternity and Sorority Political Action Committee also called upon the university to “publicly explain and release all records for the basis of its decision to suspend our organizations, and outline what steps it will take to restore the reputation of our groups and students at UVA.” A university spokesman did not immediately return messages Monday morning. It was not immediately clear whether the statement had been endorsed by Virginia’s Inter-Fraternity Council or Phi Kappa Psi, the fraternity at which the attack depicted by Rolling Stone was said to have occurred — and which became the symbol of what some claimed to be out-of-control Greek life. Some members received death threats, while the house, in a prominent location on campus, was vandalized. The university’s immediate response to the Rolling Stone article last month did not include a ban of Greek activities; that step was taken days later, after the university’s administration was criticized for reacting with too little alarm. The ban, scheduled to end after the holiday break on Jan. 9, appeared to validate the article’s stark portrayal of Virginia fraternity culture in general, beyond concern for a single attack at one fraternity house. After growing concerns about the article’s accuracy led Rolling Stone to apologize for and distance itself from the matter on Friday, Teresa A. Sullivan, the University of Virginia president, did not lift the ban. She reaffirmed the university’s commitment to addressing problems of sexual assault: “Today’s news must not alter this focus,” she said. The fraternity and sorority groups on Sunday suggested that Ms. Sullivan should have acknowledged that the university had overreacted. The ban, the statement said, “was made before an investigation into all of the facts alleged in the story was completed,” and “hurt the reputation of thousands of outstanding student leaders in our organizations who had nothing to do with the alleged events described in the article.” It continued: “We believe universities must demonstrate more respect for the fundamental rights to due process and freedom of association for students and student organizations when allegations of misconduct are lodged.” A longtime critic of Virginia’s handling of sexual assault cases, the recent graduate Lyra Bartell, said on Monday that an apology or the removal of the ban would be an overreaction in the other direction. “I think it’s horrifying,” Ms. Bartell said. “Because the journalistic integrity of one article is called into question, the entire conversation has now shifted? How many frat rape victims do we have to come up with for people to believe that things need to be changed? If the university apologizes and removes the ban, it will tacitly be saying that nothing actually happens here. Which is not true.” With final exams beginning on Monday and students preparing to leave for the holiday break, the ban’s effects on the Virginia campus are now mostly symbolic. Classes for the spring semester begin Jan. 12. |
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| abb | Dec 8 2014, 11:20 AM Post #200 |
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http://abc7chicago.com/news/uva-student-in-rolling-stone-rape-story-reportedly-hires-attorney/426988/ UVA Student in Rolling Stone Rape Story Reportedly Hires Attorney ABCNews LINSEY DAVIS The young woman at the center of Rolling Stone's story about sexual assaults at the University of Virginia reportedly has hired an attorney, as the magazine revised a statement issued last week that backtracked on the story. The woman, called "Jackie," hired an attorney after details of her story about being gang raped by seven men at a fraternity party in September 2012 were questioned, Washington Post reporter T. Rees Shapiro told ABC News. ABC News has reached out to the attorney she reportedly hired but has not received a reply. "If Jackie allegedly lied and that perpetrator suffered injury as a result, she could be sued for damages," said Mark Eiglarsh, a criminal defense attorney in Miami, Florida. Rolling Stone on Sunday clarified its earlier statement that said it regretted agreeing not to contact Jackie's alleged assailants, removing a line that said it had come "to the conclusion that our trust in her [Jackie] was misplaced." The revised statement from managing editor Will Dana instead said, "These mistakes are on Rolling Stone, not on Jackie." Said Eiglarsh, "If what Rolling Stone wrote about her was deemed false and could be proven to be false, and she suffered damages as a result, she could potentially sue Rolling Stone." Psi Kappa Phi -- the fraternity where Jackie said the rape took place -- said in a statement that no member of the fraternity worked as a lifeguard in the fall semester of 2012, as Jackie had claimed in the Rolling Stone story. It added that it did not have a date function or social event on the last weekend in September, though the article never specified the exact weekend when the alleged attack occurred. The fraternity also contested the article's assertion that the alleged gang rape was part of a pledging task for prospective members. Psi Kappa Phi said that its pledging activities do not occur in the fall semester. "Moreover, no ritualized sexual assault is part of our pledging or initiation process," according to the statement. "This notion is vile, and we vehemently refute this claim." Shapiro told ABC News that Jackie's statements to him contradicted Rolling Stone's reporting. "She said that maybe the party wasn't at Phi [Kappa] Psi and then she told me that maybe the person that attacked her wasn't a member of the fraternity at all," he said. All campus fraternities were suspended after the story was released. "The university remains first and foremost concerned with the care and support of our students and, especially, any survivor of sexual assault," UVA President Theresa Sullivan said in a statement Friday after Rolling Stone's original apology. ABC News' Meghan Keneally contributed to this report. |
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| cks | Dec 8 2014, 11:50 AM Post #201 |
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Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to deceive. As I read the accounts of this latest rape story (UVA) this is what comes to mind. It could very well be that Jackie had unconsensual sex (I will use that term instead of rape because at this point it is unclear what did occur). It could also be that she engaged in consensual sex and then had "buyers remorse". We only have her word, not that of any one else except one of her three friends that now claims what was said in the article does not correspond to what she said that evening. Ms. Erdley claims that she made some attempt to contact some at the fraternity in question but found it difficult (my words). She needs to contact Sara Ganim to get pointers on how to research and stick to a story! I listened to part of an interview that she had with Slate (Erdley, that is) where she failed to answer any of the questions put to her about her fact checking - instead she obfuscated or gave a non-answer. Journalists wonder why they are held in disrepute. Well, I would say that Ms. Erdley is a prime example. The Rad-feminists who proclaim that misogyny is rampant - well, when they proclaim that women who claim rape never lie or that only the rights of women are important - well, they do those who ARE victims a grave disservice. But then, that is what happens when lying is more celebrated than the truth. |
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| Payback | Dec 8 2014, 12:27 PM Post #202 |
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Meanwhile, Teresa Sullivan does not apologize and does not resign. |
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| abb | Dec 8 2014, 12:34 PM Post #203 |
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http://reason.com/blog/2014/12/08/rolling-stones-uva-rape-story-continues Rolling Stone’s UVA Rape Story Continues to Fall Apart Peter Suderman|Dec. 8, 2014 11:24 am WikimediaWikimediaAdditional reporting over the weekend revealed even more discrepancies in Rolling Stone’s rapidly disintegrating story about an alleged gang rape at a University of Virginia frat house. In the original 9,000-word piece, author Sabrina Rubin Erdely describes the friends Jackie talks to the night she is allegedly raped in a way that makes them come across as almost cartoonishly callous. Erdely's story says that Jackie was wounded, with blood on her dress after a multi-hour assault on a bed of broken glass. But in Erdely's telling of the story, the three friends Jackie speaks with—two men and a woman—end up debating whether it’s a good idea to take her to the hospital, because a trip to the emergency room would harm her social reputation. "Her reputation will be shot for the next four years," says "Cindy," (not her real name), another one of the friends. "She's gonna be the girl who cried 'rape,' and we'll never be allowed into any frat party again." But when the Post spoke to two of the friends, they said that that’s not what happened. One, the man identified in the Rolling Stone story as "Andy," said that Jackie did call him and two additional friends one night. According to "Andy," Jackie said she was very upset and "really shaken up." Here’s what he recalls happening: "Andy" said Jackie said she had been at a fraternity party and had been forced to perform oral sex on a group of men, but he does not remember her identifying a specific house. He said he did not notice any injuries or blood but said the group offered to get her help. She, instead, wanted to return to her dorm, and he and the friends spent the night with her to comfort her at her request. Cindy’s recollection, as reported by the Post, is similar: "Cindy" said that Jackie appeared distraught that night but was not hurt physically and was not bleeding. The student said Jackie made no claims of a gang rape and did not identify the fraternity where she said she had partied. "Cindy" said Jackie told one of the friends there that a group of men had forced her to perform oral sex. The student said there was never any discussion among Jackie and the group involving how their reputations or social status might be affected by seeking help. Notably, even though both "Andy" and "Cindy" are quoted in the story, both say Rolling Stone never interviewed either of them. Cindy says that Rolling Stone never even contacted her. They aren't the only friends of Jackie to suggest problems with the Rolling Stone story. The Post also reports that Emily Renda, who works for the university on responding to sexual violence, and who introduced Jackie to Erdely, now says that the number of attackers present in Jackie's story has changed over time. Rolling Stone has updated its apology note detailing potential discrepancies. There are quite a few issues. (You can see changes between the old note and the new one here.) At this point you have to ask: Did Rolling Stone do anything to corroborate or verify the details of Jackie’s sensational story of organized gang rape at a university fraternity, which provided the horrific opening anecdote to Erdely’s story? Increasingly it appears as if the answer is no. A New York Times report on the story contains this line: "In an interview on Friday, Mr. Dana said that Rolling Stone had not sought to corroborate her account after she asked the magazine not to speak to her attackers." |
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| abb | Dec 8 2014, 12:36 PM Post #204 |
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http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2014/12/08/doxxing_jackie_the_vile_and_dangerous_threats_of_charles_johnson_and_other.html Trolls Are Outing UVA’s “Jackie.” That’s Rolling Stone’s Fault Too. By Hanna Rosin It’s probably inevitable that the name of the victim from Rolling Stone’s story about gang rape at the University of Virginia would come out. Once again, we have Rolling Stone to blame for that. In the story, reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely called her subject by the name “Jackie,” which I think many reading the story assumed was a pseudonym (many of the other characters in the piece go by pseudonyms). After the story got a ton of positive attention for focusing light on a horrendous campus gang rape and a university’s apparently poor handling of it, Erderly then told a Washington Post reporter that the young woman’s real first name is Jackie. There are only so many undergraduates named Jackie at UVA, and the school’s directory is publicly accessible. From there, it’s a short distance to some vicious trolls, including the singularly vile Charles C. Johnson, threatening to doxx her. Hanna Rosin is the founder of DoubleX and a writer for the Atlantic. She is also the author of The End of Men. Follow her on Twitter. If Johnson has his way, the next few days are likely a significant setback for the cause of encouraging women to report sexual assaults. Johnson tweeted Jackie’s full name on Sunday and wrote that he would give Jackie until midnight “to tell the truth” or else he will “start revealing everything about her past.” (It is unclear if Johnson actually knows anything “about her past” or is making idle, but dangerous, threats.) Others are already a few steps ahead of him, posting pictures from Jackie’s Facebook feed—and even her mother’s Facebook feed—and adding nasty captions. Not that they will listen, but the trolls need a big reminder that what happened at UVA can still be filed in the category of mystery, not hoax. While the Washington Post has uncovered a lot of discrepancies in Jackie’s story, two friends told the Post reporter that on the night in question she told them that she’d been forced to have oral sex with several men. “The perception that I’m gravitating toward is that something happened that night and it’s gotten lost in different iterations of the stories that have been told,” one of the friends told the Post. “Is there a possibility nothing happened? Sure. I think the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.” One of Jackie’s suitemates from freshman year who has not yet spoken out wrote me an email saying, “I remember her letting it slip to me that she had had a terrible experience at a party. I remember her telling me that multiple men had assaulted her at this party.” She reiterated that Jackie went from “friendly” and “outgoing” to morose and inert, and was so depressed that she had to leave for home in December before finals. The suitemate did not get more specific, but she described an emotional arc very common to rape victims. Again, there are still major inconsistencies in Jackie’s story—chief among them the fact that the man her friends say orchestrated the assault told the Post he’d never met her. And it’s possible that Jackie had some sort of mental breakdown not driven by an assault. But we still don’t know what happened. The larger question of whether victims of rape should remain anonymous is a complicated one. The initial rationale for anonymity was to afford victims a measure of protection and prevent them from feeling more shame and self-loathing than they already felt. But as Joan Didion explained in “Sentimental Journeys,” her essay about the Central Park jogger, this anonymity also had an element of the self-fulfilling, “guiding the victim to define her assault as her protectors do.” In other words, if rape were defined as more shame-inducing than other crimes, then the victims would continue to experience it as more shameful. Anonymity is much harder to maintain these days, so whether we like it or not, we may be forced in the direction of identifying victims. Everyone who sat in on the 1990 trials knew the Central Park jogger’s name, yet no papers published it, a discipline that’s hard to imagine now. In a high-profile case, someone will always have something to gain by posting a name no one else will reveal. But these larger questions don’t really apply in this case. Jackie is not participating in a trial or even a university proceeding. Neither are the guys from the frat Rolling Stone named as the site of the alleged rape, whose names have been posted on various sites, and one of whom BuzzFeed outed with the cheap tactic of reporting that he’d retained a lawyer known for defending men on campus accused of rape. Thanks to Rolling Stone, the case is being adjudicated by reporters and bloggers and Internet trolls who range in type from the responsible to the opportunistic to the despicable. |
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| abb | Dec 8 2014, 12:39 PM Post #205 |
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http://jezebel.com/the-uva-mess-is-now-a-full-fledged-shitstorm-1668191002 The UVA Mess Is Now a Full-Fledged Shitstorm Anna Merlan Today 11:10am On Friday, Rolling Stone announced in a note signed by managing editor Will Dana that in light of new information, they had concluded there were serious "discrepancies" in the account of Jackie, the University of Virginia student who told journalist Sabrina Rubin Erdely that she was gang-raped during a 2012 party at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. As every media outlet in the known universe pores over Rolling Stone's missteps in this story, they're continuing to make them: over the weekend the magazine quietly changed their editor's note on the story, removing a widely-quoted line: "[W]e have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced." Meanwhile, a conservative blogger has released what he claims is the real name, address, phone number, and picture of "Jackie." (At the same time, I've gotten a lot of well-deserved criticism for a salty post I wrote defending Erdely from Reason's Robby Soave and Worth's Richard Bradley — formerly Richard Blow, before he changed his name during his own brush with bad publicity). Rolling Stone's stealthy edits didn't go unnoticed; reporter Maryn McKenna was one of several people who pointed out how the statement had been updated: The new statement tries to take some of the blame off Jackie, with a reworded closing paragraph that acknowledges it is the job of the magazine's reporters, editors and fact-checkers to write an accurate story, not the subject: We published the article with the firm belief that it was accurate. Given all of these reports, however, we have come to the conclusion that we were mistaken in honoring Jackie's request to not contact the alleged assaulters to get their account. In trying to be sensitive to the unfair shame and humiliation many women feel after a sexual assault, we made a judgment – the kind of judgment reporters and editors make every day. We should have not made this agreement with Jackie and we should have worked harder to convince her that the truth would have been better served by getting the other side of the story. These mistakes are on Rolling Stone, not on Jackie. We apologize to anyone who was affected by the story and we will continue to investigate the events of that evening. Erdely's direct editor, Sean Woods, also acknowledged on Twitter that the original statement placed too much blame on Jackie: In the meantime, the Washington Post also quietly removed a key claim from their own scathing report on the UVA story. Erdely, meanwhile, has not commented publicly since Rolling Stone released their statement. She's gone silent on Twitter and didn't respond to interview requests from Jezebel, the New York Times or CNN host Brian Stelter: That means neither Erdely nor Rolling Stone has yet commented on two important details about their handling of the story: their decision to use Jackie's real first name, and Erdely's alleged refusal, outlined in the WaPo story, to remove Jackie from the story when she asked: "Overwhelmed by sitting through interviews with the writer, Jackie said she asked Erdely to be taken out of the article. She said Erdely refused, and Jackie was told that the article would go forward regardless." This is a request that sources make all the time, usually late in the reporting process, when it becomes clear that a story isn't going the way they'd hoped or won't cast them in the light they wished. Erdely wasn't, strictly, under any obligation to take Jackie out of the story, although it might have made most reporters wonder whether she was the best person to hang the story around. Jackie's reluctance is, at the very least, something she should have noted, along with her evident agreement with the girl not to contact her alleged attackers. And given Jackie's increasing reluctance, if Erdely wasn't willing to take her out of the story, she should have at the very least made her far less easily identifiable. Because now, predictably, conservative blogger and seeping asshole Chuck C. Johnson has published what he says is her full name, along with screenshots from what he called her "rape-obsessed Pinterest page," and proof, he says, that the girl " has lied about sexual assaults in the past." (Despite his zeal in outing Jackie, Johnson has a rich history of threatening people who expose his highly sensitive personal information, like the phone number he's tweeted himself.) Jackie's suitemate her freshman year has written a letter to UVA's student paper, saying strongly that she doesn't believe the girl made up her story: "I fully support Jackie, and I believe wholeheartedly that she went through a traumatizing sexual assault," she wrote. She says it was Jackie's mistrust in Rolling Stone that was misplaced, not vice-versa, and adds: "[T]he articles released in the past few days have been troubling to me, and the responses to them even more so. While I cannot say what happened that night, and I cannot prove the validity of every tiny aspect of her story to you, I can tell you that this story is not a hoax, a lie or a scheme. Something terrible happened to Jackie at the hands of several men who have yet to receive any repercussions." Recently returned Rolling Stone reporter Matt Taibbi has expressed puzzlement with how the story was handled, noting that the fact-checking at the magazine is usually so rigorous it sometimes drove him insane: There are still a great many questions to be answered here, ones Erdely should step forward and address directly. In the meantime, Politico reports that UVA's fraternities and sororities are planning a "sweeping offensive" against the school, asking that the suspension of the Greek system be lifted and complaining that the story cast them in an unfair light: "Greek leaders say they would like the university to apologize, publicly release records that explain the basis of its decision to suspend the Greek system and outline how it will restore the reputation of fraternities and students at the university." |
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| abb | Dec 8 2014, 12:40 PM Post #206 |
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/08/us-usa-sexcrimes-virginia-idUSKBN0JM1W120141208 Groups urge University of Virginia to restart fraternity activities 11:56am EST (Reuters) - National fraternity and sorority organizations have asked the University of Virginia to lift its suspension of Greek activities after Rolling Stone magazine backtracked on its story about an alleged gang rape at a fraternity. The Fraternity and Sorority Political Action Committee, the National Panhellenic Conference and the North-American Interfraternity Conference said on Sunday that the school should apologize over its actions since publication of the Rolling Stone article last month. In addition to an immediate reinstatement of activities, the university should "publicly explain and release all records for the basis of its decision to suspend our organizations, and outline what steps it will take to restore the reputation of our groups and students at UVA," the groups said in a statement. A university spokesman was not immediately available to comment about the request. University President Teresa Sullivan suspended all Greek activities until Jan. 9, at the start of the spring semester. She took the step after the Rolling Stone story described the gang rape of a female student during a Phi Kappa Psi fraternity pledge party in September 2012. Rolling Stone stepped away from the story on Friday, saying its trust in the accuser had been misplaced. It revised its statement on Sunday, taking responsibility for problems with the story and saying they were not the fault of the alleged victim Phi Kappa Psi rebutted key parts of the story on Friday. The story created an uproar at the school and galvanized renewed U.S. debate on sexual abuse. Fraternities and sororities are social clubs common at many U.S. colleges and often have their own housing. Many of the 21,000 students at the University of Virginia, the state's flagship school, are affiliated with the so-called Greek system. (Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Eric Beech) |
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| abb | Dec 8 2014, 12:43 PM Post #207 |
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http://newsbusters.org/blogs/dave-pierre/2014/12/08/rolling-stone-rape-debacle-reporter-was-blasted-erroneous-philly Before the Rolling Stone Rape Debacle, Reporter Was Blasted for Erroneous Philly Catholic Abuse Story By Dave Pierre | December 8, 2014 | 8:45 AM EST 0 shares "[F]or sheer maliciousness, it is hard to top the piece in Rolling Stone. The factual errors, the stereotypes, the grand omissions, and the melodramatic language make for an incredible read. Make no mistake about it, the author, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, has secured her place in the annals of yellow journalism." No, that is not just another comment about the explosive new media revelation that a highly celebrated article weeks ago by Erdely in Rolling Stone magazine about gang rape by a fraternity at the University of Virginia (UVA) was completely bogus. The words are from Dr. Bill Donohue of The Catholic League over three years ago – in September 2011 – about a piece Erdely wrote about alleged sex abuse and cover-up in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Donohue uncovered numerous errors and misleading passages in Erdely's article. In her 2011 article, Erdely, among many other salacious tales, relayed the bizarre claims of "Billy" – whom readers of this site know to be Florida resident Dan Gallagher – who has wildly claimed to have been somehow raped, molested, and sodomized by three different men years ago as an altar boy in Philly in the late 1990s. And as we have repeatedly chronicled here, veteran journalist Ralph Cipriano at BigTrial.net has doggedly uncovered information after eye-opening information leading many to conclude that Gallagher's madcap stories were most certainly fabricated. The lives of innocent men have been simply shattered. (Check out the latest from Cipriano.) Now that the mainstream media has come around to concluding that Erdely's tale of ceremonial gang rape at UVA was false, we hope that it will revisit her preposterous 2011 story about abuse in the Catholic Church in Philadelphia. We then hope the mainstream media will begin to question the prevailing media narrative about sex abuse in the Catholic Church that has gone completely unchallenged for decades now. Most stories are now simply retreads of stories of abuse from many decades ago often filled with gross exaggeration, sensationalism, and hysteria. The truth has been lost somewhere. We won't hold our breath, however. |
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| LTC8K6 | Dec 8 2014, 12:48 PM Post #208 |
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Assistant to The Devil Himself
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http://pjmedia.com/zombie/2014/12/07/mass-rapes-at-u-c-berkeley/?singlepage=true Interesting reports from UC Berkeley... |
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| abb | Dec 8 2014, 03:15 PM Post #209 |
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The UVA Story Unravels: Feminist Agitprop and Rape-Hoax Denialism By Cathy Young - December 8, 2014 We will almost certainly never know for sure what actually happened to Jackie, the troubled young woman at the center of the now-discredited Rolling Stone tale of rape and impunity at the University of Virginia that riveted the nation for two weeks before it came apart. She may be a mentally ill fantasist; she may have experienced a less brutal sexual assault and either deliberately exaggerated or sincerely reimagined it as the grotesque horror she recounted to writer Sabrina Rubin Erdely; she may have suffered some other trauma. Many fear that the story’s undoing may hurt the credibility of real rape victims, and one can only hope that doesn’t happen. But the UVA fiasco should destroy the credibility of the feminist crusade against “rape culture,” whose virulent zealotry and disregard for truth have been starkly exposed by this scandal. The uncritical rush to embrace of Rolling Stone story attests to the toxic climate created by this crusade. Erdely’s article should have quickly set off alarm bells (mine went off on the second reading). The preplanned initiation-ritual gang rape in which “Clockwork Orange”-level ultraviolence meets “Silence of the Lambs” (“Grab its motherf-----g leg,” yells one of the men); the reaction of the victim’s friends who see her disheveled and bloodied yet talk her out of going to the police or to the hospital because being “the girl who cried rape” would carry a social stigma; the nonchalance of the frat boy who casually chats her up shortly after engineering the attack—it all seems highly implausible, reading more like a rape-culture morality tale than a factual account. And that’s not even to mention the fact that Jackie supposedly endured three hours of rape while lying on sharp shards of glass from a smashed coffee table; or that later, when she had become an anti-rape activist on campus, a man supposedly threw a beer bottle at her as she walked past a bar and it broke on the side of her face but left only a bruise. When critical scrutiny finally began, much of it focused on Erdely’s failure to even attempt to contact any of the alleged rapists for their side of the story (a subject on which she was peculiarly evasive in interviews). Yet the story was riddled with other problems. For instance: It was fairly clear that Erdely had not interviewed any of the three friends, two men and one woman, who had allegedly picked up a bruised, blood-spattered, hysterical Jackie after the gang rape. She wrote that one of them refused an interview, “citing loyalty to his own frat” (a rather baffling explanation, as noted by Worth editor-in-chief Richard Bradley, the first journalist to publicly question the Rolling Stone account). But what about the other two? Erdely did quote one of Jackie’s suitemates that semester, Rachel Soltis, who described her as growing depressed and withdrawn after the alleged incident. But there was a crucial piece of missing information: did Soltis see any of Jackie’s injuries, including cuts from the glass and presumably hard-to-conceal bruising from being punched in the face? Thanks to real reporting by The Washington Post, we now know Soltis noticed no injuries on Jackie. We also know that one of Jackie’s three ex-friends confirms they came to her aid after a distress call; but he says that she was uninjured, and that at the time she claimed to have been “forced to have oral sex with a group of men” at a fraternity party. (Is that what really happened? Again, at this point it’s unlikely we’ll ever know.) He also says she was the one who refused offers of help. That, by the way, highlights another huge and obvious problem with the Rolling Stone article. The story was presented as an account not only of rape, but of justice denied. The subhead read, “Jackie was just starting her freshman year at the University of Virginia when she was brutally assaulted by seven men at a frat party. When she tried to hold them accountable, a whole new kind of abuse began.” Yet the narrative itself makes clear that even in her own telling, Jackie never tried to hold anyone accountable. She never went to the police and waited more than six months to report the alleged attack to UVA’s dean for sexual misconduct, Nicole Eramo. She was informed of several options that included filing a police report and initiating a disciplinary complaint, but chose to do nothing—despite a follow-up email from the dean, offering assistance “if you decide that you would like to hold these men accountable.” Even more incredibly, we’re told that Jackie went back to Dean Eramo a year later to share that she had learned of two other women being raped at the same fraternity—but still “didn’t feel ready to file a complaint.” This aspect of the story was consistently downplayed in the outcry over the Rolling Stone article. Indeed, Anna Merlan of the feminist blog Jezebel asserted, in her first post on the story, that Jackie was “discouraged from reporting the rape by both her friends and the school.” (Merlan later heaped scorn on the heretics who questioned the story, namely Bradley and Reason’s Robby Soave; she at least had enough class to apologize when it unraveled, though not enough to refrain from a snarky tweet dismissing Soave’s assertion that he was sincerely glad this terrible crime hadn’t happened.) Even if people were initially swept up in the story’s emotion and in Erdely’s dramatic narration, their critical faculties should have kicked back in once Bradley and other skeptics such as began to raise uncomfortable questions—and feminists such as Slate’s Hanna Rosin and Allison Benedikt began to voice concern about Erdely’s shoddy reporting. Instead, the New York Times tried to circle the wagons, finding a couple of journalism professors who were willing to defending Rolling Stone’s methods. And the feminist media set about shooting the messenger. On Twitter, Amanda Marcotte blasted “rape apologists” attempting to “derail” the conversation with their talk of a hoax at UVA and asserted that Erdely’s story would have been attacked no matter how thorough a job she had done. (She even not-so-subtly insinuated that the “rape denialist movement” is driven by men who are themselves rapists.) The same themes were echoed in a rant by Katie McDonough in Salon, who grudgingly acknowledged that Erdely’s article was flawed but still denounced the criticism as “rape denial” and expressed resentment at “being expected to treat every person who says hey no fair when a survivor speaks or a damning report is published as if these are all serious and credible concerns.” On a slightly more moderate note, New York’s Kate Stoeffel fretted that all the questioning feels like “presumed innocence is a privilege reserved for purported rapists and not their purported victims” and asked, “To what end are we scrutinizing?” That was before the Post debunked the story and Rolling Stone disowned it. And after that? Well, there’s this tweet from Marcotte: “Interesting how rape apologists think that if they can ‘discredit’ one rape story, that means no other rape stories can be true, either.” Needless to say, she does not give an example of a single person who believes that rape never happens. As the quotation marks indicate, Marcotte does not actually believe Jackie is discredited. Appearing on HuffPost Live, both she and fellow writer/activist Soraya Chemaly pushed the idea that the “discrepancies” in her story—including the fact that the man she named as the chief rapist had never been in Phi Kappa Psi, the fraternity where the gang rape allegedly took place—were due to trauma-related memory loss and that Jackie may have been raped at a different frat. (Never mind that she was apparently emphatic about the specific fraternity, or that her claim of learning about more sexual assaults at the same frat is a key part of the story.) It seems that, in an attempt to deny the UVA rape hoax and exonerate Jackie of lying, some feminists are willing to suggest that women’s true accounts of sexual victimization are inherently unreliable. Talk about throwing victims under the bus. The argument that Jackie’s unreliable accounts of her rape are the natural result of trauma is echoed in The Washington Post by lawyer and political analyst Zerlina Maxwell—even though the article she cites on trauma and memory suggests that intrusive memories, not massive memory distortion, are the most likely effect. Maxwell also wants all reports of rape to be treated as presumptively true, though maybe not in an actual court of law. And in The Guardian, Jessica Valenti goes so far as to declare, “I choose to believe Jackie.” This is feminism as a religious cult, embracing the principle of early Church father Tertullian: “Credo quia absurdum”—I believe because it’s absurd. Some other feminists are quite openly suggesting that we shouldn’t let facts get in the way. “So what if this instance was more fictional than fact and didn't actually happen to Jackie? Do we actually want anyone to have gone through this? This story was a shock and awe campaign that forced even the most ardent of rape culture deniers to stand up in horror and demand action,” writes Katie Racine, the founder of the online women’s magazine Literally, Darling, in an essay reprinted in The Huffington Post. (A mostly fictional story is beneficial because it proved to “rape culture deniers” that rape culture exists? Literally, darling, this may be the dumbest thing anyone has said about the UVA story.) And in Politico, UVA student journalist Julia Horowitz opines that “to let fact checking define the narrative would be a huge mistake,” since Jackie’s likely fabrication points to a bigger truth. That is not journalism; it’s agitprop. And what is that bigger truth? Horowitz quotes a first-year student who says, “These events undoubtedly do occur here.” What events? Premeditated ambush gang rapes and beatings that are dismissed as trivial “bad experiences” by other students despite leaving the victims bloodied and battered, and are brushed aside by complacent administrators? That’s extremely doubtful. Horowitz asserts that one in five women are sexually assaulted during their college years. Mother Jones invokes the same one-in-five statistic as the deeper truth behind the Rolling Stone story. Yet the surveys from which this number is derived routinely conflate regretted drunk sex with sexual assault, and most of the women labeled as victims do not believe they were raped. As Mother Jones’ own infographics show, the primary reasons these women don’t report their purported assaults to the police or other authorities is that they don’t think it was a serious enough matter to report, or believe that they were at least partly responsible for the unwanted sex, or don’t think what happened was a crime. Yes, rape happens—on campuses and elsewhere. Methodologically sound surveys by the Bureau of Justice Statistics have found that from 1995 to 2002, an average of about six per 1,000 female college students a year became victims of sexual assault. Assuming that a woman’s risk of being assaulted is the same in every year of college, that means two to three percent of female students become victims over the course of their school years. That’s nothing to be dismissive about. But it is hardly an epidemic, or a pervasive “culture of rape.” Let us by all means have victim advocacy—fact-based, and capable of supporting women or men who report sexual assaults without trying to destroy the presumption of innocence. But let’s say no to the witch-hunts. If the UVA debacle brings back some sanity on the subject of rape, the hoax will have actually served a good cause—just not the one its promoters intended. // Cathy Young writes a weekly column for RealClearPolitics and is also a contributing editor at Reason magazine. She blogs at http://cathyyoung.wordpress.com/ and you can follow her on Twitter at @CathyYoung63. She can be reached by email at CathyYoung63@gmail.com. Page Printed from: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/12/08/the_uva_story_unravels_feminist_agitprop_and_rape-hoax_denialism_124891.html at December 08, 2014 - 02:15:23 PM CST |
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| Joan Foster | Dec 8 2014, 03:40 PM Post #210 |
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I had a couple of random thoughts this morning. First, what was Jackies responsible to the UVA community at large? The kind of rape she described...3 hours, seven men, a bottle...is like something out of an Isis terror video. It's on the scale of a war crime. But according to the story she tells, she let her friends warnings about threats to her social life and party invitations, stop her...from stopping these men. If this story is true, she enabled psychopaths. If this is a routine initiation as Jackie implies, she lets it continue. Jackie Herself, by putting the triviality of campus social I've before the lives of future victims, becomes a enabler. Even a year later, she refuses to step forward to save others. If one compares the horrific nature of the crime she describes, and one accepts that it is going to happen with regularity every Rush season, Jackie's silence is inexcusable. Where is HER empathy for the other "victims" that will come next. Two, in reading these essays where Feminists clutch Jackie tearfully to their bosom...I'm struck that they continually style themselves respectively as the epitome of empathy. But that empathy is grotesque in its selectivity. And it looks so skewed when they can't conjure up the slightest regret for any of the victims of false accusation. The cruelty in contrast is palpable. I keep thinking of those lyrics..."What goes on in your heart? What goes on in your mind?" |
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