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UVA Rape Story Collapses; Duke Lacrosse Redux
Topic Started: Dec 5 2014, 01:45 PM (60,437 Views)
kbp

Maybe one of you here could help me out. A large percentage of those reporting on the Jackie issue have made it a point to leave the door open to "something" might have happened to her.

Is it not accurate to say every form of a "something" Jackie claimed is off the table, that there is NO "something" reported by Jackie to even consider?

I watched Alex Stock or Ryan Duffin on the Kelly File and the latter made a comment about a "something" possible years ago stuck in her mind. I think he was hitting on a possible excuse for Jackie having made numerous false claims.
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Joan Foster

Jackie's roommate indicated that she saw changes in Jackie's demeanor and behavior that first semester. Jackie later told her that she had been gangraped and she has since believed that explanation.

The friends say that she was very upset, distraught on the night I question. They too have given her the benefit of the doubt that it relates to "something happening."

The police investigated the stories she told and can find no proof. But they covered themselves by saying...they can't quarantee nothing happened..only that the things she SAID happened...didn't happen.

Jackie was smart enough to get into UVa...though if she is Jackie Coakley...there are reports that she wanted to go elsewhere but her parents insisted on UVA. Her grades...second year...were bad enough that she was called in by the Dean. That is the first time her rape story was told to a UVA employee IIRC.

I think that Jackie may have mental problems that presented that first year. I believe that age is a prime time for onset. I think the rape story was a one size fit all excuse.

But to those around her, they saw distress, erratic behavior...and some are not willing to rule out a traumatic episode.

But, the question I have...if you are going to speak of your rape...why embroider it with fictions details? It makes no sense. Especially since the Listeners all seemed very sympathetic.
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cks
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Could the traumatic episode be that she finally realized that the young man she had a crush on was NEVER going to be interested in her romantically - and that perhaps she realized she had gone too far with her phishing account that she was going to be unmasked ( or thought she was)?

People do and say strange things for even stranger reasons.
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Walt-in-Durham

I have put together a brief, very brief, survey of the law in Virginia as it applies to libel at my blog. I hope you will find it helpful in considering this case. Be mindful that this may end up in New York. I will, if time permits, do a similar survey.

Walt-in-Durham
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MikeKell
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Joan Foster
Apr 7 2015, 09:15 AM
Jackie's roommate indicated that she saw changes in Jackie's demeanor and behavior that first semester. Jackie later told her that she had been gangraped and she has since believed that explanation.

The friends say that she was very upset, distraught on the night I question. They too have given her the benefit of the doubt that it relates to "something happening."

The police investigated the stories she told and can find no proof. But they covered themselves by saying...they can't quarantee nothing happened..only that the things she SAID happened...didn't happen.

Jackie was smart enough to get into UVa...though if she is Jackie Coakley...there are reports that she wanted to go elsewhere but her parents insisted on UVA. Her grades...second year...were bad enough that she was called in by the Dean. That is the first time her rape story was told to a UVA employee IIRC.

I think that Jackie may have mental problems that presented that first year. I believe that age is a prime time for onset. I think the rape story was a one size fit all excuse.

But to those around her, they saw distress, erratic behavior...and some are not willing to rule out a traumatic episode.

But, the question I have...if you are going to speak of your rape...why embroider it with fictions details? It makes no sense. Especially since the Listeners all seemed very sympathetic.
but keep in mind that "the night in question" was PRECEDED by a huge build up to a fake person being involved. So whatever change they might have seen might have been part of that act or her reaction to her real friend not reacting more to the fake rape by her fake friend and his non-existent frat bro's. So the rape story came out of having to explain what happened on a date that never was with a person who never was.

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Quasimodo

Walt-in-Durham
Apr 7 2015, 09:37 AM
I have put together a brief, very brief, survey of the law in Virginia as it applies to libel at my blog. I hope you will find it helpful in considering this case. Be mindful that this may end up in New York. I will, if time permits, do a similar survey.

Walt-in-Durham

Excellent summary!

(Should be sent to columnists about the issue of lawsuits...)

Especially interesting, vis-a-vis the lax case:


"Words that impute the commission of a crime that is punishable by imprisonment in a state or federal institution are actionable per se." Schnupp v. Smith, 249 Va. 353, 457 S.E.2d 42, 1995 Va. LEXIS 53 (Va. 1995).

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kbp

Walt-in-Durham
Apr 7 2015, 09:37 AM
I have put together a brief, very brief, survey of the law in Virginia as it applies to libel at my blog. I hope you will find it helpful in considering this case. Be mindful that this may end up in New York. I will, if time permits, do a similar survey.

Walt-in-Durham
Andrew Napolitano was saying just about the same thing you said here about "groups." He added that the is little room to move unless the judge is writing law.
Walt-in-Durham's blog
 
Some thoughts and law on the issue of libel as it applies to the U.Va. rape hoax in the pages of the Rolling Stone.

VVa. Code. Ann. §8.01-45 Action for insulting words.

  • All words shall be actionable which from their usual construction and common acceptance are construed as insults and tend to violence and breach of the peace
.

The Virginia statute arose out of Virginia's long history of dueling. "Although application of [§8.01-45] is no longer confined to its original purpose of preventing duels, it has been interpreted by Virginia courts to be virtually co-extensive with the common-law action for defamation. For this reason any constitutional limitations that apply to the plaintiffs’ defamation action must necessarily apply to their “insulting words” claim as well."

[...]
Regarding that "duel" thingy... I'd think that there would be a similar law for defamation of groups, as "words....construed as insults and tend to violence and breach of the peace" could be a threat for such between groups. It does get a bit confusing for one not familiar with law.
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MikeZPU

After listening to two of Jackie's friends on Megyn Kelly last night,
particularly Ryan Duffin, and what Megyn herself reported, I have
to modify something that I posted earlier in this thread.

In the infamous article, Erdely claimed that Duffin "declined to be
interviewed" for the article.

It turns out that she was basing that, again, on what Jackie told her.

Jackie told Erdely that Ryan said that he didn't "want to be part of this (bleeping) show."

So, again, Erdely based that statement in the article on what Jackie told her.
She did no independent verification.

There were numerous red flags that Erdely ignored.

One thing that was pointed out on Megyn Kelly's show last night was a
reminder of how Rolling Stone initially defended and stood by the article quite
vigorously, until the discrepancies mounted and were insurmountable.

The fact that Erdely did not apologize directly to Phi Kappa Psi ... I have no
respect for her whatsoever.
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Quasimodo

Quote:
 

The fact that Erdely did not apologize directly to Phi Kappa Psi ... I have no
respect for her whatsoever.


This may have something to do with lawsuit liability...


but then, remember that Brodhead never apologized to the laxers or to Pressler; he made a few
mild remarks, months later, about not keeping in touch -- to a roomful of people
at a Duke even-- but NOT to Pressler or the falsely-accused themselves.

(Doesn't he have a telephone? Fax machine? Email? Person to person?)




Edited by Quasimodo, Apr 7 2015, 10:57 AM.
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cks
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My guess is that Erdely is probably expecting to spend a lot of time in court so that the less she admits to or apologizes for the better her legal position. Of course there is something to be said (I guess) for thinking and acting economically rather than morally.........

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Payback
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And of course no one ever tested Jackie for drugs / alcohol. Medicating and meditating and medicating some more, working herself up?
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abb
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http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/416538/fear-facts-rolling-stones-negligence-just-part-larger-problem-media-bias-sexual


Fear of Facts: Rolling Stone’s Negligence Is Just Part of a Larger Problem of Media Bias in Sexual-Assault Cases
By K. C. Johnson — April 6, 2015

‘Last July 8, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, a writer for Rolling Stone, telephoned Emily Renda, a rape survivor working on sexual-assault issues as a staff member at the University of Virginia.” So opens the Columbia Journalism School’s review of Rolling Stone’s retracted story about the University of Virginia. The piece confirms that it was Renda who informed Erdely about Jackie, the fabulist whose tale became the spine of the Rolling Stone article. Though the CJR labels Renda a “rape survivor,” she appears never to have filed a complaint with the university, much less with the police. As for Jackie with Rolling Stone, for the CJR, Renda’s word about her status as a victim of crime is enough.

Renda appeared in the Monday New York Times’ summary of the Columbia exposé, described not only as a “rape survivor” but “the expert at the university on sexual assault issues.” Now, however, Renda was a critic of Erdely’s work and the decision to highlight Jackie’s story. “Ms. Renda,” reporter Ravi Somaiya wrote, “offered another reason that she felt the Rolling Stone article was flawed: The magazine was drawn toward the most extreme story of a campus rape it could find. The more nuanced accounts, she suggested, seemed somehow ‘not real enough to stand for rape culture. And that is part of the problem.’”

Nowhere in his article did Somaiya reveal that Rolling Stone never would have learned about Jackie but for Renda. Indeed, as Columbia uncovered, the UVA employee had even vouched for the fabulist’s credibility: “Obviously, maybe her memory of [the rape] isn’t perfect,” she said, defending Jackie in advance against worries Erdely might have. Informing Times readers of Renda’s critical connection to the Rolling Stone fiasco might have undermined the Times’ desire to portray her as an expert on the topic of campus sexual assault. Indeed, suggesting that the Rolling Stone hoax could raise doubts about the mainstream media’s obsession with an alleged “rape culture” on campus would have raised significant doubts about the Times’ deeply flawed coverage of this issue.

RELATED: Fighting Against ‘Rape Culture’ Means Never Having to Say You’re Sorry

Readers looking to the Columbia exposé to understand why the article went wrong will find scant information. Such an inquiry would have cut too close to ideas tender to journalists at not only Rolling Stone and (it seems) Columbia, but also the Times, BuzzFeed, the Huffington Post, and countless less prominent outlets, which have relentlessly hyped the campus-sexual-assault issue over the past several years. Borrowing language from victims’-rights advocates, for too many in the media, accusers automatically become “survivors,” their tale (and the existence of any criminal act against them, period) beyond question.

Erdely failed, the report notes, because her faith (and that of her editors) in the existence of a campus rape culture led her to decline to question not only Jackie’s alleged attacker, but even the friends whom she had supposedly told about the incident.

As it happens, this journalistic malpractice only differs by degree — if at all – from that of the Times’ Richard Pérez-Peña, who claimed that former Yale quarterback Patrick Witt withdrew his Rhodes Scholarship candidacy because of a sexual-assault allegation — even though the Times not only didn’t speak with Witt before publication, but didn’t even know who the alleged “survivor” was. Soon enough, reporting from the paper’s then-public editor discredited Pérez-Peña’s article.

RELATED: The UVA Frat May Have a Tough Time

A failure of this magnitude should trigger apologies, but — as Scott Greenfield has perceptively noted — the apologies we get reaffirm the guilty’s faith in the agenda-driven journalism that caused the problem in the first place. And so Erdely expressed regret “to any victims of sexual assault who may feel fearful as a result of my article,” but offered nothing to the fraternity members whom she falsely portrayed as savagely raping a fellow student during an initiation ritual. Rolling Stone managing editor Will Dana intoned, “Sexual assault is a serious problem on college campuses, and it is important that rape victims feel comfortable stepping forward. It saddens us to think that their willingness to do so might be diminished by our failings.” (As Greenfield observed, Dana provided no citation for his claim about campus sexual assault — it’s simply a matter of faith.) Columbia quoted the editor of Erdely’s story, Sean Woods, as apologetic, but still describing Jackie as a “rape victim.”

UVA president Teresa Sullivan denounced Rolling Stone’s “irresponsible journalism” for having reinforced “the reluctance sexual assault victims already feel about reporting their experience, lest they be doubted or ignored.” Sullivan had no apology for her decision — based solely on Erdely’s reporting — to suspend not only the fraternity where Jackie allegedly was raped, but to suspend all fraternities. In Sullivan’s mind, I suppose, such conduct was not “irresponsible.”

The striking element of these half-hearted apologies (and in Sullivan’s case, non-apology) is the complete unwillingness to reconsider the ideological blinders that existed before the case began. In November: All rape victims are survivors that cannot be questioned — so Jackie’s story must be true. Now, with Jackie’s story discredited — all other rape victims are still survivors, and highlighting Jackie’s duplicity could somehow harm them. In the mind of Rolling Stone journalists or University of Virginia administrators, in other words, there are no other Jackies.

Suzanne Goldberg, one of the architects of Columbia’s sexual-assault policies (in which even students found not guilty of sexual assault can in some cases be punished), took to the pages of the Columbia Journalism Review to reiterate “the consensus amidst the controversy over the Rolling Stone campus rape piece.” Despite the fact that Jackie was a fabulist, and virtually everyone at UVA nonetheless believed her, Goldberg reasoned that “no one can credibly suggest today that concern about sexual assault and other gender-based misconduct on college campuses is unwarranted.” If anything, she maintained, the problem was one of “a dramatic case of underreporting,” at least until very recently. Again, note the utter unwillingness to reconsider preconceived notions in face of conflicting evidence.

The Rolling Stone report had already been undermined by reporting and intellectual challenges from Richard Bradley, Robby Soave, and later from Slate, Washington Post, CNN, and Chuck Ross at the Daily Caller. Given the comprehensiveness of the Post’s coverage – especially its reconstruction of Jackie’s activities with “Haven Monahan,” which came across as an elaborate catfishing scheme — there wasn’t much factual detail Columbia could add, other than to describe, at great length, how incompetently everyone at Rolling Stone handled this affair.

In December, as Erdely’s article began to collapse, Julia Horowitz, a student journalist at UVA, tried to explain why the campus newspaper had been caught flat-footed by the falsity of Jackie’s tale. She conceded that “factual inconsistencies” and “discrepancies” might exist in Erdely’s tale, but, she cautioned, “To let fact checking define the narrative would be a huge mistake.” Horowitz, exponent of this horrifying view of journalism, went on to become editor-in-chief of UVA’s student newspaper. Much of the media has been quick to pillory Rolling Stone, but Horowitz’s fear of allowing facts to overwhelm the narrative would be at home in vast swaths of our media — and government and higher education, too.

— K. C. Johnson is professor of history at Brooklyn College and blogs on higher-education issues at Minding the Campus.
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http://www.mindingthecampus.org/2015/04/it-could-have-been-true-so-why-not-print-it/

It Could Have Been True, So Why Not Print It?
KC Johnson April 6, 2015 Leave a comment

The long-awaited Columbia Journalism Review report of Rolling sabrina-rubin-erdelyStone’s UVA article, which ostensibly takes the magazine to task for falsely reporting a rape that never happened, sparked a new outcry from both the media and students on America’s college campuses.

They’re horrified that the report could have a chilling effect on students reporting sexual assaults. No concern over the unnamed rapist, who students at UVA were quick to identify regardless. No concern that a TK year-old fraternity was forced to close its doors and is now suing Rolling Stone for defamation. And no concern over accusations that may have ruined a young man’s chances in life, simply because he was “accused” without due process.

The report runs around 12,000 words, but this passage captures its strengths and weaknesses: “The problem of confirmation bias – the tendency of people to be trapped by pre-existing assumptions and to select facts that support their own views while overlooking contradictory ones – is a well-established finding of social science. It seems to have been a factor here. [Reporter Sabrina Rubin] Erdely believed the university was obstructing justice. She felt she had been blocked. Like many other universities, UVA had a flawed record of managing sexual assault cases. Jackie’s experience seemed to confirm this larger pattern. Her story seemed well established on campus, repeated and accepted.”

There was a confirmation bias here, but not the one CJR detected. The “confirmation bias”—one sadly far too common to the mainstream media, and one that CJR appears to share—involves the manner of covering sexual assault on campus. It’s a “scourge,” Geneva Overholser informed CNN’s Reliable Sources. She cited no evidence to sustain the point, and Bureau of Justice Statistics figures show that rape for non-college women is higher than for women who attend college, at comparable age groups.

The CJR quotes the story editor, Sean Woods, continuing to describe Jackie as a “rape victim,” and incredibly fails to press him on how he could render such a description. Rolling Stone editor Will Dana is quoted expressing dismay at how events developed—if the magazine only had realized that Jackie was a fabulist, inventing a tale of gang rape in pursuit of an on-campus relationship or as a crutch to rescue her when her academic standing was threatened. If so, Dana observed, Erdely could have simply summarized Jackie’s (false) tale “in a paragraph deep in the story.” The thesis of the article, however, seemingly would have been the same, according to Dana, since “there were plenty of other stories we could have told in this piece.”

These “stories” all came from Erdely’s reporting, as funneled through Woods’ editing. Why should anyone believe that these “stories” had any more credibility than Jackie’s, given that Rolling Stone appears to employ only true believers on the issue of campus sexual assault? Neither Rolling Stone—which isn’t firing anyone over the affair, and doesn’t seem intent on even making any noticeable editorial changes as a result of the hoax—nor CJR appeared interested in exploring the question. This is the same Rolling Stone, as Richard Bradley has noted, that recently offered a glowing, wholly non-skeptical review to the movie “The Hunting Ground,” which operates from a premise very similar to that which motivated Erdely.

Perhaps the most dispiriting item of the CJR report came in its concluding section, when authors Sheila Coronel, dean of academic affairs at the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University, Steve Coll, dean of the school, and Derek Kravitz offered three lessons for journalists from the affair. The third, entitled “holding institutions to account,” is the most off-putting. “Given the difficulties, journalists are rarely in a position to prove guilt or innocence in rape . . . . [Analyzing how universities handle the accusation] can also make it easier to persuade both victims and perpetrators to talk.” So, having declared that journalists aren’t usually in a position to prove guilt or innocence, CJR did exactly that—there are “victims and perpetrators.” Two sentences later, the report’s authors use the word “accused,” as if “accused” and “perpetrator” are interchangeable.

CJR also recommends that reporters “gain a deep understanding of the tangle of rules and guidelines on campus sexual assault.” I couldn’t agree more. The first step in this would feature a reporter actually describing for readers what the university’s procedures are since many readers doubtless assume, incorrectly, that actual due process exists when schools consider a felony accusation. Yet CJR doesn’t recommend that reporters take this obvious step. Instead, they urge looking at “Title IX, the Clery Act, and the Violence Against Women Act . . . directives from the Office of Civil Rights and recommendations from the White House.” In other words, all sources that accept as a given that a rape epidemic exists on college campuses. Notably absent from this list—defense attorneys or civil liberties organizations.

The CJR report faithfully exposes the journalistic errors committed by Rolling Stone. But because its authors appear to share the preconceived notions of journalists like Dana, Woods, and Erdely, it seems likely that anyone following the report’s advice would risk the same groupthink problem that destroyed Rolling Stone.


KC Johnson is a history professor at Brooklyn College and the City University of New York Graduate Center. He is the author, along with Stuart Taylor, of Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Case.
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LTC8K6
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Joan Foster
Apr 6 2015, 08:42 PM
Once Mangum's Hoax was debunked, her name was revealed. Her picture was on the front page of the NYPost.."The Duke Liar."

It's time we knew who "Jackie" is as well.
Joan, while I was watching the police presser, I posted this:

http://s1.zetaboards.com/Liestoppers_meeting/single/?p=956389&t=5722010

He definitely said that. I do not know for sure if he slipped and said her real name, but that's what it seemed like.

Edited by LTC8K6, Apr 7 2015, 12:03 PM.
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BREAKING: GotNews.com Found Name of Rape #UVAHoax “Jackie”

December 7, 2014 by Charles C. Johnson

Read more at http://bit.ly/1CnAjvg
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