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UVA Rape Story Collapses; Duke Lacrosse Redux
Topic Started: Dec 5 2014, 01:45 PM (60,435 Views)
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http://www.richardbradley.net/shotsinthedark/2015/04/07/in-the-end-its-all-about-rape-culture-or-the-lack-thereof/


In the End, It’s All About Rape Culture—or the Lack Thereof
Posted on April 7th, 2015 in Uncategorized | 87 Comments »

I’ve taken a couple of days before responding to Columbia Journalism School’s report on the Rolling Stone/Sabrina Rubin Erdely/Jackie fiasco. There’s always pressure to provide near-instantaneous reactions to news events, but the report is long and substantive. I wanted to take some time with it.

At last, I’ve finished the thing —and I have plenty of reactions.

The blog post below is long, probably too long, so forgive me, and if you don’t feel like reading all of it, just skip to the last couple paragraphs.

Anyone reading this blog probably know the gist of the report. (And thank you all for your comments—I’ve really enjoyed reading them.) Here’s the takeaway: Rolling Stone screwed up in every way imaginable, but no one’s going to get fired, the magazine has no plans to change its editorial or fact-checking procedures, and Sabrina Rubin Erdely will again grace the magazine’s pages with her Hemingway-esque prose and ironclad reporting.

This heads-will-not-roll resolution, along with comments from owner and editor-in-chief Jann Wenner that again seemed to put the onus of responsibility on Jackie, doesn’t seem to have quelled the anger over Rolling Stone’s bogus journalism. (Although part of me agrees with Wenner: Jackie is a liar, and we shouldn’t forget that. She does not escape responsibility because, as I heard managing editor Will Dana say on NPR the the other day, she’s “a girl.” She’s a college junior, a young woman, a legal adult, and of an age where, if you called her a girl, many women of her age would take offense. Let’s put it this way: She is old enough to know better, and to suggest otherwise is sexist.)

Anyway. I thought the Columbia report was…pretty good. Its authors clearly put a lot of time and thought into it. Its strength—and, depending on your perspective, its weakness—was the tight focus of its scope. There is a lot that Steve Coll and his colleagues did not get into or did not get into much: whether anyone should be fired, catfishing, the Department of Education’s crusade against the “epidemic” of campus sexual assault.

But in terms of what it did do—investigate the reporting, editing and fact-check processes at Rolling Stone—I thought the report was very solid.

In all immodest candor, I also thought that Columbia dean Steve Coll et al essentially confirmed all the doubts that I raised six months ago.

Again, in the spirt of full disclosure, there is one thing that bugs me about the reference to me in the report, the acknowledgment of my “early if speculative” blog posting calling Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s article into question. I’ve encountered this theme—that I was “speculating”—repeatedly since I wrote my blog, and it frustrates me. By framing what I wrote as speculation, a number of mainstream publications, such as the Times and the New Yorker, feel free to ignore my blog when detailing how Erdely’s story was dismantled by press critics.

The supposition that I was “speculating” misses the larger point of what I wrote;the foundation of my argument was not “a hunch,” but basic professionalism. Any decent editor who is honest with him or herself would tell you the same: Even if Jackie’s story turned out to be true, it still shouldn’t have been published as it was reported and written. Will Dana should have sent it back to the editor and writer with a note saying: “You don’t have this story. Go back and do your jobs.” It was not “speculative” to say that the story should not have been published without further reporting; it was Journalism 101, the kind of thing that they teach (I assume) in the first couple weeks at Columbia Journalism School. And I didn’t have to have access to all the fact-checker’s notes and interview transcripts to know that; any reader with some small degree of journalism experience could know that—and, frankly, should have.

My suspicion that Jackie’s story was not true was based on the idea that if it were, Rolling Stone would have shown us the reporting to back it up. Since Rolling Stone did not, one had to conclude that the evidence to support Jackie did not exist.

There. Got that off my chest.

I want to go through a few specific things that I jotted down as I read the CJS report, and then I’d like to conclude with where I think it does fail in one very important way.

1) In Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s public statement, she makes no apology to the fraternity she defamed. I imagine she feared, or was told, that doing so might have legal implications. I doubt that that would be the case; whether that was her intention or not, she obviously harmed the fraternity. There can be no doubt about that. So it is particularly galling that instead of apologizing to people on whom she inflicted tangible harm, she apologizes to ” any victims of sexual assault who may feel fearful as a result of my article.” What about people whom she falsely accused of rape?

Rubin Erdely owes Phi Psi and its members—probably all fraternity members, frankly—an apology. That she refuses to acknowledge her obligation says something about her character.

It also suggests that, despite everything, she still believes, whether Jackie’s story is true or not—it obviously isn’t—some larger truth about rape culture and the predilections of fraternity members. Seen in this light, her refusal to apologize actually strengthens the fraternity’s lawsuit; it reinforces the idea that Sabrina Rubin Erdely really, really doesn’t like fraternities—and was determined to portray their members as rapists.

2) The Columbia report notes that Rolling Stone refused to waive its attorney client privilege and give Coll access to their lawyers. The tautological reason Rolling Stone gave: That to do so would be waiving attorney-client privilege. (Get it? They wouldn’t waive attorney-client privilege because that would mean waiving attorney-client privilege.)

The magazine’s lack of transparency casts doubt on virtually all of what Rolling Stone has to say in its own defense.

Here’s why: With a story this sensitive, good libel lawyers—and I assume Rolling Stone has very good lawyers—are, or should be, very much in the mix. On sensitive stories, they become something akin to editors with a law degree. You simply could not publish such an accusatory article without having it very heavily lawyered; there is, or ought to be, a lot of discussion between the editor-in-chief and the magazine’s libel lawyer(s). That Rolling Stone won’t disclose their lawyers’ advice suggests that the magazine did not take it, or did the least amount possible to satisfy legal concerns. After all, if the lawyers argued that the magazine had done excellent work and was on safe ground publishing the story, disclosing that information would likely have discouraged any potential lawsuits—like the one Phi Psi is now pursuing against the magazine.

In other words: It’s highly likely that Rolling Stone had a prepublication warning that this story had significant problems—and published the story anyway. Because they knew it was a sexy story, and they were willing to take the risk.

3) Sabrina Rubin Erdely claims that she spoke to Jackie several days after publication and just happened to ask her, “Oh, by the way, what was Drew’s real name? You can tell me now.” [I’m paraphrasing, of course.] And that when Jackie fudged on the spelling of Drew’s last name, Erdeley suddenly got suspicious.

This anecdote is, I suspect, a load of hooey. There were, after all, many, many pre-publication indicators that Jackie was not a reliable source, yet Erdely never got suspicious then. Jackie won’t return calls, she threatens to back out of the story, Jackie’s mother won’t return calls…. Let me tell you something: If you have a source who’s claiming she was gang-raped, and tells you to talk to her mother for corroboration, and the mother won’t return your phone calls—you get nervous fast.

It’s incomprehensible to me that there could be red flags like this and only now, post-publication, when Jackie misspells Drew’s last name, does her spider sense start to tingle. (It’s worth noting, by the way, that the reason Jackie would have claimed she didn’t know the exact spelling of Drew’s last name would be to hide the fact that there was no Drew, and make Drew’s non-existence harder to establish—a fine example of Jackie’s calculated deception to keep her horrible fable from coming apart.)

Erdely claims that she asked Jackie this question at this point because Drew was “at-large” and “dangerous.” That claim does not pass the smell test. For one thing, this would have been the case pre-publication as well as post. For another, in the wake of the 2.7 million readers Erdely’s story attracted, it’s implausible that Drew was sitting back is his frat boy lair planning his next gang rape. This is not Silence of the Lambs we’re talking about.

I think Erdely told this story to try to look like she was being responsible and thorough, even if only after the fact. My bet is that she was probably reacting to something—post-publication phone calls from skeptics? my blog post? the reporting of T. Rees Shapiro or Hanna Rosin?—that rattled her, and she was starting to panic, and trying to confirm what she should have confirmed (or not) before the article was published.

Which is another way of saying that I don’t think Jackie is the only liar in this matter.

4) Sabrina Rubin Erdely is a terrible journalist. This harsh but inescapable truth is born out again and again throughout the Coll report, though its authors are kind enough not to connect the dots. (Not me.) There are many reasons, but the most basic one is that Erdely knew what story she wanted to write before she wrote it—and her faith in her own righteousness blinded her to everything that could have prevented this disaster.

More on the subject of Rubin Erdely’s terrible journalism later.

5) The one true thing about Jackie’s story…is that it disproves Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s story. Erdely used Jackie to argue that UVa is indifferent to allegations of sexual assault. But as we know now, the university took Jackie’s story very seriously. Jackie spoke with a dean who subsequently checked up on her multiple times; was offered counseling; was offered the opportunity of pursuing the matter through university channels or through the police; and was recommended to a rape survivor group. Then, she was taken seriously when she claimed that she’d been hit in the head with a bottle, although there was ample reason to suggest that this incident was fabricated. Does this sound like official indifference to you?

Reading between the lines, it’s hard not to to think that the officials at UVa who heard Jackie’s story didn’t believe it—and yet they took it seriously, handled it professionally, and did what they could given that their complainant refused to file a complaint. Yet they are maligned by Erdely as indifferent, uncaring.

So why did Rubin Erdely choose as her avatar of official indifference a woman whose story actually disproved her thesis? Because Jackie’s tale of gang rape was just too sexy not to lead with.

6) Sabrina Rubin Erdely is a terrible journalist, part II.

In the Columbia report, Erdely explains that if she had spoken to the three friends whom Jackie encountered on the night in question—as she should have—and the three friends contradicted Jackie’s story—as, of course, they later would—she would have instantly abandoned Jackie and gone in search of a rape victim free of those “contradictions.”

As the report puts it:

If Erdely had learned Ryan’s account that Jackie had fabricated their conversation, she would have changed course immediately, to research other UVA rape cases free of such contradictions, she said later.

(Note how the word “contradictions” is actually here a euphemism for “lies.”)

Let’s consider that for a moment, because it sounds virtuous, but isn’t. Sabrin Rubin Erdely started with a thesis and went in search of someone—and some place—that fit her thesis. She found Jackie and the University of Virginia. But, she admits, if she had discovered that Jackie was a liar, it wouldn’t have caused her to question her thesis. (To which the only response is, if that doesn’t cause you to question your thesis, what would?) Instead, she’d just go find another person who would better conform to what she already wanted to write.

And if that person proved to be a fraud as well, she’d find another…and another…

I am not a lawyer, so I don’t know if Phi Psi has a strong case against Erdely and Rolling Stone. But if the famed “actual malice” test—you are intending to defame someone—is relevant, it seems to me that Erdely has just given the fraternity some explicit evidence of such malice. Even if her “victim” was a liar, Erdely has no doubt: Frat boys are rapists.

7) There are significant discrepancies between Erdely’s recollection of the editing process and those of her editor, Sean Woods; these are not easily explained by differing interpretations or foggy memories. At least one of these people is lying.

8) As the Columbia report points out, Sabrina Rubin Erdely is a terrible journalist (part III).

Consider her outreach to the fraternity officers; she crafts emails that are deliberately vague and essentially impossible to rebut; they suggest that Erdely did not want Jackie’s story to be disproved.

“I’ve become aware of allegations of gang rape that have been made against the UVA chapter of Phi Kappa Psi,” Erdely wrote. “Can you comment on those allegations?”

That is a deeply and deliberately dishonest way to ask for comment about a specific incident; the recipient of that email couldn’t possibly comment on such a vague question. It makes me think that Erdely wanted to make it look like the fraternity was stonewalling, because that would reinforce her caricature of fraternities as sinister and predatory. And, of course, because she wanted Jackie’s story to be true; she had a lot to gain if it were.

9) Sabrina Rubin Erdely saw what she wanted to see.

All of Jackie’s dissembling—her failure to return phone calls, her evasiveness, her refusal to name names, her threat to pull out of the story—were behaviors that should have set off alarms in any good reporter. Not Erdely. To her, Jackie’s “behavior seemed very consistent with a victim of trauma.” In other words: Every single thing that Jackie did that would, to most reporters, suggest she was an unreliable source, actually confirmed to Erdely that Jackie was a reliable source. In that scenario, there is literally nothing that Jackie could do that would not then be evidence of her credibility. If she swore on a Bible that she was lying, it would only prove how “traumatized” she was.

10) Sabrina Rubin Erdely is not just a horrible reporter, she is a deeply dishonest one. According to the Coll report, two sources in the story publicly claimed that they did not say that Erdely attributes to them.

Allen W. Groves, the University dean of students, and Nicole Eramo, an assistant dean of students, separately wrote to the authors of this report that the story’s account of their actions was inaccurate.

Those claims are detailed in a footnote in the report; they should not be a footnote, because they speak to the credibility of Erdely’s reporting throughout. But they are worth acknowledging here.

Eramo’s letter to Coll is long and worth reading; this, to me, is the most telling section.

….contrary to the quote attributed to me in Rolling Stone, I have never called the University of Virginia “the rape school,” nor have I ever suggested — either professionally or privately — that parents would not “want to send their daughter” to UVA.

Those were enormously damning quotes when they were published, essential to Erdely’s argument, and at the time, they struck me as remarkable. A university employee would say these things? That didn’t feel right. I believe Eramo; at the least, Erdely misquoted her; at the worst, Erdely made up quotes.

Allen Groves wrong a long and detailed letter in which he defends himself against Erdely’s portrayal of him as glib and dismissive about the fact that UVa was being investigated by the Department of Education for Title IX violations. You should read the letter; it’s fascinating. But the most telling part is when he recommends interested parties to watch a video of the meeting that Erdely describes in a way that really does make Groves sound like an ass.

Let me tell you something: When someone who is written about as being dismissive of rape encourages people to watch a video of the incident in question, he’s probably been presented unfairly. I believe Groves.

(And by the way: A fact-checker should have watched that video and pushed back against the way Erdely characterized what Groves said and how he said it. A hundred bucks says that didn’t happen.)

10) Sabrina Rubin Erdely is a terrible journalist (part IV) who puts the blame for her mistakes on other people.

“In retrospect,” she tells Coll about not calling the alleged rapists, “I wish somebody had pushed me harder.”

No. Just…no. You’re accusing people of rape. You don’t need an editor to tell you to get their side of the story. You need a conscience.

11) Managine editor Will Dana’s lack of oversight is hard to explain—and excuse.

He tells Coll that he did not know of the holes in reporting, editing and fact-checking the piece contained when it arrived at his desk. It is incomprehensible to me that a managing editor of a national magazine could be publishing a story of this gravity—containing such horrific allegations—without being deeply involved in it every step of the way. Even if he weren’t: All you had to do is read the damn thing to know that it was ridden with problems.

And again: The lawyers must have pointed out these problems. So I’m again forced to wonder if people are being honest here. Even if Dana didn’t know about the deeply flawed editorial process when the story landed in his in-box—which he should have—he must have known about it at some point.

But, to be fair, the fact that he actually went ahead and published the story suggests that he is telling the truth—that he was completely asleep at the wheel.

12) I have seen a lot of published fretting—not just in Erdely’s statement—about whether this fiasco will discourage victims of rape from going public. This sentiment, which I have seen far more of than I have seen empathy for the people Erdely falsely accused of rape, strikes me as odd. A horrific story of rape, which, following its publication in a national magazine, had an enormous impact, is discovered to be a fraud. And the response is: Well, we should all worry about the potential impact on rape victims’ ability to come forward to speak the truth.

I have a different take: Let’s agree that if you don’t lie and claim that you were gang-raped as part of a fraternity initation ritual, you’ll be treated with respect. And if people treat you disrespectfully based simply on past frauds, then shame on them.

But in the meantime, let’s remember that the only known victims of this story are members of the Phi Psi fraternity, fraternity members in general and the University of Virginia. These individuals and institutions suffered in tangible ways; you might even say that some of the fraternity members were “traumatized.” The argument that the people we should worry about first are rape victims could actually—if I may borrow a phrase from Sabrina Rubin Erdely—re-traumatize them.

13) Rolling Stone should not have taken down Rubin Erdely’s article. Doing so doesn’t feel like an attempt to do the right thing or correct the record; it feels like an attempt to whitewash history. Kind of like when Vogue took its profile of Syria’s absolutely lovely first lady (“A Rose in the Desert“) off its website….

I’m wrapping up here, so thank for your patience, and if you can, bear with me just a little bit longer.

Remember how I said that I thought Columbia made one big, fundamental mistake?

Here it is.

The only part of Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s article closely examined by Columbia was the lede, which detailed Jackie’s incredible story of gang rape.

Columbia should, in fact, have closely examined the entirety of Erdely’s article.

Because ultimately, this article was not really about Jackie. Take a pencil, lop the Jackie story off the top, and the article could have run pretty much as it was.

The article was about the existence of rape culture and university indifference to said culture.

Jackie’s story was supposed to be proof of that, and Jackie’s story was a lie. But no one at Rolling Stone—not Erdely, not Dana, not Woods, not Wenner—seems to have considered just the possibility that maybe, must maybe, they were wrong about this.

Jackie’s lies do not in and of themselves disprove Rubin Erdely’s rape-culture thesis.

But if you examined the rest of the article with the same critical eye that you examine Jackie’s story, you’ll find that it, too, is deeply deceptive. “A Rape on Campus” is fashioned on selective presentation of material, the use of bogus or discredited statistics, quotes that are either fabricated or taken out of context, unconfirmed allegations, anonymous sources, the deliberate exclusion of evidence contrary to the author’s thesis, and material that is either fabricated or presented in a way that is so profoundly misleading it can only be evidence of incompetence or dishonesty. (The multiple verses of a UVa fight song, for example, that nobody at UVa has actually heard.)

Sabrina Rubin Erdely was not first and foremost trying to obtain justice for Jackie; that was incidental. Her intention was to prove the existence of rape culture and to shame and ostracize those whom she fervently believed participated in it.

When you know how Rubin Erdely went about her work, you are forced to conclude that she failed, that the rest of her story is as unbelievable as Jackie’s story—it’s just concocted in a slicker way. In the ongoing debate about sexual assault on campus, we must remember this.

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http://www.wsj.com/articles/full-employment-at-rolling-stone-1428447246

Full Employment at Rolling Stone
The article ‘A Rape on Campus’ was nothing more than elementary journalistic malpractice.
By Edward Kosner
April 7, 2015 6:54 p.m. ET

The self-referential little world of journalism has been discombobulated, first by Rolling Stone’s Web-busting November exposé of gang-rape at the University of Virginia and now by a 13,000-word evisceration of the article by a Columbia Graduate School of Journalism team headed by Dean Steve Coll, formerly a top editor at the Washington Post.

Jann Wenner, who founded Rolling Stone nearly a half-century ago as a rock ’n’ roll journal, commissioned the report after the magazine had to repudiate the article when its single source, a UVA junior, turned out to be, to put it kindly, a fabulist.

Mr. Wenner’s action suggested to the unsophisticated that his magazine had needed to grapple with such complex issues that only a searching analysis by the nation’s leading journalism academy could tease out the hard lessons of the fiasco. Mr. Coll inadvertently reinforced Mr. Wenner’s ingenious approach by delivering a report that was 4,000 words longer than the original article: a hammer to squash a gnat.

Journalism is plainly a fallible craft that, like any sustained human activity, is prone to imperfection. And any conscientious scrutiny of journalism designed to save it from itself is a worthy undertaking. But the whole Rolling Stone episode is a ludicrous and pretentious exercise in journalistic self-regard.
ENLARGE
Photo: Getty Images

The original article, by Sabrina Rubin Erdely, who has also written for such estimable magazines as the New Yorker and GQ, told the story of a coed, called only “Jackie,” who supposedly was gang-raped on a broken glass coffee table by seven male students at a UVA fraternity house and the inadequate response by her friends and the school.

It turned out that Jackie was essentially the only source for the whole piece, which neatly synced with widespread legitimate concern about sexual abuse of women on campus and, not coincidently, earned Rolling Stone more Internet hits than any non-celebrity article in the magazine’s long history. Jackie’s tale collapsed when the Washington Post among others actually reported her story and found it full of holes.

For all the hand-wringing, there are no deep journalistic issues involved in the article. Any decent text editor on a magazine or desk editor on a newspaper would have taken one look at the manuscript, asked a few questions of the writer, and bounced it back with a growly “check it out!”

Ms. Erdely never could find “Drew,” the alleged mastermind of the rapes, or Jackie’s friends, also given pseudonyms, nor did she ask detailed questions of the fraternity or UVA officials that might have raised red flags about the authenticity of Jackie’s account. On any professionally run publication, editors would have directed the writer to do these elementary tasks long before the article was submitted for editing, fact-checking and legal review.

This is not a case like Jayson Blair of the New York Times, Stephen Glass of the New Republic or Janet Cooke of the Washington Post, where a writer slipped phony stories past credulous editors. Nor does it deal with genuinely perplexing issues—like balancing national security against the public’s right to know, or privacy in the digital age—so popular at journalistic symposiums.

Rather, “A Rape on Campus” was nothing more than elementary journalistic malpractice committed by the writer, her text editor, the managing editor and proprietor Wenner, who, according to the Columbia report, read an early version of the piece and raised no objections. The fact-checker, who identified some problems but was waved off by her superiors, is probably the only one in the chain-of-command who did her job.

Mr. Coll’s report documents how the magazine flouted “basic” journalistic standards and suggests ways that sensitive stories like campus rape can be better covered. It properly puts the responsibility for getting the story right not on sources that for any number of reasons can prove unreliable, but on the journalists who, at a minimum, are paid to not get it wrong.

In the aftermath, incredibly enough, no Rolling Stone editor or the offending writer was fired, and the magazine proclaimed that none of its procedures needed rethinking. That is a bigger indictment of big-time journalism today than anything in Mr. Coll’s investigation.

Mr. Kosner is the former editor of Newsweek, New York magazine, Esquire and the New York Daily News, and the author of a memoir, “It’s News to Me” (Da Capo Press, 2006).
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http://www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2015/04/phi-psi-is-right-to-sue

Phi Psi is right to sue
A lawsuit would be beneficial not just for the fraternity but also for journalism
by Managing Board | Apr 08 2015 | 5 hours ago | Updated 5 hours ago

Monday, the University’s chapter of Phi Kappa Psi announced its decision to take legal action against Rolling Stone magazine. In a statement, the chapter stated it plans “to pursue all available legal action against the magazine.”

Such legal action will probably rest on a defamation or libel claim — that in its failure to properly fact-check its article “A Rape on Campus,” the magazine defamed the fraternity (the legal avenues fraternities and their members can pursue have been explored in depth). It would be hard to argue that Sabrina Rubin Erdely, in her portrayal of the University’s chapter of Phi Psi, did not defame it. And suing a magazine that has defamed you is a logical step. But more important than what damages the fraternity may be owed is why this step matters for everyone else.

After the Columbia Journalism School’s review came out Sunday, Will Dana, managing editor of Rolling Stone, announced that all those who worked on Erdely’s piece would continue to work for Rolling Stone — including Erdely herself. Rolling Stone is not facing serious consequences in the aftermath of its egregiously bad reporting — as far as we know, its subscriptions and page views have not fallen; no individuals are being held accountable; and, though the Columbia Journalism School’s review is fairly damning, it is hard to know whether the magazine’s reputation will suffer long-term damage.

This is not to say the magazine cannot ever again be treated as a reputable source of news. But the failures of this article are extreme. The most disheartening failure is that survivors of sexual assault may fear reporting or that their stories will be met with disbelief (a problem that predates this article but was exacerbated by it).

After Rolling Stone failed its readers so miserably, it must be clear both to that magazine and to all credible news sources how to approach reporting on sexual assault — something for which the Columbia Journalism review provides guidelines. But Chris Cillizza of The Washington Post excellently sums up why a lack of accountability for Rolling Stone is, in his words, “terrible for journalism.” After seeing no accountability in the response to Rolling Stone’s failure, why would readers trust the journalists reporting on these issues at all?

For journalism, proper reporting on sexual assault and for sexual assault survivors themselves, Rolling Stone needs to see consequences beyond a comprehensive review of its mistakes. This brings us back to Phi Psi’s lawsuit. The lawsuit is appropriate for what the fraternity went through as a result of this article — but it also appears to be one of the only ways left to hold this magazine accountable.

Some may worry that a lawsuit would only create more fear for sexual assault survivors when coming forward with their stories — that not only will these stories be met with disbelief, but they could also be met with legal ramifications. But the legal ramifications here are for Rolling Stone, not Jackie; and anything that can reinforce proper journalistic standards will, in the long run, be better for everyone. If other news media put out stories similar to “A Rape on Campus,” it is in everyone’s best interest for those stories to be correct. And if news media see possible litigation as a result of incorrect stories, there is a much higher likelihood they will avoid the mistakes Rolling Stone made.

For Phi Psi, this lawsuit is right because of the damages the fraternity sustained. But it is right more generally because of the need for journalistic accountability in this situation.
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Bradley, Dr. Anderson, and Kosner's editorials all are important and should be required reading - not just for the public at large but for journalism school students and their professors, university administrators, and members of the Congress and administration officials. There is much that they wrote that should be taken to heart....however, there is one thing that I think is still taken as a matter of faith/truism that needs to be dissected - this is the assertion that the attention paid to false rapes deters women who have been raped from coming forward.

Where are the statistics for such an assertion? Are they a part of the same trope that one in four college women are victims of rape? Assuming for a moment that we equate rape with assault (this is the only way that it would seem one even comes even close to approaching that one in four number AND that would be defining assault in an extremely loose way) can there not be other, more compelling reasons why a woman would not go to the authorities?
I can give one - based on personal experience and one that, in talking with others, have had something somewhat similar occur. Not long after I was married, I was in the laundry basement facilities in the Canadian high rise (student housing) where my husband and I lived. It was in the early afternoon - my favorite time for doing the laundry because it was quiet and I had my pick of machines (some were not as good as others). I would bring a book and read while my laundry was doing its thing - sitting on top of one of the machines as there were no seats available and sitting on the floor was disgusting to contemplate. That particular day, I noticed that someone else (a twenties something man - but then again, I have never been particularly good about guessing someone's age) came in - I said hello and went back to my book. The next thing I knew he had whipped out his penis and was trying to ejaculate on me - I was afraid to look at him - I remember telling him to leave me alone - I was fearful of what might happen - I could not easily get down from the machine (he was blocking my way); he was taller than I was (most people are) and besides due to a congenital defect for which I had had major surgery - I could not (and still cannot) run - therefore, my options were extremely limited - I thought if I totally ignore what is happening - perhaps he would just leave - I did not consider that my indifference might only inflame him. I just kept my eyes glued to the passage of history I was reading - reading the same sentence over and over (I have never picked up that book again - a book by Golo Mann).Eventually, after many nasty comments on his part, followed by urinating all over me) he left. It was disgusting, yes. Frightening, even more so. But, I did not go to the authorities. Why - because I could not describe the person at all other than he was young, tall, and had dark hair. How many people might fit that description? This was the era before surveillance cameras. I had no fear of going to the authorities but what could I tell them? I knew that even if the authorities had somehow been able to find the person I would never be able to identify him - not ever. Did it bother me that this person was possibly attacking others? Yes. But there was little I could do. What I did fear is that I might be pushed to blame someone (yes, that possibly be the person) who was innocent.
This happened, as I said, many years ago. Still today I try never to be in a place by myself where I cannot easily exit. I do not engage people in conversation that I do not know (my friends tell me that many think I am unfriendly because of that but so be it) and do not even pass greetings with people that I might casually encounter. But my point is this, a reluctance to go to authorities can have many reasons.
Edited by cks, Apr 8 2015, 07:14 AM.
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Bill Anderson
Apr 7 2015, 09:28 PM
...Likewise, for all of the “we learned our lesson this time” nonsense we hear time and again, as long as journalists continue to embrace the false “one-in-four” claims regarding campus rapes, we are going to get stories like what RS gave us last November. To be honest, journalists will not be able to help themselves the next time a Too Good To Be True story stands in front of them. They will give into the ideology, and sooner or later, there will be no investigation because ideological blindness will ensure that readers are expected to embrace falsehoods and no investigation will be deemed necessary because Progressive ideology demands that people believe that which is unbelievable.

:bill:
I think we're past the "sooner."
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Joan Foster

This is a moment to be seized...but it won't be. Every single piece of Erdely's Journalistic work should be gone over to the tiniest detail. Erdely, Cohan, and the vast majority of these types of "investigative authors and journalists" have been employing the same tactics for years...make money by smearing those that few wish to defend. They have become do emboldened by the success of their template that they have gotten reckless. Hence, Cohan believed he had the mojo to revictimize the victims of the Lacrosse Hoax and Erdely et al. Had no worries about (probably) defying their legal dept in pushing Jackie's lies.

So another great Hoax has crumbled to now great publicity. The Left has been forced to call out one of its one...burn her fingers a bit. But it's the Template, the modus operandus that needs to be VERY PUBLICLY exposed and dissected.

You can't smash one wasp and think you have no more problems. This is an infestation in our media, publishing world. But, I fear that few will seize on it. Fox should run a one hour special on this time of reporting in PRIME TIME. Will they? The Wall Street Journal should make it a lead story...with segments to follow day after day. It's that big. No problem.

What a waste to let another Leftist Hoax just slide away without addressing the bigger, broader issue. But that would require trying to take down the wasp nests in academia....and most would prefer just to sit around with a fly swatter and make a kill here and there.

Pitiful.

My opinion only and all that.
Edited by Joan Foster, Apr 8 2015, 08:52 AM.
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kbp

The single task in front of many "investigative authors and journalists" is to find a person that is the source for their narrative.
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Walt-in-Durham

kbp
Apr 8 2015, 07:48 AM
The single task in front of many "investigative authors and journalists" is to find a person that is the source for their narrative.
Ding-Ding-Ding, Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a winner!
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Quasimodo

Quote:
 
Here’s why: With a story this sensitive, good libel lawyers—and I assume Rolling Stone has very good lawyers—are, or should be, very much in the mix. On sensitive stories, they become something akin to editors with a law degree. You simply could not publish such an accusatory article without having it very heavily lawyered; there is, or ought to be, a lot of discussion between the editor-in-chief and the magazine’s libel lawyer(s). That Rolling Stone won’t disclose their lawyers’ advice suggests that the magazine did not take it, or did the least amount possible to satisfy legal concerns. After all, if the lawyers argued that the magazine had done excellent work and was on safe ground publishing the story, disclosing that information would likely have discouraged any potential lawsuits—like the one Phi Psi is now pursuing against the magazine.


And whom did Newsweek consult before it ran a cover with mug shots?

(Did it do so because, for practical purposes, it knew that nobody could sue Newsweek and "win" (anything other
than a paltry sum and a notice an inch long on the back page that Newsweek was sorry if anyone was harmed)?



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Quasimodo

Quote:
 
10) Sabrina Rubin Erdely is a terrible journalist (part IV) who puts the blame for her mistakes on other people.

“In retrospect,” she tells Coll about not calling the alleged rapists, “I wish somebody had pushed me harder.”

No. Just…no. You’re accusing people of rape. You don’t need an editor to tell you to get their side of the story. You need a conscience.


RE: the coverage of the Duke case... no comment...


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Quasimodo

Quote:
 
But in the meantime, let’s remember that the only known victims of this story are members of the Phi Psi fraternity, fraternity members in general and the University of Virginia. These individuals and institutions suffered in tangible ways; you might even say that some of the fraternity members were “traumatized.” The argument that the people we should worry about first are rape victims could actually—if I may borrow a phrase from Sabrina Rubin Erdely—re-traumatize them.


I'm sorry, Mr. Dreyfus, for the "little inconvenience" you suffered; but really, the important issue we need to keep our focus
on is the possibility of spies in the army.

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Payback
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This will go on and on until false accusations are called false accusations and the false accusers are prosecuted and punished--big fines, jail time.

Punishing false accusers will deter other potential false accusers. I don't see that it will deter real rape victims from reporting what happened to them.
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abb
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http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/few-if-any-consequences-for-those-involved-in-perpetuating-rape-hoaxes/article/2562668

Beltway Confidential: Law
Few, if any, consequences for those involved in perpetuating rape hoaxes
By Ashe Schow | April 7, 2015 | 5:43 pm

When a sensational rape story is found to be fraudulent, there are few ramifications for those who perpetuated the hoax in the first place.

To take the most recent example, no one is getting fired at Rolling Stone for its fraudulent article about a brutal gang rape at the University of Virginia. The fact-checkers who failed to raise sufficient concerns about the lack of corroborating evidence, the editors who removed crucial details that would have made the article's weaknesses clear, and the author who sought a sensational story to fit an agenda will all keep their jobs.

And beyond those at RS who allowed the hoax to go forward, those who helped spread the story once it was published faced no consequences either. U.Va. president Teresa Sullivan offered no apology for her role in treating Phi Kappa Psi, the fraternity accused in the RS article, as guilty from the start. Similarly, there appears to be no investigation to discover the vandals who smashed windows and spray-painted hateful messages at the fraternity house.

Jackie, the source of the false article, still has her privileged status as a victim, despite there being no evidence that she is the victim of anything.

The same was true of the Duke lacrosse hoax nearly a decade ago. Richard Brodhead is still the president of the university. Wendy Murphy, who spread lie after lie about the case on television throughout the ordeal, is still being asked for her opinion (in fact she was quoted in the now-retracted Rolling Stone article — go figure). The activists and professors who smeared the lacrosse players were never held accountable.

At least with Duke, the prosecutor who targeted the lacrosse players to advance his own personal ambitions was disbarred. The police officer who helped railroad the students was merely reassigned. (He retired in 2008 and committed suicide in 2014, although it is unclear whether his role in the hoax had anything to do with his death.) The accuser, Crystal Mangum, faced no repercussions for filing a false report, and in fact went on to write a book. But in an unrelated twist, she is now serving a prison sentence for second-degree murder.

In the case of Tawana Brawley — arguably the most famous rape hoax in modern U.S. history — she eluded paying defamation damages for 25 years. Al Sharpton, who embraced and lied about that case, has his own show on MSNBC today. Although he was ordered to pay damages as well, he refused for years before his friends finally paid his debt for him.

Meanwhile, in each of these cases, those accused in the initial hoax suffered far greater punishments than the liars who created the hoax. Phi Kappa Psi had their house vandalized and reputation greatly tarnished by the media without receiving an apology from anyone. (They're now suing.)

The Duke lacrosse students went on trial and had their names and faces plastered all over the country as rapists. To this day their names are synonymous with the rape hoax. In the end, they received an undisclosed amount in damages — seven years after the ordeal. Their coach, Mike Pressler, was forced to resign amid the hoax. He now coaches lacrosse at Bryant University.

Steven Pagones, the former assistant district attorney accused of raping Tawana Brawley, had his career and marriage destroyed by the false allegations brought against him.

Even when rape hoaxes are exposed, political correctness and a demand to adhere to the ultimate "rape culture" narrative keeps false accusers insulated while the wrongly accused suffer.
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abb
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http://www.avoiceformalestudents.com/journalism-phi-kappa-psi-uva-rape-hoax-sabrina-erdely-jackie-coakley-rolling-stone-feminism-columbia-virginia-university-school/

The UVA rape hoax: aftermath and lessons for us all

Posted by: Jonathan Taylor
April 8, 2015

I hope many of us are familiar with what is now called The UVA Rape Hoax. Back in November, a “journalist” at Rolling Stone named Sabrina Rubin Erdely published an account of a woman named “Jackie” who was allegedly gang-raped at a Phi Kappa Psi frat house. As we pointed out (among other things) in December 2014, the rhetoric with which Erdely described frats was so caricatured that it bordered on being a transparent farce.

Erdely’s account has since been discredited in its entirety. More than being merely “baseless,” virtually every claim made by “Jackie” and chronicled by Erdely in Rolling Stone has been objectively proven false. After a four-month investigation, Charlottesville police declared they had “exhausted all investigative leads” and that there is “no substantive basis to support the account alleged in the Rolling Stone article.”

As the final nail in the coffin, The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism released a scathing 13,000-word report claiming that

Rolling Stone‘s repudiation of the main narrative in “A Rape on Campus” is a story of journalistic failure that was avoidable. The failure encompassed reporting, editing, editorial supervision and fact-checking. The magazine set aside or rationalized as unnecessary essential practices of reporting that, if pursued, would likely have led the magazine’s editors to reconsider publishing Jackie’s narrative so prominently, if at all. The published story glossed over the gaps in the magazine’s reporting by using pseudonyms and by failing to state where important information had come from.

Sabrina Erdely issued an “apology” on April 5, 2015 to “Rolling Stone’s readers, to my Rolling Stone editors and colleagues, to the U.V.A. community, and to any victims of sexual assault who may feel fearful as a result of my article.” She made no apologies to the falsely accused young men – an apology that is deeply owed, and the omission of which is a telltale sign of the lack of moral character that underpinned and motivated her extreme lack of professionalism.
uva-university-virginia-rape-case-jackie-coakley-sabrina-rubin-erdley-rolling-stone-false-rape

The vandalized Phi Kappa Psi fraternity

Rolling Stone, however, has decided not to fire Erdely. They have also not declared that they will make any policy changes in light of what they have “learned.” As one commenter on Reddit put it, “No one fired, censured, suspended, no pay checks docked, delayed, or denied, not even to pay for the broken windows at the frat house.”

Nor did the avalanching evidence that Erdely’s story was a massive farce stop “social justice warriors” – Feminists being prominent among them – from continuing their deranged crusade to destroy the reputations and livelihoods of the young men at Phi Kappa Psi, and to use the occasion as an excuse to demonize men and masculinity in general, and college men in particular. These Feminists held (and still hold) incredible influence in the media and even the legal system, and to this day they have neither retracted their positions nor apologized for their unvarnished bigotry.

Now Phi Kappa Psi plans to sue Rolling Stone, and I hope they clean them out. An example needs to be made out of people who do this kind of thing. If Rolling Stone wants to shelter the likes of Sabrina Erdely and give a free pass to the kind of prejudice she foments, they deserve to go down with her.

Feminists are still clinging to their guns, however. For all of their claims of “but Feminism helps men too” none of them have dissented with the likes of Jessica Valenti and other Feminist media mobsters by putting forth the idea that maybe – just maybe – assuming guilt on the basis of sex is the exact opposite of what equality is about. These Feminists continue to publish articles about how “something” must still have happened.

Someone should let them know that April fools was a week ago.

The question now becomes: how can we take this catastrophic failure of social justice and turn it into something positive? How can we take the regressive, stone-age mentality of Feminists & Friends, and make progress toward something that resembles real equality?

First and foremost, when it comes to issues like this, we must create a culture of compassion for the wrongly accused. We also must not shy away from acknowledging the fact that when it comes to rape, 99% of the wrongly accused are men. And we must familiarize ourselves with their experiences and hear them out in their own light.

Men whose are falsely accused of rape often have their reputations destroyed. Their livelihood is turned to shambles. Their friends are alienated or turned against them. Their families fractured. Their confidence and sense of security are shattered. They are falsely imprisoned for months if not years, where ironically they stand a greater likelihood of actually being raped. They suffer from vigilante attacks and vandalism. And they experience suicidal thoughts and tendencies borderline on suicidal tendencies.

In short, they experience every form of suffering that victims of rape experience. And that means we have every reason to say that false rape accusations can be just as harmful as rape itself, and victims of false rape accusations deserve our compassion, attention, protection, and care.
"Social justice warriors" at Duke University, calling for sexual violence against the three falsely accused lacrosse members

“Social justice warriors” at Duke University, calling for sexual violence against the three falsely accused lacrosse members

It is beyond obvious by now that Feminism cannot create this culture of empathy for the wrongly accused. Far from it; overwhelming evidence strongly confirms that their modus operandi is to demonize the wrongly accused simply for existing in the first place. They have not learned anything since the Duke lacrosse rape hoax, the Bryan Banks case, the Hofstra rape hoax, the Meg Lanker-Simons rape threat hoax, or any of the other many rape hoaxes that have come to light in recent years.

And that brings us to one of the most important lessons, one that non-Feminists need to learn as well: if we have not learned by now that Feminists will never learn from their mistakes, I fear we have learned very little indeed. They will continue – as they always have – to destroy the lives of innocent men simply for being accused, and will not stop until the power to do so has been seized from their grasp, and until they are effectively marginalized from the discussion on gender issues.

Enough of the senseless deflections of “but Feminism is about equality,” “not all Feminists are like that,” and so forth. The actions of these Feminists speak far louder than such fairy-tale wants and wishes of what Feminism would be, could be, or should be.

When it comes to what Feminism is in the real word, this is what Feminism looks like, and it will never change. It is irredeemably corrupt, and it’s time to toss it into the rubbish heap alongside other historical bigotries and failed ideologies.

And if you need pictures to remind you, just take a look at the key AVFMS page “The Face of Misandry in Academia” (excerpts below). This is what Feminism looks like:
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MikeZPU

cks: sorry that you had to deal with such a hideous creature.

You make a really good point questioning on what basis do they
claim that focussing on false rape cases deters real rape victims
from coming forward.

IMHO The deference being shown to "Jackie" is plain wrong.

I was especially appalled by Chief of Police Longo who wasted a
lot of police resources on investigating a false rape accusation
and yet still talked as if Jackie was a victim.

In the best case scenario, she has mental health issues and
needs to seek treatment. But she mainly seems to be a
pathological liar.
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