| UVA Rape Story Collapses; Duke Lacrosse Redux | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 5 2014, 01:45 PM (60,497 Views) | |
| Mason | Dec 5 2014, 10:35 PM Post #91 |
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Parts unknown
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. Mike, she cut up that reporting with major editing. She edited out the things that don't look good in retrospect, and she lied. I have Tivoed recordings. After Cooper's announcement, hell Geraldo attacked Nifong. Edited by Mason, Dec 5 2014, 10:36 PM.
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| Payback | Dec 5 2014, 11:37 PM Post #92 |
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Teresa Sullivan is a systemic problem that should be rooted out. |
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| MikeZPU | Dec 6 2014, 12:23 AM Post #93 |
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Oh, interesting. She did a good job of making her reporting look good. Selective editing can make hindsight be 20/20 ![]() Why are people so afraid to call a false rape accuser a liar? Richard Bradley has a blog with details about how the author of the Rolling Stone article shopped around different universities to get the story she wanted. Edited by MikeZPU, Dec 6 2014, 12:23 AM.
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| MikeZPU | Dec 6 2014, 12:25 AM Post #94 |
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http://www.richardbradley.net/shotsinthedark/ Very good blog about the Rolling Stone story. You have to scroll down for several good posts. |
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| MikeZPU | Dec 6 2014, 12:42 AM Post #95 |
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Richard Brodhead should travel to UVA to visit with Sullivan. Brodhead embracing Sullivan with a hug would be a Time Magazine Cover of the Year. |
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| abb | Dec 6 2014, 05:25 AM Post #96 |
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http://augustafreepress.com/get-know-sabrina-rubin-erdely-reporter-wrote-rolling-stone-uva-hit-piece/ Get to know Sabrina Rubin Erdely: The reporter who wrote the Rolling Stone UVA hit piece Published Saturday, Dec. 6, 2014, 1:23 am Filed under Chris Graham • News Columns • Spotlight Join AFP's 112,000 followers on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube Connect with AFP editor Chris Graham on LinkedIn News tips, press releases, letters to the editor: augustafreepress2@gmail.com For advertising inquiries, contact us at freepress@ntelos.net. newspaperSabrina Rubin Erdely staked her reputation, the reputation of the well-respected national magazine that she wrote for and a top national university on the word of an emotional young woman who it now appears wanted to have nothing to do with being at the center of a media firestorm. So who is this Sabrina Rubin Erdely? A two-time National Magazine Award nominee, for starters. If that doesn’t impress you, think two-time nominee for the writer’s equivalent of an Academy Award. A National Magazine Award is just short of Pulitzer in the journalism trade. University lecturer – and again, nothing insignificant here, teaching courses at the prestigious University of Pennsylvania and at Temple University. She has a nice, clean-looking website with a 3/10 Google PageRank at www.SabrinaErdely.com, which lists her writing assignments with the likes of The New Yorker, GQ and Mother Jones. What we get here is: Sabrina Rubin Erdely has serious writing chops. The Washington Post, in a Nov. 30 puff piece about her Rolling Stone article on the rape culture at UVA, gave background on how she ended up writing the story. Beginning back in June, according to the Post, she put out feelers to people at schools including Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Penn (her alma mater) before settling on UVA. Interesting looking back at the Post puffer to one detail in that reporting: the writer of that piece noted how remarkable it was that no one had reported on the central part of Erdely’s piece, the alleged gang rape of a first-year student given the name Jackie for the sake of reporting the story at a frat party in 2012 that has now come into serious doubt to the point that Rolling Stone has backed away from the story and reporting by Erdely because of basic errors by the accomplished writer. We now know that Erdely didn’t talk to the alleged perpetrators of the gang rape, and can surmise that she didn’t even know the identities of those alleged to have been involved, with the Post reporting today that the alleged victim has just recently revealed the name of the purported ringleader of the assault, and that even her closest friends now have doubts about him and about Jackie’s account. But back on Nov. 30, the Post was retelling what Erdely was telling them about her “weeks corroborating details of Jackie’s account,” during which time neither Erdely nor anyone at Rolling Stone, editors up the chain of command or lawyers involved in the vetting of the story, felt it was necessary to seek out details like whether or not there was a party at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity the weekend of the alleged incident, or whether there was a young man by the name that Jackie had identified to Erdely at the fraternity. Today, the Post is able to tell us that reporters there have been able to track down the student identified by Jackie as being the ringleader of her assault, and that he denies being a member of the fraternity, going on a date with Jackie or even having met her. The Post also tells us that Jackie now feels that she was bullied into participating in the story by Erdely, who has yet to respond to any of the recent developments in regard to the story, after riding the wave of media love in the days following publication. It’s unfathomable that someone with Erdely’s credentials and experience could make the basic mistakes that she did here in her reporting on UVA. Not checking sources, not making sure that dates lined up, writing in lurid detail about events that came down to the word of a single source, sloppy isn’t the word for this effort, or lack of effort. Hubris, perhaps, fits better. You don’t get the assignments and award noms that Erdely has on her resume without having a teensy bit of self-confidence. Maybe she assumed that readers would be so enamored with her detailed account of the incident and what she felt it had to say about the culture of violence at UVA that the focus after publication would be on what the university needed to do to respond and not on whether or not she had the basic facts right. Could be a lesson that she might be able to impart to her students at Penn and Temple, assuming she survives the disgrace of being the writer who slut-shamed the next several years of rape victims out of being able to seek justice and gets to at least keep the teaching gigs. The facts do matter, even if the narrative that you’re trying to construct doesn’t fit neatly around them. - Column by Chris Graham |
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| abb | Dec 6 2014, 05:26 AM Post #97 |
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http://www.roanoke.com/news/virginia/in-wake-of-discrepencies-some-stand-by-jackie/article_27245894-7720-5b46-9dd0-00ebdf4abb11.html In wake of 'discrepencies,' some stand by Jackie Nate Delesline and Derek Quizon | The (Charlottesville) Daily Progress | Posted: Friday, December 5, 2014 11:40 pm CHARLOTESVILLE — In the aftermath of the latest storm at the University of Virginia, some stood by Jackie. “What happened to her was so horrifying that I am not surprised she doesn’t remember the exact details,” Lyra Bartell, who graduated from UVa in May, told a crowd of more than 100 people at a vigil Friday night at the McIntire Amphitheatre. The planned event for rape and domestic violence victims followed Rolling Stone’s second blockbuster revelation in roughly two weeks. The magazine’s managing editor posted a letter to readers Friday casting doubt on a story the magazine published Nov. 19 depicting a woman named Jackie being raped by seven men in an upstairs room at UVa’s Phi Kappa Psi house. “In the face of new information,” Will Dana wrote, “there now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie’s account, and we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced.” Speakers at the vigil — titled “Stand up Against Rape Culture” and organized by Charlottesville High School students — spoke in support of Jackie, saying it’s important for people to stay focused on the issue of campus sexual assault. Maria DeHart, a first-year UVa student, said the story might not have demonstrated good journalism, but that’s beside the point. “What we want to do is think about the bigger picture,” DeHart said. “We have to get to the root of the problem.” After Rolling Stone posted Dana’s letter, the reaction on Grounds — the center of protests in the wake of the story’s release — was largely subdued. Many students approached for comment declined. In front of Peabody Hall, a site that became a flashpoint when sexual assault advocates said they caught a small group of people tearing down notes of encouragement from sexual assault survivors and protesters, a group of about six people who identified themselves as student guides declined to comment. So, too, did a resident of the Lawn who happened to have his door open. He said he was associated with a fraternity. A short distance away, a group of six students stood under the gray skies near the Rotunda, heads bowed as construction noise on the iconic building pierced the chilly air. “We are praying for our university,” said Baylee Molloy, a UVa graduate student and member of CRU, a college-oriented Christian fellowship “I think going forward, the most important thing to us is to continue to be in prayer for our university and that God’s light would be shown in this time of darkness.” At Phi Kappa Psi, the fraternity house where Jackie said the gang rape took place in September 2012, no-trespassing signs were posted in the windows. The house’s large pillars were adorned with Christmas decorations. On the side of the building, which sits within sight of the Rotunda and across Madison Bowl from UVa President Teresa A. Sullivan’s office, several windows were still boarded up after being shattered by vandals following the story’s release. “It’s been like hell just living under these accusations for the past two weeks,” said Ben Warthen, a Richmond attorney and Phi Psi alum who worked with the fraternity after learning of the allegations. Revelations about what Rolling Stone called “discrepancies” in Jackie’s account should not tamp down the outrage over what victims’ advocates describe as a rape culture on Grounds, said Susan Fraiman, a UVa English professor who helped lead a faculty protest against sexual assault. “We don’t need Rolling Stone to tell us about the prevalence of sexual assault on campus,” Fraiman said. “We know it’s a problem, and that’s why the mobilization brought about by this needs to keep moving forward.” Fraiman said about 200 faculty members signed a letter asking Sullivan to ensure the findings of an outside law firm brought in to investigate the university’s handling of sexual assaults would be made public. Sullivan said she could not make any commitment about the release of firm’s final report, Fraiman said. “It was unsatisfying,” Fraiman said of Sullivan’s response. Sullivan did not respond Friday to questions about the transparency of the investigation, or its findings. Some students remained stunned over the allegations. “A lot of people were just really just shocked … that something that horrific could have happened,” Corey Schmidt, a second-year student, said outside Alderman Library. Sexual assault, Schmidt said, “certainly seems like a problem across all college campuses, not just UVa.” Asked if the news might cause people to doubt the accounts of sexual assault victims in the future, Schmidt said, “I certainly hope not. Over the next few days, the discussion will be all about Jackie’s story, but the issue is bigger, said Ivy Geilker, a Charlottesville High School senior and head of the organization We Are the Line, which helped to organize Friday’s vigil with Amnesty International. “The goal of tonight’s event is not to get retribution for one girl,” she said. “It’s to create awareness of a problem.” |
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| abb | Dec 6 2014, 05:28 AM Post #98 |
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http://dailycaller.com/2014/12/05/disgraced-rolling-stone-reporters-tweets-come-back-to-haunt-her/ Disgraced Rolling Stone Reporter’s Tweets Come Back To Haunt Her Chuck Ross 10:46 PM 12/05/2014 University of Virginia students walk to campus past the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va., Monday, Nov. 24, 2014. The university has suspended activities at all campus fraternal organizations amid an investigation into a published report in which a student described being sexually assaulted by seven men in 2012 at the Phi Kappa Psi house. (AP Photo/Steve Helber) Before Rolling Stone apologized for publishing her blockbuster article about a gruesome gang rape at the University of Virginia, Sabrina Rubin Erdely used to pretend on Twitter that she was an ethical journalist. In some of her best Twitter takes, she showed a penchant for frowning upon the acts of other journalists’ faux pas while acting as if she was a staunch adherent to journalistic Gospel. In a Rolling Stone article published last month, Erdely reported the story of a woman named Jackie who said she was brutally raped by seven UVA fraternity members in 2012. But as The Washington Post reported Friday, major holes have appeared in Jackie’s story. And Erdely’s reporting methods have been called into question. (RELATED: UVA Gang Rape Story Falls To Pieces) One criticism that has been leveled against Erdely is that she has gone to great lengths to hide exactly how she investigated Jackie’s claims. She’s been accused of playing her investigative methods too close to her vest by avoiding direct questions about how she vetted Jackie’s claims. But back in September, in the same time period she was reporting on the UVA story, Erdely complained about a source cancelling an interview which she claimed was an act of secrecy. Nothing says “lack of transparency” quite like a PR person who cancels an interview when you are at the airport, en route to said interview. 5 Alternative Sweeteners You Think You Already Know (And 1 You May Not)American College of Cardiology Gwen Stefani's Changing LooksInStyle.com 15 New Cars To Avoid At All CostsFORBES by Taboola Sponsored Links — Sabrina Rubin Erdely (@SabrinaRErdely) September 11, 2014 Also in September, Erdely indicated that her story idea file was possibly frightening. No telling how many fraudulent leads it contained. Looking through my story idea file = unsettling peek into my own psyche — Sabrina Rubin Erdely (@SabrinaRErdely) September 5, 2014 Earlier this year, during a kerfuffle involving a story published at Grantland, a sports website, Erdely bristled at editor Bill Simmons’ handling of the blowback to the piece — which exposed a transsexual woman named Dr. V who committed suicide, allegedly after being exposed by the reporter for perpetuating a scheme involving golf club technology. While Erdely has been stone silent since Jackie’s story has been called into question, Rolling Stone has issued an apology that some have claimed unfairly blamed Jackie for the magazine’s failures. Find myself wishing @BillSimmons apology was anywhere near as powerful as this, by @ChristinaKahrl http://t.co/SxSQZkTuCX — Sabrina Rubin Erdely (@SabrinaRErdely) January 21, 2014 Erdely also touched on an issue that came to light in her UVA story. In its expose on Friday, The Washington Post reported that Erdely agreed to allow Jackie to fact-check her article before publication. She also agreed to now name the men she claimed raped her. Erdely also appears not to have even tried to contact the men, at Jackie’s request. .@NorthwoodsDan You raise a good point. As a reporter, be careful making promises to sources, because once made, you must keep them. — Sabrina Rubin Erdely (@SabrinaRErdely) January 19, 2014 Erdely also previously claimed to be concerned about the well-being of her sources. That contradicts claims now being made by Jackie that Erdely pressured her to tell her tale of gang rape. Jackie told The Post that when she said that she didn’t want her story to be told in Rolling Stone, that Erdely responded that the story was going to run no matter what. What I AM saying is that when a reporter deals with someone vulnerable, you take pains to inflict as little harm as possible. — Sabrina Rubin Erdely (@SabrinaRErdely) January 18, 2014 Erdely also indicted that she was a thorough reporter, one who fully vets her sources. That claim seems mere posturing now that it has been documented that Erdely failed to do even the most basic research on Jackie or on the men that she accused of raping her. Look, I’ve written about my share of con artists. Running down their lies is important. But this turned into something else. — Sabrina Rubin Erdely (@SabrinaRErdely) January 18, 2014 Erdely also appeared to take pleasure in disgraced reporter Stephen Glass’ sorry attempt to get his California law license. In the 1990s, Glass was found to have fabricated numerous stories he wrote for The New Republic. He is a former colleague of Erdely’s. He has also reported for Rolling Stone. Stephen Glass’ argument proving his rehabilitation boiled down to: “But I haven’t betrayed the public trust in a WHILE!” — Sabrina Rubin Erdely (@SabrinaRErdely) November 7, 2013 And showing that she knows how to pick ‘em, Erdely expressed adoration for Russell Brand, the wacky British comedian whose leftist ramblings are generally incoherent. I’ve unexpectedly come to adore @rustyrockets. http://t.co/T8umvHrhB7 — Sabrina Rubin Erdely (@SabrinaRErdely) October 24, 2013 |
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| abb | Dec 6 2014, 05:30 AM Post #99 |
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http://www.nationalreview.com/article/394111/uva-gang-rape-wasnt-jonah-goldberg December 6, 2014 3:00 AM The UVA Gang Rape that Wasn’t Rolling Stone should be held accountable for its false accusations against UVA’s Phi Kappa Psi chapter. By Jonah Goldberg EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is Jonah Goldberg’s (updated) weekly “news”letter, the G-File. Subscribe here to get the G-File delivered to your inbox on Fridays. Dear Reader, When I wrote the “news”letter below, the news had not broken yet that Rolling Stone — and really the Washington Post — had confirmed what I believed all along: This story was bogus. My only regret is that I didn’t write the column a week earlier like I wanted. My immediate reaction to the story was “this is bull****.” But I didn’t want to write that without at least making some phone calls. Anyway, congrats to Richard Bradley and Robert Soave for beating me to the punch. And congratulations to Phi Kappa Psi; usually it takes a little longer to be vindicated, when it happens at all. I very much hope you sue Rolling Stone the way the Mongol Hordes attacked their enemies. You see, I’m not a huge fan of fraternities, but I have the quaint view that when a major national publication falsely accuses an institution of being an organized criminal organization that specializes in ritual gang rape, they should be held accountable. It isn’t like Rolling Stone criticized a statistical hockey stick — if you know what I’m saying — they reported (and defended their reporting) to the whole world that this fraternity is an institutional rape gang. Anyway, I was going to revise this G-File to reflect the news. But frankly I think it holds up just fine as it is, so long as you keep in mind that I wrote before my very deeply held suspicion was confirmed. Meanwhile, my immediate response to the news is here. I’ll save further thoughts for later. *** Dear Reader (Unless you find the “Dear” part offensive. Feel free to insert “Yo”), Let’s skip the introductory jocularity and jump right into it. I promise there will be inappropriate jocularity at the end. So I am having a hard time getting my head around something. All week people have been calling me a “rape apologist” and “pro-rape.” I’m being constantly informed that I don’t understand “rape culture.” These often hysterical accusations tend to come from people who seem to understand rape culture the same way some people understand the geopolitics of Westeros or Middle Earth: They’ve studied it, they know every detail about it, they just seem to have forgotten it doesn’t exist. Now, hold on. I certainly believe rape happens. And I definitely believe we have cultural problems that lead to date rape and other drunken barbarisms and sober atrocities. But the term “rape culture” suggests that there is a large and obvious belief system that condones and enables rape as an end in itself in America. This simply strikes me as an elaborate political lie intended to strengthen the hand of activists. There’s definitely lots that is wrong with our culture, particularly youth culture and specifically campus culture. Sybaritic, crapulent, hedonistic, decadent, bacchanalian: choose your adjectives. What is most remarkable about our problems is that they seem to take people by surprise. For instance, it would be commonsense to our grandmothers that some drunk men will do bad things, particularly in a moral vacuum, and that women should take that into account. I constantly hear that instead of lecturing women about their behavior we should teach men not to rape. I totally, completely, 100 percent agree that we should teach men not to rape. The problem is we do that. A lot. Maybe we should do it more. We also teach people not to murder — another heinous crime. But murders happen too. That’s why we advise our kids to steer clear of certain neighborhoods at certain times and avoid certain behaviors. I’m not “pro-murder” if I tell my kid not to walk through the park at night and flash money around any more than I am pro-rape if I give her similar advice. Tax Gallantry, Get Less Gallantry Of course, the problem is that feminists want to expunge any notion that women are gentler and fairer. This requires declaring war on chivalric standards for male conduct, which were once a great bulwark against caddish and rapacious behavior. Take away the notion that men should be protective of women and they will — surprise! — be less protective of women. None of this means we’d all be better off with women in corsets on fainting couches. (I like strong, assertive women so much I married one. I’m also the son of one, and I’m trying to raise another.) But somehow feminists have gotten themselves into the position of adopting the adolescent male’s fantasy of consequence-and-obligation-free sex as an ideal for women. Uncivilized and morally uneducated men have, for millennia, wanted to treat women like sluts. And now feminists have embraced the word as a badge of honor. Call me an old-fogey, but I think that’s weird. What Rape Epidemic? But I digress. As Roman Polanski said, let’s get back to the rape stuff. A lot of implausible things have to be true for rape culture to be the problem feminists claim it is. First, the statistics on forcible rape have to be really out of whack. Forcible rapes according to the FBI are heading towards a 40-year low. So there must be a lot of rapes going on that are not captured in those statistics. And there surely are. Some women understandably but lamentably don’t come forward. But for a “rape epidemic” and a “rape crisis,” never mind a “rape culture,” to exist there’d have to be more stigma against coming forward today than there was in the past. Anyone think that’s true? Anyone? I didn’t think so. Oh, and if that is true, if the stigma against reporting sexual assaults is worse today than it was 40, 50, or 100 years ago, could there be a bigger indictment of the feminist project? The women’s-studies programs, the support groups and crisis centers, the public-education and sensitivity-training programs, movies like The Burning Bed and The Accused, the Lorena Bobbitt apologias and all those nights taken back: and women are now more scared to report being sexually assaulted? If that’s true, pack it up, ladies/womyn, and call it a day. You are complete and total failures. Collect your gold watches (or hemp tote bags) and walk off the public stage as we politely golf-clap your exit. Jackie’s Tale I probably should have said earlier why I am being called a “rape apologist.” I mean, if you didn’t know I’d written a column calling shenanigans on the Rolling Stone story about an alleged rape at UVA you might be understandably confused, even a little worried. (“Gosh, Jonah never seemed too rapey to me.”) If you haven’t read it you probably should so I don’t have to recap everything. I’ll wait. So, basically, I simply don’t believe the Rolling Stone story is true. As I say in my column, I’m sure some of the author’s reporting is true. But I just don’t believe Jackie’s story as it’s told in the piece. I think the dialogue is absurd. I think the sequence of events is wildly implausible. And I think the overall picture the author paints is propagandistic, not reportorial. How often does a reporter set out to find the perfect horror story to advance her agenda and then, with remarkably little effort, have it handed to her? Again, I don’t just mean the rape allegation itself, but all that follows it. I’ll admit if the story was just of the rape itself I might have believed it longer, but the conversations among her “friends” is so convenient it sent the needle on my b.s. detector past the red zone into the fine print that reads “Bull**** Detector By Ronco. Patent Pending.” Here are some examples I couldn’t fit into my column. Remember, these are Jackie’s friends — who believe she was gang raped and beaten for three hours: “One of my roommates said, ‘Do you want to be responsible for something that’s gonna paint UVA in a bad light?’ ” says Jackie, poking at a vegan burger at a restaurant on the Corner, UVA’s popular retail strip. “But I said, ‘UVA has flown under the radar for so long, someone has to say something about it, or else it’s gonna be this system that keeps perpetuating!’” Jackie frowns. “My friend just said, ‘You have to remember where your loyalty lies.’” And: She was having an especially difficult time figuring out how to process that awful night, because her small social circle seemed so underwhelmed. For the first month of school, Jackie had latched onto a crew of lighthearted social strivers, and her pals were now impatient for Jackie to rejoin the merriment. “You’re still upset about that?” Andy asked one Friday night when Jackie was crying. Cindy, a self-declared hookup queen, said she didn’t see why Jackie was so bent out of shape. “Why didn’t you have fun with it?” Cindy asked. “A bunch of hot Phi Psi guys?” I’m sorry, but those conversations didn’t happen. (One hint it didn’t happen is that if it did, a hole in the ground would open up, Satan would pop out in a swirl of sulfuric smoke, and tip his hat to Cindy.) But don’t tell that to Diana Crandall (or, for that matter, “SluttySlutSlut1”). The LA Times, where an earlier version of my UVA column appeared, has a charming habit of rushing to post rebuttals of my columns as soon as possible. I really don’t mind — it’s kind of a compliment and it’s actually a good idea in general. But the rebuttals, in my humble opinion, aren’t always that compelling. Enter Ms. Crandall. I think her entire response to my column is fairly ridiculous, tendentious, and in relentless bad faith. But I’m not going to go point-by-point through her deliberate misreadings and non sequiturs. She works from the assumption that I have no personal experiences to support my view. Never mind that I’ve visited something like 100 campuses in the last decade or so (including UVA more than once). Never mind that, as I noted in the column, I talked to quite a few people in the UVA community before I wrote it. Never mind that I went to, and served on the board of trustees of, a college where feminism was The One True Faith. And never mind that my own experiences — like hers — are utterly irrelevant to whether or not the Rolling Stone story is true! Crandall & Co. hate the idea that the veracity of the story itself should be debated. What matters is the cause, not the details. So they shoot the messenger and change the subject. I will say I loved the appeal to her own experience as a member of a coed fraternity. Apparently this gave her deep insights into rape culture. Um, ok. One question: If you learned so much about rape culture at this fraternity, why on earth did you stay a member? But here’s the key point. Crandall writes: Goldberg further shows his lack of familiarity with the problem of college rape when he calls the victim’s friends the “worst . . . imaginable” for not immediately reporting her brutal assault. Here, Goldberg fails to appreciate the very real fear of being chastised for reporting a rape. I’m not saying that the friends were right in not reporting it, and I’m not making a judgment on whether or not the assault happened. But it’s clear that Goldberg’s cultural distance from modern campus life and disregard of the social consequences of reporting an assault render him inadequate to judge the veracity of a rape allegation. First of all, we aren’t talking about “a rape allegation” we are talking about this rape allegation. Crandall is simply wrong to say I can’t “appreciate the very real fear of being chastised for reporting a rape.” Her mind-reading skills notwithstanding, I can testify here and now that I can. What Crandall and countless others, including Sabrina Erdely, her editors, and their defenders can’t appreciate is that as onerous as the stigma on rape victims may or may not be, the stigma against rapists is worse. No, really, it’s true. There’s a well-documented tendency for known or suspected — and especially convicted — rapists to be stigmatized. They’re shunned by polite society. They have trouble finding work. They often have to register as sex offenders and — oh yeah — they very often are sent to jail for very long periods of time. And this is as it should be. But this fact is also why I am deeply skeptical of the story. Most of the UVA students I’ve met — and I’ve met a lot — are the sorts of kids who worry a lot about their permanent records. That makes sense; UVA is a truly great school with an impressive academic culture. And so while I can certainly believe sexual assaults and rapes happen there — drunk and sober — I simply cannot believe that nine men sat around soberly and plotted a brutal gang rape that would land them all in jail for decades — never mind hinder their chances of working at Goldman Sachs! At least not as presented in Erdely’s story. Indeed, it wouldn’t just be nine men, because you can’t keep such plans a secret in a fraternity when the rape is an initiation ritual. You need to make sure all of the kids are down with committing a heinous felony. You need to make sure they all know where to wait to commit the deed. And you need to make sure no one blabs to that one guy who isn’t totally and completely down with “rape culture.” That requires conversations, lots of conversations. And lots of conversations make secrets hard to keep. What baffles and infuriates me is that I am supposed to be pro-rape and a rape apologist because I want to get to the truth. If this story is true, these men (and, frankly, the dean) should go to jail. The whole fraternity should be prosecuted for running a criminal enterprise. Honestly, as a matter of justice I’d have no problem seeing Drew hang. Meanwhile the heroic enemies of rape and rape culture are outraged that anyone would want these men exposed and brought to justice. That’s bananas. I understand why most of the debate in the press about the Rolling Stone piece is about journalistic ethics. That’s fine. But my complaint isn’t that she didn’t talk to the alleged rapists. My complaint — or at least my claim — is that the story isn’t true. The fact she didn’t get quotes from the alleged rapists isn’t Erdely’s crime, it’s evidence of it. |
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| abb | Dec 6 2014, 05:31 AM Post #100 |
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http://newsbusters.org/blogs/curtis-houck/2014/12/06/networks-fail-expose-retracted-rolling-stone-story-devoted-11-minutes NewsBusters Networks Failed to Expose Doubts in Rolling Stone Rape Story; Devoted 11 Minutes on Evening Shows to Initial Report By Curtis Houck | December 6, 2014 | 1:40 AM EST 0 shares When the now-retracted article by the Rolling Stone magazine was published on November 19 about a brutal gang rape of a first-year student at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house at the University of Virginia (UVA), the major broadcast networks rushed to the story and devoted multiple segments to both the article and reaction on the school’s campus. In doing so, they failed (unlike other outlets) to point out its flaws that brought an apology from the liberal magazine on Friday afternoon after it came to realize that many of the key facts in the story were in doubt. Further, the reporter at the center of the piece, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, neglected to even seek comment or a telling of events from those alleged to have attacked the UVA student referred to as “Jackie.” The “big three” of ABC, CBS and NBC offered coverage on their evening newscasts over the course of November 23 and 24, with ABC’s World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News covering it on the 23rd. The following night, an additional report was filed by ABC and NBC each to go along with the first from the CBS Evening News with Scott Pelley. On those two evenings alone, the total network coverage was 11 minutes and 14 seconds. While the three programs combined for just under 8 minutes of thorough coverage on Friday night, that does little to excuse their inability to investigate the story independently or even check the facts of the Rolling Stone piece on their own. On ABC’s World News Tonight on November 23, reporter Bazi Kanani promoted the article that led to the decision to shutter all fraternities until January as a “explosive exposé” that she then used to shape much of the segment. That same evening on NBC Nightly News, NBC News correspondent Gabe Gutierrez described the piece as a “detailed article” of what happened to Jackie when was raped and how UVA was one of 55 schools under investigation by the federal government for their handling of sexual assault complaints. In all of the reports, correspondents relied on the Erdely’s story and interviews with angry students protesting both the fraternity in question and a “rape culture” that was pervasive at UVA and on campuses nationwide. When it came to the coverage on Friday, the networks did not mince words nor shy from finally walking through what was questionable about Jackie's account. World News Tonight anchor David Muir and correspondent Linsey Davis said the magazine’s apology was a “stunning turn of events” with Muir adding that it was “sudden reversal” from last month’s publication that had led to a “new outrage already.” Substitute CBS Evening News anchor Maurice DuBois stated that the original article had “cast a harsh spotlight” on the school, but now has caused its own publisher to have “doubts” about the foundation of Jackie's story. On NBC Nightly News, anchor Brian Williams was the sole anchor to admit that his program had filed stories based off of the very article that he and NBC’s Kristen Welker would now report had major “discrepancies.” Still, the networks had pitfalls in their coverage of the retraction. As suggested two sentences prior, ABC and CBS failed to join with NBC in not admitting to having previously blindly covered this subject. Also, CBS and NBC fell short in only interviewing students who, respectively, suggested pieces like this are why victims hesitate coming forward and dismissed the fact that the story is now in severe doubt because the issue of sexual assault is “still a problem” on college campuses “even if it's not real.” As the NBC report began to draw to a close, Welker included a soundbite from a reporter with The Washington Post who tried to relate to Jackie and what she was going through: “I can imagine it may be hard to come to grips with, you know, aspects of your own story that aren't, you know, lining up correctly.” The complete transcript of the segment that aired on ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir on December 5 is transcribed below. ABC’s World News Tonight with David Muir December 5, 2014 6:30 p.m. Eastern [TEASE] [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE CAPTION: Breaking News] DAVID MUIR: Breaking now, the stunning turn of events. The rape case that made national headlines and, tonight, the apology, was it true? (....) 6:31 p.m. Eastern [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE CAPTION: Stunning Apology] MUIR: Good evening, we begin this Friday night with breaking news on several fronts. First, the explosive case, and now a sudden reversal. It was a story of rape at one of the country’s most famous universities: Seven young men accused. An article in Rolling Stone. It triggered emotional protests at the University of Virginia and huge fallout. Fraternities shut down, investigations launched and yet, tonight, a stunning statement from Rolling Stone about the young woman at the center of their story, saying, quote, “we have come to the conclusion that their trust in her was misplaced.” ABC’s Linsey Davis with the new outrage already. [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Breaking News; Stunning Twist in UVA Scandal] LINSEY DAVIS: A stunning turn of events tonight to those claims of alleged gang rape at one of Americans most elite universities. Discrepancies in Jackie, the alleged victim’s account are beginning to surface. Tonight, Rolling Stone magazine now apologizing and expressing regret that they never contacted the alleged attackers to get their accounts. In November, the elite university campus was rocked when that article described, in horrifying detail, a violent rape by seven members of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity during her first year at the University. [WOMEN PROTESTERS SCREAMING] But here's where doubt has been cast on three key allegations: First, the fraternity denies there was a social event at the house the weekend of the alleged rape. Second, the accuser says her rape was part of a falling pledging ritual, but the fraternity says initiations only happen in the spring, and third, according to the article, Jackie says that she was lured to the fraternity by a member who worked with her at the campus aquatic center, but according the fraternity, none of its members worked there at the time. The fraternity releasing this statement, saying their “initial doubts as to the accuracy of the article have only been strengthened” after investigating the claims. Jackie told The Washington Post today she's standing by her story. Tonight, UVA students say they hope this doesn't discourage rape victims to come forward. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE UVA STUDENT: I hope that this isn’t something that causes future questioning of victims, survivors. DAVIS: UVA's president just released a statement, saying “today’s news this must not change how rapes are handling on college campuses” and Rolling Stone’s managing editor says the reason they did not reach out to any of the attackers was to honor Jackie’s request because she feared retaliation. The search for the truth continues tonight, David. MUIR: Alright, Linsey Davis leading us off. Linsey, thank you. The transcript of the segment that aired on the CBS Evening News on December 5 can be found below. CBS Evening News December 5, 2014 6:30 p.m. Eastern [TEASE] [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE CAPTION: Story in Doubt] MAURICE DUBOIS: An alleged gang rape at a fraternity sent shock waves across the nation. Now the magazine that broke the news apologizes, saying it has doubts about the accuser's story. Nancy Cordes has the latest. (....) 6:37 p.m. Eastern [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE CAPTION: Rolling Stone; Apology] DUBOIS: Rolling Stone magazine apologized today for an article that generated worldwide headlines and cast a harsh spotlight on the University of Virginia. A student claimed she was being raped by a gang of students at a fraternity party and was ignored by campus officials. Nancy Cordes tells us Rolling Stone is now backpedaling on the story. NANCY CORDES: The article was called, "A Rape on Campus" and it detailed a 2012 attack on a freshman Rolling Stone called “Jackie” who described being thrown through a low glass table as seven men took turns raping her at UVA's Phi Kappa Psi fraternity. The story led school officials to suspend all fraternities for the semester. Phi Kappa Psi was vandalize, but as other outlets began to investigate, discrepancies's emerged. Jackie told Rolling Stone for instance, she was attacked while attending a date function with a fraternity member she met “while working lifeguard shifts together at the University pool.” In a statement, Phi Kappa Psi said today, “As far as we have determined, no member of our fraternity worked at the aquatic center in any capacity during this time period” and “the chapter did not have a date function or social event during the weekend of September 28, 2012.” Today, Rolling Stone's Managing Editor Will Dana released this statement, “There now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie's account and we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced.” Some of those discrepancies might have come to light sooner if the magazine had reached out to Jackie's alleged attackers. But Dana says “We decided to honor her request not to contact any of the men she claimed participated in the attack for fear of retaliation against her.” Dana says, “We now regret the decision.” Some students worry this whole incident will discourage victims from speaking up. First year Hannah Hall. UVA STUDENT HANNAH HALL: This is why people don't report because they're so worried that they're going to be attacked as liars and they're so worried that they are going to be seen as someone who is just making things up for attention. CORDES: Jackie told The Washington Post she stands by her story and her faculty adviser told us she thinks Jackie is honest and was assaulted. Maurice, tonight, the President of UVA says the school has a new focus now on campus rape and that today's developments, quote, “must not alter this focus.” DUBOIS: Nancy Cordes in Washington tonight, thank you. The complete transcript of the segment that aired on NBC Nightly News on December 5 is transcribed below. NBC Nightly News December 5, 2014 7:00 p.m. Eastern [TEASE] [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE CAPTION: Bombshell] BRIAN WILLIAMS: A bombshell turn of events raising doubts about accusations of a brutal attack on a well-known college campus. Discrepancies in the story rocking a big university and a big name in publishing. (....) 7:04 p.m. Eastern [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE CAPTION: New Revelations] WILLIAMS: We now turn to a surprising turn of events tonight concerning high profile sexual assault accusations at a storied American college campus, an institution founded by Thomas Jefferson, the University of Virginia. Accusations that set off a torrent of outrage. Well, tonight, doubts are being raised about the accuser's story, which was first published in Rolling Stone then reported on widely, including on this broadcast. We get the very latest tonight from NBC's Kristen Welker. KRISTEN WELKER: Students at UVA are reeling tonight after learning there are now serious doubts about an alleged gang rape on campus that led to a police investigation, widespread protests and suspension of all Greek life. UVA STUDENT KERI BAUMGARNER: I think the general consensus was that even if it's not real, it's a problem even if that particular story wasn't real, it's probably still a problem. WELKER: The bombshell claims made last month when Rolling Stone magazine reported that a student named Jackie said she was brutally gang raped by seven men at a Phi Kappa Psi fraternity party in 2012, but late today, Rolling Stone backpedaled in a statement, writing, “n the face of new information, there now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie's account, and we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced.” The magazine also acknowledged its reporter, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, never talked to Jackie's alleged accusers, saying Jackie asked the publication not to for fear of retaliation. Representatives with the fraternity released a statement saying they never had a party during the weekend in question, none of their members were lifeguards as Jackie told Rolling Stone and sexual assaults are not a part of a pledge ritual as Jackie alleged. In an article today, The Washington Post reported Jackie's friends recently began to question her account. The Post interviewed Jackie last night. THE WASHINGTON POST’S T. REES SHAPIRO: I can imagine it may be hard to come to grips with, you know, aspects of your own story that aren't, you know, lining up correctly. It's difficult to say what she really thinks right now. WELKER: Meanwhile, tonight, victims rights advocates say this episode shouldn't take away from what remains a critical issue nationwide. ULTRAVIOLET’S EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SHAUNNA THOMAS: The worst thing that could come out of this is that even more people are afraid of speaking up about their experience being raped or sexually assaulted. WELKER: The University of Virginia said today's news must not alter its focus on preventing sexual violence. The Charlottesville Police Department is still investigating. Kristen Welker, NBC News, Washington. |
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| abb | Dec 6 2014, 05:33 AM Post #101 |
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http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/local/vigil-attendees-say-focus-should-remain-on-reform/article_428e6d84-7cf8-11e4-979d-bf3ced6a2a6b.html Vigil attendees say focus should remain on reform By Nate Delesline III | Posted: Friday, December 5, 2014 10:30 pm In the aftermath of the latest storm at the University of Virginia, some stood by Jackie. “What happened to her was so horrifying that I am not surprised she doesn’t remember the exact details,” Lyra Bartell, who graduated from UVa in May, told a crowd of more than 100 people at a vigil Friday night at the McIntire Amphitheatre. The planned event for rape and domestic violence victims followed Rolling Stone’s second blockbuster revelation in roughly two weeks. The magazine’s managing editor posted a letter to readers Friday casting doubt on a story the magazine published Nov. 19 depicting a woman named Jackie being raped by seven men in an upstairs room at UVa’s Phi Kappa Psi house. “In the face of new information,” Will Dana wrote, “there now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie’s account, and we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced.” Speakers at the vigil — titled “Stand up Against Rape Culture” and organized by Charlottesville High School students — spoke in support of Jackie, saying it’s important for people to stay focused on the issue of campus sexual assault. Maria DeHart, a first-year UVa student, said the story might not have demonstrated good journalism, but that’s beside the point. “What we want to do is think about the bigger picture,” DeHart said. “We have to get to the root of the problem.” After Rolling Stone posted Dana’s letter, the reaction on Grounds — the center of protests in the wake of the story’s release — was largely subdued. Many students approached for comment declined. In front of Peabody Hall, a site that became a flashpoint when sexual assault advocates said they caught a small group of people tearing down notes of encouragement from sexual assault survivors and protesters, a group of about six people who identified themselves as student guides declined to comment. So, too, did a resident of the Lawn who happened to have his door open. He said he was associated with a fraternity. A short distance away, a group of six students stood under the gray skies near the Rotunda, heads bowed as construction noise on the iconic building pierced the chilly air. “We are praying for our university,” said Baylee Molloy, a UVa graduate student and member of CRU, a college-oriented Christian fellowship “I think going forward, the most important thing to us is to continue to be in prayer for our university and that God’s light would be shown in this time of darkness.” At Phi Kappa Psi, the fraternity house where Jackie said the gang rape took place in September 2012, no-trespassing signs were posted in the windows. The house’s large pillars were adorned with Christmas decorations. On the side of the building, which sits within sight of the Rotunda and across Madison Bowl from UVa President Teresa A. Sullivan’s office, several windows were still boarded up after being shattered by vandals following the story’s release. “It’s been like hell just living under these accusations for the past two weeks,” said Ben Warthen, a Richmond attorney and Phi Psi alum who worked with the fraternity after learning of the allegations. Revelations about what Rolling Stone called “discrepancies” in Jackie’s account should not tamp down the outrage over what victims’ advocates describe as a rape culture on Grounds, said Susan Fraiman, a UVa English professor who helped lead a faculty protest against sexual assault. “We don’t need Rolling Stone to tell us about the prevalence of sexual assault on campus,” Fraiman said. “We know it’s a problem, and that’s why the mobilization brought about by this needs to keep moving forward.” Fraiman said about 200 faculty members signed a letter asking Sullivan to ensure the findings of an outside law firm brought in to investigate the university’s handling of sexual assaults would be made public. Sullivan said she could not make any commitment about the release of firm’s final report, Fraiman said. “It was unsatisfying,” Fraiman said of Sullivan’s response. Sullivan did not respond Friday to questions about the transparency of the investigation, or its findings. Some students remained stunned over the allegations. “A lot of people were just really just shocked … that something that horrific could have happened,” Corey Schmidt, a second-year student, said outside Alderman Library. Sexual assault, Schmidt said, “certainly seems like a problem across all college campuses, not just UVa.” Asked if the news might cause people to doubt the accounts of sexual assault victims in the future, Schmidt said, “I certainly hope not. Over the next few days, the discussion will be all about Jackie’s story, but the issue is bigger, said Ivy Geilker, a Charlottesville High School senior and head of the organization We Are the Line, which helped to organize Friday’s vigil with Amnesty International. “The goal of tonight’s event is not to get retribution for one girl,” she said. “It’s to create awareness of a problem.” Daily Progress staff writer K. Burnell Evans contributed to this story. |
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| abb | Dec 6 2014, 05:36 AM Post #102 |
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http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/394115/bad-journalism-even-if-it-were-true-kevin-d-williamson December 5, 2014 6:05 PM Bad Journalism, Even If It Were True By Kevin D. Williamson When I was a student at the University of Texas, I served as managing editor of our school paper, the (all hail!) Daily Texan, as a consequence of which I did something that no self-respecting journalist should do: I took a journalism class, media law and ethics, which was a requirement for serving as M.E. For my sins, I drew as my professor the daft left-wing windbag Robert Jensen, whose first lecture consisted of a screed against the presence of sports sections in newspapers, which Professor Jensen considered an ethical problem in that they contributed what he believed to be an unhealthy competitiveness in our society. Naturally, I never went to Professor Jensen’s class again, and got my media law and ethics from the superb Mike Quinn, who also had some interesting observations about JFK conspiracy theories. (Quinn had covered the assassination for the Dallas Morning News.) I learned some useful and practical things, one of which was how to go about preventing myself from publishing lies fed to me by others, a useful skill if you spend time around politicians and political activists. Rolling Stone could have used the services of the mighty Quinn. One does not expect the journalistic home of witless uptown communist Jesse Myerson to be a paragon of journalistic integrity, critical thinking, or good taste, but its getting took by that University of Virginia rape fantasist’s tall tale is an object lesson in journalistic malpractice. Rolling Stone’s Sabrina Rubin Erdely, who has written for everybody from GQ to Mother Jones, is a practitioner of the Red Queen school of journalism: execution first, trial after. She went out looking for a gonzo campus-rape story and, when she could not find a real one, found a woman willing to supply her with a fake one, an obviously suspicious tale of a vicious gang rape over several hours at the hands of UVA fraternity members, complete with dialog right out of an after-school special — “Don’t you want to be a brother?” “Her reputation will be shot for the next four years” — and inconsistencies that require the active suspension of disbelief. Whether Erdely knew that the story was fake is not entirely beside the point, but ignorance is not an excuse, either — not for her, and not for her editors. She had a positive obligation not to publish the story she had, because the story was insufficient on any responsible journalistic grounds. It was rubbish, she knew it, and Rolling Stone managing editor Will Dana damned sure should have known it. This is stuff they teach to freshmen reporters at college newspapers. Generally speaking, serious allegations such as the one in question require one of two things: 1. corroborating evidence or documentation; 2. a victim or witness willing to go on the record under his own name. Preferably, both are available, but that is not always the case. As a small-town newspaper editor, I received all sorts of wild complaints about the local police, the township commissioners, prominent public figures (especially judges), and the like. Some of those turned out to be true, but that truth generally took some digging. If somebody had a story about police misbehavior — and we covered quite a bit of that — but was unwilling to lodge a formal complaint or go on record with the allegations under his own name, then we did not have very much to work with. If the story seemed to us credible enough, we might go looking for evidence or witnesses ourselves, but any good editor knows to be skeptical of anonymous, undocumented complaints. But that skepticism is insufficient if the editor wants very badly to believe. Amanda Marcotte, the dim house feminist at Slate, earlier this week complained that skepticism about Lena Dunham’s dubious story about being sexually assaulted by a campus Republican at Oberlin — a story that I believe to be false as presented in her memoir, and perhaps entirely fictitious — is akin to Holocaust denial: “Rape denialism is like Holocaust denialism,” she wrote. That is exactly the sort of sloppy half-thought that passes for analysis among feminists, who represent one of the laziest intellectual tendencies in our public life. To express skepticism that the Holocaust happened is one thing; to express skepticism that a 32-year-old accountant in Portland who has never been outside of the United States but claims to have been imprisoned at Auschwitz is telling the truth is a different thing. The question in that case is not whether the Holocaust happened, but whether this person was a victim of it. “But who would lie about having been raped?” the feminists demand. Lots of people, as it turns out, just as people lie about having been the victims of Nazi atrocities. Questioning whether this rape happened is not the same as questioning whether rape happens. Rape hoaxes, like the sometimes related hate-crime hoaxes that have become so common on college campuses, do not condense spontaneously out of the ether. The Left is committed to the notion that American colleges are hotbeds of sexual violence, racial bigotry, hatred of homosexuals, etc., because they are committed to the notion that the largely white and male upper echelons of American society — mostly products of those colleges — are secretly but unalterably committed to white supremacy, homophobia, and to using the threat of sexual violence to keep women in their place. The evidence suggests otherwise: Far from being an epidemic, sexual assault today happens at a rate about one-third that of 20 years ago, and rape seems to happen less often on college campuses than it does elsewhere. That should not be entirely surprising: Rape, like other crimes, tends to disproportionately affect people who are poor and non-white. As expected, the evidence points to sexual assault’s being more common in poor rural areas, Indian reservations, poor urban areas, etc. It is also more common where people tend to be relatively isolated, with Alaska having the nation’s highest rate of sexual assault. The political aspect of this is not too hard to see. Campus hate-crime hoaxes, including rape-threat hoaxes, are generally targeted at Republicans and conservatives, and they very often feature comical, cartoonish conservative villains: “That chick that runs her liberal mouth all the time and doesn’t care who knows it,” read the fake rape threat in the University of Wyoming case; those are not words that an angry, knuckle-dragging conservative says about an outspoken feminist — those are words a self-admiring feminist says about herself. In Colorado, the target was a National Guardsman. At Duke, the target was the lacrosse team, while at UVA the target was a fraternity. All of those are engraved, gilt-edged invitations to another one of those tedious conversations about “male privilege” we’re always supposed to be having. Colleges become the locus of these fantasies because, as anybody who has watched one of our missing-blondes-of-the-week sagas knows, there is more juice to be had from the victimization of bright young college women than there is from the victimization of poor single mothers in obscure backwaters. In Colorado, Wyoming, and Virginia, all of those stories were lies. In truth, the Left does not care if they are lies. The Left believes that lies can serve a greater truth, e.g., Stephen Schneider’s infamous plea in Discover that climate activists mislead the public in the service of bringing them to the right side in the global-warming debate. The people and institutions who ran with Rolling Stone’s fake story — Jamelle Bouie, Sally Kohn, CNN, Amanda Marcotte, Jezebel, etc. — did not err in an ideological vacuum. They are not dupes; they are opportunists. A responsible critic would have concluded that the Rolling Stone account was a defective piece of journalism as journalism even if every single word of it were true. The reason we have safeguard processes is to ensure that we present reasonably reliable information — that we do not go willy-nilly accusing people of rape based on the say-so of one anonymous person. We know — for a fact — that people sometimes lie about having been raped, just as they lie about all sorts of things. Horrible as it is, that is a fact, and one that cannot simply be set aside for reasons of ideological expedience. If the story had turned out to be true, Sabrina Rubin Erdely would not be a better journalist — she simply would have been lucky. And Rolling Stone would not be a better magazine. It would only be one that had escaped its current embarrassment. |
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| abb | Dec 6 2014, 05:40 AM Post #103 |
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http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/05/opinion/randazza-uva-rape-allegations/ Should we always believe the victim? By Marc Randazza updated 8:46 PM EST, Fri December 5, 2014 Editor's note: Marc J. Randazza is a Las Vegas-based First Amendment attorney and managing partner of the Randazza Legal Group. He is licensed to practice in Arizona, California, Florida, Massachusetts and Nevada. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author. (CNN) -- Pundit Glenn Reynolds recently wrote: "So as I understand it, Atticus Finch is now the bad guy in "To Kill A Mockingbird," because he doubted a story about rape." How right he was. A story with a rape allegation carries an immediate electric charge. In Jim Crow's South, lynchings often came with a story of the victim having raped a white girl. With the energy of such a story, it wasn't too hard to whip up a fury strong enough to leave a man hanging from a tree. The "rape propaganda" was necessary to garner the emotions necessary to press the real, dark, agenda. Al Sharpton took a page out of the old South's playbook and brought us Tawana Brawley, who accused six white men of raping her. The story of white on black crime resonated, and it helped to promote a social justice agenda, but Tawana Brawley was no more a rape victim than two white women in Scottsboro, Alabama, who falsely accused nine black teenagers more than 80 years ago. What do these stories have in common? Someone had an agenda, and they knew that a rape story would put it on a rocket powered toboggan. And, therein lies the origin of today's "rape culture" frenzy. This is not to say that there are not unreported and unprosecuted sexual assaults. I have dear friends who suffered such injustice, and I believe their stories with every drop of blood in my body. I'll bet that nearly everyone knows someone who has a verifiably true story. But, is that really "rape culture?" What does that silly phrase mean? It means the same thing as Jim Crow stories of rape meant. It means the same thing that Tawana Brawley meant. It means that someone has an agenda, and they want to harness the emotional power of rape to promote it. Which brings us to the University of Virginia. When Sabrina Erdely's Rolling Stone story about a gang rape in a UVA frat house hit the presses, it went viral. Why? It was like a horror movie. I'll admit that when I read it, my own prejudices rose up, and I believed "Jackie" (the victim in the story). I thought of my friends who had been harmed and couldn't even begin to doubt that "Jackie" was telling the truth. Why wouldn't I believe her? The antagonists were a bunch of over-privileged white fraternity jerks from UVA, it seemed. The victim was yet another young woman who had had justice withheld. The story confirmed what I wanted to believe: that the elite run roughshod over the rest of us. It proved so much, and I "knew" which side was right. And it confirmed the bias of left-wing academics who have collectively decided that the "war on boys" must have more victims, because everything with a penis is a rapist. As the story burned, cries of "rape culture" started to sound less like fairy tales and more like factual reports. All of a sudden, embattled sexual harassment policies on college campuses started to look good, perhaps unquestionable. Opinion: UVA story always had 'red flags' Rolling Stone: Our trust was misplaced Allegations of rape at UVA These policies that have been attacked by those who still believe in that quaint notion known as due process, and the tide started to turn. The Boston Globe recently ran the story of Patrick Whitt, who found himself falsely accused, and immediately judged guilty by mere suspicion. But then we had Jackie. Rape culture was real, after all! And then someone dared to question the story. Even I was aghast. How could he? This account was not published in some rag -- this was Rolling Stone, a publication of editorial ethics. Some schools of feminist thought consider questioning a victim to be utterly taboo. If she said it, then it must be true. Such is the mentality of those who would lynch Atticus Finch, or at least call for his disbarment, if he were practicing in modern day America. "Jackie" may not be Mayella Ewell, "Mockingbird's" faux victim. I wasn't there in that UVA frat house. But Jackie supposedly was. Nevertheless, the "journalist" who brought us the story has now been revealed to have been, at least, lazy and willfully blind to the holes in Jackie's story. She claims that she never asked the men in the story for their account of events because of an agreement with Jackie. And therein lie so many problems. This is the kind of "believe the victim" mentality that is so darkly infecting academia. "Presumed guilty" is the new standard. Patrick Whitt is the new Tom Robinson, the black man accused of the rape in "To Kill a Mockingbird." Due process loses, ethics are out the window, because there is an agenda, and it needs the fuel of a rape story. And who loses? The casualty list is still being compiled. Terrible journalism or not, maybe Jackie was telling the truth. Maybe she was lying. If she was lying, the UVA Greek system already paid a terrible price. If she was telling the truth, she won't ever be believed now. Why? Because Sabrina Erdely was so utterly void of journalistic ethics that she committed "journalistic malpractice." Because now, nobody will believe Jackie. And after Erdely's lazy journalism, the next girl who reports a rape might find it to be that much more difficult to get to justice. I don't know what Erdely's agenda was, but it wasn't responsible journalism. Responsible journalism is hard. It isn't public relations. A responsible journalist digs for the truth, she doesn't just take her subject's agenda and run with it. That isn't journalism, that's "gossip," and like all gossip, it doesn't do anything positive for anyone. |
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| abb | Dec 6 2014, 05:54 AM Post #104 |
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http://www.cotwa.info/2014/12/rolling-stone-our-trust-in-her-was.html Friday, December 5, 2014 Rolling Stone: "Our trust in her was misplaced" -- another high profile rape case fizzles Last month, Rolling Stone ran a massive story about a terrible campus gang rape that got national publicity -- it was perhaps the most high profile rape allegation in years -- but the publication did what too many news outlets do as a matter of course: it automatically believed the accuser; it reduced the accused (thankfully unnamed) males to vile caricature; and it expressed a rooting interest in the putative victim's story. Now Rolling Stone has apologized. ". . . there now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie's account, and we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced." This wasn't a correction of some erroneous facts, this was a company falling on its sword and telling the world it blew it in a very, very big way. Rolling Stone had no choice because it had to have known that the Washington Post was about to blow the lid off the story. But everyone who follows these cases carefully knows that this, ladies and gentlemen, is par for the course. Will Rolling Stone and other publications watching this closely learn anything? Don't count on it. Prof. Alan Dershowitz once wrote this about another high profile rape accusation: ". . . don’t assume anything until all the evidence is in. The story is almost never what it appears to be on first impression." That's darn good advice, but the news media never gets it. How does this happen so often with the news media? It happens because the news media is far more enamored of the "rape culture" narrative than the more conservative general public. When it comes to rape, instead of being objective investigators, their stories are geared to advance that narrative. Even reporters you wouldn't suspect fall into it. They are out to educate the unwashed general public they see as gun-toting, Bible-thumping hicks, racists and misogynists. Enough, already! Rolling Stone needs to step back and look at the mess it's created. This story hurt the community of the wrongly accused -- it "confirmed" a lot of people's prejudices about white, upper-middle class frat guys. (Any apology to the fraternity, Rolling Stone? I won't hold my breath.) No matter how much Rolling Stone says it lost trust in "Jackie," you can trust me on this: the usual suspects will continue to insist that "something must have happened." The narrative must be protected at all costs. Beyond that, make no mistake, this story did no favors for rape victims, either. Every rape lie, every rape half-truth, undermines the credibility of real victims. The truly disgusting part is that the news media does this all the time. Perhaps the most famous false rape case in recent years after Duke Lacrosse, the one at Hofstra University back in 2009, provides a good example -- read our very comprehensive post on it, it is truly horrifying. The media's rush to judgment in that case was grotesque (the worst example: a television news report that essentially said the four young men were awful rapists). We wrote this at the time the young men were cleared: Is it too much for them to actually do their own investigations, to report whether the rape allegation is supported by any known evidence aside from the accuser's word, to offer the other side of the story (e.g., the fact that the stories of the four accused men in the Hofstra case were consistent, and that the story of the accuser was riddled with inconsistencies)? What we saw here was a vicious smear, a wholesale destruction of four young nobodys, their scared and callow faces displayed so that the world could scorn them and titillate to their humiliation. In the aftermath of the Hofstra debacle, Carol D’Auria of 1010 WINS said this: “We need to move slower." She added: “But I don’t see that happening.” I didn't see it happening then, and now, more than five years later, I still don't see it happening. If anything, it's worse than ever. |
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| abb | Dec 6 2014, 06:15 AM Post #105 |
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Phila. writer at center of controversy over rape article Sabrina Rubin Erdely is an award-winning feature writer and investigative journalist, and a contributing editor at Rolling Stone. Photo from her website. Samantha Melamed, Inquirer Staff Writer Last updated: Saturday, December 6, 2014, 1:08 AM Posted: Friday, December 5, 2014, 9:55 PM Over the last few weeks, Philadelphia-based investigative reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely has received international attention for her Rolling Stone article "A Rape on Campus," telling of the gang rape of a student, identified only as "Jackie," at a fraternity party at the University of Virginia. On Friday, after a series of news reports questioned Erdely's work, Rolling Stone issued an apology citing unspecified discrepancies in the story. "Because of the sensitive nature of Jackie's story," the magazine's managing editor, Will Dana, wrote, "we decided to honor her request not to contact the man she claimed orchestrated the attack on her, nor any of the men she claimed participated in the attack, for fear of retaliation against her. ... "There now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie's account, and we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced," the statement read. Later, on Twitter, Dana said Rolling Stone either should not have honored the request or should have tried "to convince her that the truth would have been better served by getting the other side of the story." The magazine's reversal came after the fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi, suspended its operations on campus, and Charlottesville police opened an investigation into the claims. For former editors and colleagues of Erdely, a University of Pennsylvania alumna who cut her teeth at Philadelphia Magazine in the 1990s, the backlash provoked immediate skepticism. "She's one of the most thorough reporters I've ever worked with," said Eliot Kaplan, who hired Erdely at Philadelphia Magazine in 1994. "She's not a shortcut-taker - very precise, diligent." Kaplan, now vice president of talent acquisition at Hearst Magazines, recalled that Erdely wrote a number of true-crime stories for him, including one about an obstetrician who molested his patients, and another about a professor's affair with a student. Later, at Self magazine, Erdely was the go-to reporter for sensitive issues, according to Sara Austin, her editor there. "She's hands-down one of the best and smartest journalists I've ever worked with," said Austin, now a senior deputy editor at Cosmopolitan. "She did incredible work for us on very complicated investigations, dealing with people who had often been through illness or trauma or both." Rolling Stone has not detailed what conversations editors and fact-checkers had about the investigation, though Dana said in his statement that the magazine was "trying to be sensitive to the unfair shame and humiliation many women feel after a sexual assault." Roy Peter Clark, senior scholar at the Poynter Institute, described the source-reporter relationship as a delicate negotiation. "And now, the failure to do that has had the unfortunate effect of pulling the rug out from under a story, and that's a terrible thing, because this is a story people need to pay attention to. "It's always a problem when you can't name people in a story, and the more people you can't name, the more of a problem it is. . . . I think that caused the backlash of skepticism." Erdely and Dana did not respond to requests for comment Friday. Fact-checking victims' stories inevitably turns up issues, Austin said. "Having long experience editing stories about people having been through great trauma, whether it's an assault or an illness, it's almost a rule that there are discrepancies," she said. "Fact-checking is part of the process in order to catch those discrepancies." In this case, the discrepancies unearthed in follow-up stories by the Washington Post and others include that there was no party at the fraternity on the date mentioned in the article; that no member of the fraternity had worked at the campus pool where the victim met her alleged attacker; and that one alleged attacker identified by Jackie to friends was not a member of the fraternity. The newspaper also reported that Jackie asked to be taken out of the story at one point, but Erdely refused. Lisa DePaulo, a former colleague of Erdely's at Philadelphia Magazine and a writer at Bloomberg Politics, was incredulous about the attacks on Erdely's reporting. "As far as I know, there's never been a piece of hers that was sloppy," she said. "She's an absolute pro." She said she hoped that the truth would emerge - and that it would not drown out the voices of other victims. "It's just a really bad thing for women. When other women come forward, this case is going to be brought up - and it's going to go into that same category of false claims," DePaulo said. "That's really bad for women who are sexually assaulted." smelamed@phillynews.com 215-854-5053 @samanthamelamed Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/20141206_Phila__writer_at_center_of_controversy_over_rape_articlebreaking__phila__region__national.html#t3RuYeh70xCvI2er.99 |
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