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UVA Rape Story Collapses; Duke Lacrosse Redux
Topic Started: Dec 5 2014, 01:45 PM (60,428 Views)
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http://www.cjr.org/first_person/fear_of_screwing_up.php

Fear of screwing up
By Monica Guzman
April 22, 2015

That could’ve been me.

If you heard about the retracted Rolling Stone rape story, you might have thought that to yourself when you considered its now disgraced reporter, Sabrina Rubin Erdely.

I know I did.

Erdely screwed up. Big time. We can tell ourselves she was always a terrible journalist, but she’s had a strong career. We can tell ourselves our editors and fact-checkers will protect us—if we have them—but no system is foolproof. We can tell ourselves we’d never in a million years experience such a big lapse in judgment, but we know better.

That could’ve been you.

When we talk about what it takes to do our jobs well, we focus on ethics and process and hard-wired discipline.

But maybe what keeps journalists most in line is fear.

“I don’t know a good journalist on the planet who doesn’t fear making a Big Mistake with almost every story of any substance,” Missouri journalism professor Jacqui Banaszynski wrote to me. She won a Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for a series on a gay couple struggling with AIDS.

In light of the Rolling Stone report released this month by Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, I asked journalists to share on Facebook, Twitter, and email how they experience their own fear of screwing up.

“Oh, you mean sitting bolt upright in bed at 3am trying to remember if you fixed something in the story?” wrote Roy Neese, former copy editor and reporter for the Anchorage Daily News and the Alaska Star, to many a Facebook “like.”

To be a journalist, you have to be afraid. Fear makes you triple-check your work. It makes you sharper, faster, more focused. It wakes you up in the middle of the night, or drops in unexpectedly at that party or dinner. Fear demands that you be absolutely sure you want to say every little thing you’re saying.

In journalism, as in life, some fear is necessary. But too much fear is paralyzing.

Are you too afraid to do good journalism? Or not afraid enough?


Consider, for a moment, how our Fear of Screwing Up is rising:

1. We have far, far more opportunities to screw up. Tweets, blog posts, comments, mobile alerts.

David Cohn, executive producer at AJ Plus, feels his heart race when he prepares to ship off an email newsletter. “I sometimes even edit and then hand it off to somebody else to hit the final ‘send’ button because I just can’t,” he wrote on Facebook.

2. We are making more of our mistakes straight to the public, instead of to editors.

P. Kim Bui of social media news organization reported.ly, who recently misspelled Colombia in a tweet—“That whole country’s pissed at me!” she told me over Skype—calls that making mistakes “out loud.”

Tracy Record, editor of the hyperlocal West Seattle Blog, is particularly nervous when she has to rush to cover an event right after having published a story. “I *pray* I didn’t do something stupid,” she wrote on Facebook. “Even having been an editor/producer/manager for 20-plus years before this doesn’t make me infallible.”

3. The personal cost of the biggest reporting screwups, particularly when they’re made in ambitious stories about risky, socially charged issues, is higher than ever.

You don’t just offend your subjects. You don’t just offend your readers. If the screwup is bad enough to be news in itself, you offend everyone. And thanks to social media and the rise of the personal brand, everyone can direct their anger at you, instantly and publicly.

Erdely hasn’t tweeted since Nov. 30, a few days after her Rolling Stone story ran. One look at a search for mentions of her Twitter handle, and I can understand why.


We don’t like to talk about our screwups, but they haunt us—especially the ones that leave us as perplexed and hurt as the people whose stories we mishandle.

They don’t have to threaten our careers to make us feel terrible.

“Every mistake I make is a major mistake to me,” Allison Roberts, cops and courts reporter for Virginia’s Danville Register & Bee, wrote on Facebook.

Less than two years into my career, I wrote a story about an older woman whose friends threw her a retirement party big enough to cover in Michigan’s Midland Daily News. I went. I got great quotes. Then I gave her a completely different last name.

We caught the error in time to correct a couple editions of the paper, but not all of them. I have no idea where that made-up name came from. I spent the rest of that day in a haze.

I did that? How did I do that?

If you’d asked me that morning, I’d have said of course I checked every name before I publish.

My problem wasn’t that I didn’t know what to do. It’s that I lacked a strong motivation in that moment to do it.

Put another way: I didn’t have enough fear.

“The times I didn’t have enough fear were the times I needed to write a correction,” Dallas Morning News education reporter Jeffrey Weiss wrote on Facebook.


Too little fear is bad, but so is too much. Quill Magazine editor Scott Leadingham summed this up to me with a question: “Will fewer journalists write about campus rape because of what happened with Rolling Stone?”

If so, everybody loses.

Tough, important stories aren’t just tough to report. They’re tough to take on. Who wants to risk a career-crippling misstep if they don’t have to?

I’ve wondered if this is the biggest, deepest challenge facing everyday journalists—how to turn fear into courage.

I’ve passed likely trails to important stories because I was scared. Once, someone gave me documents he believed supported a complicated allegation and they sat on my desk. Another time, I met an undocumented immigrant who convinced me his story was important, but I didn’t do the work to convince my newsroom of the same. I’ve rationalized avoidance in other ways: I don’t have time. I’m not qualified. Another reporter would do it better. But really, it was fear talking.

When Pulitzer Prize winner Barbara Walsh wanted to report a series about a Maine teen’s 2004 suicide, school social workers and suicide prevention experts discouraged her, saying the stories would inspire copycats. But rather than avoid what she knew was an important issue, she found a way in. With the support of her editors, she produced what she hoped was a responsible and important piece of journalism.

Still, the night before the first story ran she couldn’t sleep.

“I felt confident that everyone at my newspaper, the editors and copy-editors had handled the stories with care and sensitivity. But still the fear of suicide copycats haunted me,” she wrote in a 2005 Poynter reflection.

“I silently prayed that my stories would do more good than harm.”

They did. Her series in the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, “Death Too Soon,” led Maine’s governor to start a task force on reducing the state’s high teen suicide rate. The public sent praise. Parents wrote in, grateful. One suicide prevention expert told her her series had saved lives.

“Do not let fear or intimidation stand in the way of a good story,” Walsh wrote me via email. “Conquer your fear by doing your job.”


So how much fear is the right amount of fear? I like the way Allison Roberts put it:

“The balance is shaping your fear into confidence and caution,” she wrote on Facebook. “When you’re confident in your job and abilities, you seek out those tougher stories knowing you have what it takes to tell them. But you’re still cautious enough to make sure that this great story is fairly and accurately told.”

As for screwing up, it’s going to happen, it’s going to suck, and if we’re going to take risks for the sake of our audiences, we have to learn to manage the fear.

“You can still only do the best you can, which means some screwups,” Seattle Globalist co-founder Sarah Stuteville wrote on Facebook.

Erdely’s screwup is on her. But if it scares journalists away from pursuing important issues, that’s on us.

“I hope that my mistakes in reporting this story do not silence the voices of victims that need to be heard,” Erdely wrote in a statement released in conjunction with the Columbia University report.

Fear is a motivator. Let’s not let it be an excuse.
Monica Guzman is a CJR columnist, as well as a technology and culture columnist for The Daily Beast and GeekWire. She serves as vice-chair of the SPJ Ethics Committee and was a juror for the 2014 Pulitzer Prizes.
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http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/wolff/2015/04/08/rolling-stone-story-and-rape-culture/25464501/

Wolff: At Rolling Stone, 'rape culture' stopped questions
Michael Wolff, USA TODAY 9:49 a.m. EDT April 9, 2015

In a melodramatic act of chest baring, Rolling Stone magazine asked the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and its dean, Steve Coll, to investigate the false accusations and fabrications in the magazine's story published late last year about a rape at the University of Virginia. The story's failures had been acknowledged and widely covered in the press after it appeared, but the 13,000-word report rehashes in even greater detail the journalistic missteps and failures that allowed the magazine to publish the story. Coll's report concluded that the magazine's editing procedures were at fault and that there was a pervasive lack of skepticism on the part of the magazine's writer and editors.

But the Columbia J-school review, like the story's author and editors, also steered far afield of any skepticism about the larger subject, what is called "campus rape culture," which, as a story, has become quite a media phenomenon, not to mention accepted truth.

While almost all of the facts of the U.Va. story were determined to be lies, the central premise of the piece remained, for Columbia and the many journalists analyzing the story's fallout, unexamined and apparently sound: College campuses are predatory environments where all women of a certain age are at high risk (enter dramatic statistics of uncertain provenance repeated by the media). Given such numbers, a significant portion of men on college campuses of a certain age are, it's not unreasonable to conclude, out of control, violent, pathologically misogynistic. It's a war out there.

In fact, the general theory of rape culture is that it exists precisely because of skepticism: The system has long questioned and doubted the victims. Hence, in some sense, the very basis of the Rolling Stone story, that disbelief denies victims justice, precluded anything like real disbelief.

The central question asked by the Columbia report and by everybody else — Clay Shirkey, writing in The New Republic, said you don't need 13,000 words to identify the problem: a story too good to be true — is how could these knuckleheads at Rolling Stone have fallen for the bilge they were fed by their source, code-named, "Jackie." And certainly almost everything in the story seemed staged and melodramatic, the dialogue and internal thoughts ridiculous; it's not only obviously false, it's a cliché.

The Columbia report says this knuckleheadedness comes from lapses in editing procedures and practice, curiously accepting the premise that the main point of the article was the story itself instead of its value in illustrating the larger story: a crisis so immediate and generationally defining that it survives every instance that might discredit it. Indeed, at Columbia University itself, a young woman who brought rape charges against a fellow student that were dismissed by the university took to carrying a mattress with her to dramatize her burden as the accuser, becoming a media cause célèbre even though her email correspondence with the man she accuses seriously confounds her claims.

Indeed, in a difficult contortion, a great deal of anger has now been directed at the Rolling Stone story by other journalists and issue advocates, not because it made unjust accusations, but because it might now discredit other people who make such accusations.

Rolling Stone says it was duped by Jackie and has now come under considerable criticism for "blaming the victim." But Jackie was able to dupe the magazine in some considerable measure because of this strong new bias against close scrutiny of women making sexual abuse claims.

Lena Dunham, the writer and star of HBO's Girls and, increasingly, a self-styled voice of her generation, took to social media to declare: "Strength to every person who is afraid to report, feels unheard and alone. This failure on the part of one publication cannot define or hurt you. You are loved."

The Guardian columnist Jessica Valenti insisted after the Rolling Stone article was first exposed and discredited that she still believed Jackie, so she could "sleep at night for having stood by a young woman who may have been through an awful trauma."

While Rolling Stone's editorial vetting procedures may have failed, its editorial positioning was quite on target. It had precisely identified a demographic and brand issue. Rolling Stone, journalistically and commercially, is ever trying to position itself in left-leaning, 18- to 35-year-old, socially conscious territory. It would not, we might fairly assume, write the opposite story: a detailed and sympathetic account of the pain and anguish of a male student — a drunken, fraternity lout, let's say — falsely accused of rape. Indeed, Rolling Stone's problem is not really a procedural issue, it's a fog of war issue. There is only one side here, one moral cause, one permissible outcome, hence everything bends to that narrative. And even if it's false, it can at least support the greater, undeniable truth.

The journalist George Packer, writing in The New Yorker, identifies Rolling Stone's once novel, now tired, fiction-imitating style of journalism — "the use of characters, scenes, description, and dialogue; the creation of tension through pacing, foreshadowing, and recapitulation; the omniscient narrator whose sources are semi-hidden in order to preserve the elegance of storytelling —" as fundamentally requiring, or at least encouraging, too-good-to-be true facts. But he also says of the article's author, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, "Like most journalists worth reading, she approached the story with a passionate purpose, a sense of injustice, of a wrong that needed to be righted." Like most journalists worth reading.

In a different time, one might have said journalists worth reading approached their stories with dispassion and a cold eye.
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http://dailyprincetonian.com/news/2015/04/rolling-stone-uva-story-was-a-collaborative-failure-say-authors-of-investigation-at-a-lecture/


Rolling Stone UVA story ‘was a collaborative failure,’ say authors of investigation at a lecture

By Evan Washington • Contributor • April 27, 2015

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The mistakes in the controversial Rolling Stone article, “A Rape on Campus,” were fundamental and avoidable, Sheila Coronel, an author of the investigative report on the article, said at a conversation with the report’s co-author, Steve Coll, on Monday night.

Coll is the Dean of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and Coronel is the Academic Affairs Dean.

The November article by Sabrina Rudin Erdely described in what Coll called “molecular detail” the alleged gruesome gang rape of the pseudonymous “Jackie” at a University of Virginia fraternity house party. The story called out the alleged systematic failure of UVA to respond to Jackie’s case and other sexual assault cases.

However, Rolling Stone relied only on Jackie’s account, moderator and journalism professor Joe Stephens said. He explained that the story Rolling Stone published was not corroborated by Jackie’s friends who were quoted in the article, the accused fraternity or any others involved in the story.

The story came into question after the Washington Post interviewed the UVA students identified as Jackie’s friends, Stephens said, adding that people also grew suspicious because of the article’s loose threads.

“It started unravelling slowly, and then quicker and more quickly, and with Rolling Stone’s reputation at risk, it did something that I think was wise — it reached out to the Columbia School of Journalism,” he said.

For the report, Coronel and Coll spoke to nearly everyone involved with the Rolling Stone story, Coronel said.

The Columbia investigative report on the article was published in early April, and is available in the latest issue of Rolling Stone.

The report concluded that the Rolling Stone story failed because it gave undue reverence to a single, uncorroborated source, and neglected to adequately check facts by finding the accused. From writer to editor to fact-checker, the failure of Rolling Stone was an institutional and procedural one. The report recommended new policies, which Coll said he doubted Rolling Stone would accept.

“It was a collaborative failure,” Coll said. “They did this together.”

Editors, fact checkers and Erdely were all at fault for the failure, Coll and Coronel said.

Coll said he and Coronel wanted to puncture the defense that Rolling Stone publicly offered, not to shame the publication, but rather to make the failure a teachable moment.

“[Rolling Stone staff working on the article] took the position when the story fell apart that they had failed because they had been too sensitive to Jackie’s position as a survivor of a terrible assault,” he said.

But the authors of the report thought Rolling Stone’s sensitivity defense was no excuse for ignoring basic journalistic practices.

“If they had only done the basics of sound reporting practice at several stages, they would have encountered information that would cause them to turn around and run in the opposite direction,” Coll said.

The conversation, entitled “A Rape on Campus: What Went Wrong with the Rolling Stone Story,” took place in a full Dodds Auditorium at 7 p.m. on Monday. The event was sponsored by the Wilson School and the University Press Club.
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http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/local/uva/as-uva-s-sullivan-negotiates-contract-board-divided-on-her/article_01ce809e-ed3d-11e4-9081-7bc8e72a7bdb.html

As UVa's Sullivan negotiates contract, board divided on her future

By Derek Quizon | Posted: Monday, April 27, 2015 8:25 pm

The University of Virginia Board of Visitors is divided over the future of school President Teresa A. Sullivan as she negotiates her contract following a series of nationally publicized crises.

Sources in the faculty and university leadership said a faction of the board is pushing for a one- to two-year contract extension, which could lead to a transition to new leadership. Sullivan, 65, has said she hopes to end her career as president of Thomas Jefferson’s university.

Her current contract, which pays her a total compensation of $674,700 annually, expires next year. The board agreed in 2012 to a one-year extension of Sullivan’s original five-year deal.

Asked directly Monday about the prospect of a one- to two-year extension, Sullivan demurred, writing in an email: “I look forward to continuing to work with the Board of Visitors, students, faculty, staff, parents, alumni and supporters on the many important opportunities ahead for this great institution.”

She wrote of two important tasks “leading up to our bicentennial:” implementing her five-year strategic plan and recruiting and retaining top faculty amid a wave of expected retirements.

“I believe we are making very good progress on both fronts,” she wrote, “but there is still work that needs to be done to realize the important goals ahead for the university.”

Since taking over in 2010, Sullivan frequently has been pulled into the national spotlight for the wrong reasons, first in 2012 in an ultimately failed attempt to oust her and in November, when Rolling Stone published its later-discredited tale of gang rape at a fraternity house.

How to view Sullivan’s tenure in light of those crises is a key question for board members, who are expected to decide by June 30 on a deal for her.

She drew sharp criticism after she left town Nov. 19 for an academic conference in the Netherlands on the same day the Rolling Stone story broke, a move she later conceded might have been a misstep.

While board members repeatedly have refused to speak publicly about the matter, emails show at least one, Edward Miller, raised concerns about the trip. The board needed to ask uncomfortable, probing questions about the events leading up to the story’s publication and the university’s response, he wrote.

“I am concerned about the timeline and who knew what when,” he wrote in a Dec. 19 email to a fellow board member. “If we don’t bring these things up we are not doing our duty.”

Miller submitted his resignation earlier this month, citing disagreements with the administration over tuition and other issues, including declining research funding. He will remain on the board until June 30.

One of Sullivan’s primary foes, former Rector Helen E. Dragas, who led the failed coup, remains on the board and has raised similar concerns. She declined to comment for this story.

Rector George Keith Martin, a supporter of Sullivan’s, did not respond to a request for comment by deadline on the possible length of a contract extension.

Sullivan’s supporters say she’s been unfairly blamed in some corners for Rolling Stone’s badly botched reporting, which was pilloried in a 12,000-word critique by the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. Board members who dislike Sullivan are using recent scandals as an excuse to push her out, her supporters say.

“They’re trying to hold someone responsible for something extremely unfortunate,” said a faculty member, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified. “To hold her responsible for a completely irresponsible journalist or organization is ludicrous.”

A longtime administrator said the current board is the most dysfunctional he has seen, mainly because there are so many elements trying to undermine Sullivan. Many board members see her as a pushover, he said.

“You can’t be a leader if you don’t have followers,” the faculty member said. “She’s frozen in place because of this board.”

Sullivan has faced a string of public relations nightmares since the 2012 coup, including a third-party vendor printing 18,700 students’ Social Security numbers on brochures in 2013, the disappearance and death of student Hannah Graham last year and the Rolling Stone story, which also depicted the administration as more concerned about image than victims of sexual assault.

Supporters say the crises have given Sullivan’s detractors — who were marginalized after the 2012 coup — an air of legitimacy.

“I think the scandals have made her more vulnerable because it gives everyone more reason to oppose her,” said Greg Lewis, a fourth-year student and a member of the activist group UVa Students United.

Sullivan, a moderate, has taken flak from all sides, Lewis said.

“I think she’s really detested by people on the left and by people on the right,” said Lewis, who was editor of the student newspaper, the Cavalier Daily, during the 2012 leadership crisis.

Factions on the board want to implement major change. One group — whom Lewis calls “hard-line conservatives” — believes the university should be a “jobs factory,” providing a cheap and efficient education and placing graduates efficiently, he said.

The left has seen Sullivan as not strong enough on the issues they see as important — addressing sexual assault and controlling student costs, among others. Her reserved, low-key personality and methodical style have done little to reassure the students and faculty who ardently supported her during the attempted takeover, Lewis said.

“During the ouster there was this hope she’d be the people’s president,” Lewis said. “She’s kind of disappointed them with her performance.”

Joan Fenton, a local business owner who has streamed videos of every board meeting since the 2012 ouster, said Sullivan is a capable leader with a strategic vision. Fenton said she supports the five-year plan Sullivan pushed through the board last year, which outlines $564 million in new faculty hiring, research incentives and infrastructure improvements.

Sullivan’s quiet leadership style is mistaken by many people for a lack of leadership, Fenton said.

“I believe a lot of people want the strong vibrant personality of a leader but that’s not who she is,” Fenton said. “She knows what she’s doing and she does it well.”

Larry J. Sabato, a political science professor and one of the most distinguished members of the faculty, said her temperament works well in a university context. It’s difficult to order tenured faculty around, he said — a president must win professors over.

“That’s really one of Terry’s strong suits — she persuades rather than commands,” Sabato said.
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Quasimodo

Quote:
 
The University of Virginia Board of Visitors is divided over the future of school President Teresa A. Sullivan as she negotiates her contract following a series of nationally publicized crises.


Why don't we get to hear whether the Duke BOT was divided over retaining Brodhead?

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kbp

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Apr 28 2015, 05:49 AM
http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/local/uva/as-uva-s-sullivan-negotiates-contract-board-divided-on-her/article_01ce809e-ed3d-11e4-9081-7bc8e72a7bdb.html

As UVa's Sullivan negotiates contract, board divided on her future

[...]

Factions on the board want to implement major change. One group — whom Lewis calls “hard-line conservatives” — believes the university should be a “jobs factory,” providing a cheap and efficient education and placing graduates efficiently, he said.

[...]
I did not know such groups could be found!
Edited by kbp, Apr 28 2015, 09:38 AM.
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kbp

Sorry if this has already been posted...


http://chronicle.com/article/article-content/229263/

Should Colleges Be Judging Rape?

...Some administrators say colleges are doing a good job, considering the obstacles. "They are adding $taff, improving procedure$, and training investigator$," says Howard Kallem, Title IX coordinator at Duke University. "Does that mean they aren't going to get sued? They very well might. But despite the publicity, many colleges are in fact getting it right."
Edited by kbp, May 4 2015, 04:38 PM.
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Assistant to The Devil Himself
If you are afraid that your scoop might be a big mistake, then you shouldn't publish it...
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http://www.theknoxstudent.com/news/2015/05/06/rolling-stone-and-uva/

Rolling Stone and UVA

Balancing sympathy and objectivity

By Casey Mendoza, Photo Editor

May 6, 2015

Jackie did nothing wrong.

If anything, she did everything in her power to tell her story as best as she could, and if there’s anything to gain from Rolling Stone’s botched story on “A Rape on Campus,” it’s realizing that sexual assault coverage by journalists and news organizations needs to be improved.

The journalistic mistakes made by the reporters and editors of Rolling Stone are, though horrendous, understandable from the standpoint of sympathy. No reporter wants to ‘correct’ the survivor of assault, because what authority do they have over someone else’s personal tragedy? No journalist wants to ‘confirm’ what happened, because what right do they even have to inquire?

How do you act like a sympathetic human being and a thorough journalist at the same time?

This is the mentality that caused Rolling Stone to fail in its coverage, and it is what makes sexual assault so difficult for reporters to cover.

In response to Rolling Stone’s story, Salamishah Tillet of The Nation wrote “Why It’s So Hard to Write About Rape.”

Tillet writes that reporters “have the conflicting responsibilities of ensuring they don’t convict the perpetrator in the press or further traumatize the victim. Does the Rolling Stone controversy show that it’s impossible to be a good journalist and be sensitive to rape victims?”

Tillet goes on to say no, it is not impossible.

In an op-ed published in the Columbia Spectator by Columbia College junior Daniel Garisto, questions are raised about the morality and ethicality of sexual assault coverage and standard journalistic practices. The piece, in response to the assault of Columbia University’s Emma Sulkowicz and entitled “Better media coverage of sexual assault for survivors,” talks about the delicate balance between being supportive and respectful of sexual assault survivors while also taking the necessary journalistic paths for thorough coverage.

“Is it possible for the media to be true to a mission of supporting individual survivors and still have critical coverage?” Garisto writes.

According to the op-ed, this is not only possible, but absolutely necessary.

As the discussion about sexual assault increases and improves all over the country, journalistic coverage of this issue needs to do the same.

How?

In 2011, The Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma published a tip sheet for “Reporting on Sexual Violence.” The piece stresses that reporters understand the psychological trauma and impact of sexual assault. It goes over the importance of language (for instance, using words such as “survivor” rather than “victim”) and respect (understanding that survivors have the right to not answer questions or go into detail if they don’t want to).

It stresses the fact that uncorroborated statements, unnamed subjects and misremembered details result from the unimaginable psychological trauma of sexual assault. They do not indicate false reportings or lies.

In 2013, The Poynter Institute published a similar guide entitled “How journalists can provide fair coverage when reporting on rape charge in Cleveland case.” Though the guide was written in response to the Cleveland kidnappings of Amanda Berry, Michelle Knight and Gina DeJesus, its message and suggestions ring true today.

Use clear language, and don’t turn survivors into characters. Their experiences are real, and shouldn’t be treated as drama. Understand that “dwelling on gratuitous or salacious details about sexual assaults” can be re-victimizing and again, dramatizing a real event that happened.

These guidelines are decent. They provide journalists with the basic surface-level information needed to cover a topic as shaky as sexual assault. However, these guidelines still don’t go far enough in describing how reporters should balance sensitivity and objectivity.

Rolling Stone was sensitive in their coverage (at least, until they disgustingly reported that they “lost faith” in Jackie), but they weren’t objective in their methodology of reporting.

Recently, Rolling Stone took down “A Rape on Campus,” and published a critique of the story by the Columbia Journalism Review. The critique picks apart every “reporting path” the writer should have taken to check and confirm Jackie’s story. From finding and interviewing Jackie’s friends to researching the campus events (specifically, the fraternity party) that happened on the night of Jackie’s assault, the Columbia Journalism Review makes clear that there were countless oversights on the part of Rolling Stone that would have prevented their journalistic failures.

They should have checked out some of the details of Jackie’s story, and they should have sought out more sources to interview.

Investigating for confirmable truth doesn’t discredit Jackie’s experiences, and finding gaps in knowledge or details doesn’t mean Jackie is lying. Fact checking and investigating are the basic jobs of journalists, and failing to do these basic jobs results in failing the subjects of stories (i.e. Jackie) and the readers of the publication.

To many, this mentality might seem robotic and lacking in sympathy, especially since the topic of sexual assault is sensitive. It is triggering. It is delicate.

But this topic is so important, and it needs to be covered right.
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http://www.newsplex.com/home/headlines/Defense-Fund-Raises-Big-Bucks-For-UVa-Dean--302854031.html?ref=031


Defense Fund Raises Big Bucks For UVa Dean
Updated: Wed 11:45 PM, May 06, 2015
By: News Staff


A newly created defense fund has raised big money for UVa Dean Nicole Eramo, in light of a recent article discredited by Rolling Stone.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (NEWSPLEX) -- A legal fund has been set up for the University of Virginia dean at the center of the recently discredited article published by Rolling Stone magazine, titled "A Rape on Campus".

Dean Nicole Eramo has hired lawyers for a possible defamation lawsuit against Rolling Stone, saying the article "attacked her life's work".

A crowdrise campaign organized by a group called True Hoos, has already raised $20,000 for Eramo's legal fund.

According to the website, any extra funds collected will be used to create a sexual assault prevention position at UVa, in honor of Eramo's mother.

Eramo's attorney, Libby Locke, of Clare Lock LLP, an Alexandria-based firm, confirmed to CBS19 there is no lawsuit on file yet, but the website with the legal fund is authentic.

In an open letter published by the Washington Post last month, Eramo said the magazine's article about an alleged gang rape on UVa grounds falsely portrayed Eramo and he role in counseling the victim, "Jackie."

If you'd like to help donate, click on the link.
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Joan Foster

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May 7 2015, 04:26 AM
http://www.theknoxstudent.com/news/2015/05/06/rolling-stone-and-uva/

Rolling Stone and UVA

Balancing sympathy and objectivity

By Casey Mendoza, Photo Editor

May 6, 2015

Jackie did nothing wrong.

If anything, she did everything in her power to tell her story as best as she could, and if there’s anything to gain from Rolling Stone’s botched story on “A Rape on Campus,” it’s realizing that sexual assault coverage by journalists and news organizations needs to be improved.

The journalistic mistakes made by the reporters and editors of Rolling Stone are, though horrendous, understandable from the standpoint of sympathy. No reporter wants to ‘correct’ the survivor of assault, because what authority do they have over someone else’s personal tragedy? No journalist wants to ‘confirm’ what happened, because what right do they even have to inquire?

How do you act like a sympathetic human being and a thorough journalist at the same time?

This is the mentality that caused Rolling Stone to fail in its coverage, and it is what makes sexual assault so difficult for reporters to cover.

In response to Rolling Stone’s story, Salamishah Tillet of The Nation wrote “Why It’s So Hard to Write About Rape.”

Tillet writes that reporters “have the conflicting responsibilities of ensuring they don’t convict the perpetrator in the press or further traumatize the victim. Does the Rolling Stone controversy show that it’s impossible to be a good journalist and be sensitive to rape victims?”

Tillet goes on to say no, it is not impossible.

In an op-ed published in the Columbia Spectator by Columbia College junior Daniel Garisto, questions are raised about the morality and ethicality of sexual assault coverage and standard journalistic practices. The piece, in response to the assault of Columbia University’s Emma Sulkowicz and entitled “Better media coverage of sexual assault for survivors,” talks about the delicate balance between being supportive and respectful of sexual assault survivors while also taking the necessary journalistic paths for thorough coverage.

“Is it possible for the media to be true to a mission of supporting individual survivors and still have critical coverage?” Garisto writes.

According to the op-ed, this is not only possible, but absolutely necessary.

As the discussion about sexual assault increases and improves all over the country, journalistic coverage of this issue needs to do the same.

How?

In 2011, The Dart Center for Journalism & Trauma published a tip sheet for “Reporting on Sexual Violence.” The piece stresses that reporters understand the psychological trauma and impact of sexual assault. It goes over the importance of language (for instance, using words such as “survivor” rather than “victim”) and respect (understanding that survivors have the right to not answer questions or go into detail if they don’t want to).

It stresses the fact that uncorroborated statements, unnamed subjects and misremembered details result from the unimaginable psychological trauma of sexual assault. They do not indicate false reportings or lies.

In 2013, The Poynter Institute published a similar guide entitled “How journalists can provide fair coverage when reporting on rape charge in Cleveland case.” Though the guide was written in response to the Cleveland kidnappings of Amanda Berry, Michelle Knight and Gina DeJesus, its message and suggestions ring true today.

Use clear language, and don’t turn survivors into characters. Their experiences are real, and shouldn’t be treated as drama. Understand that “dwelling on gratuitous or salacious details about sexual assaults” can be re-victimizing and again, dramatizing a real event that happened.

These guidelines are decent. They provide journalists with the basic surface-level information needed to cover a topic as shaky as sexual assault. However, these guidelines still don’t go far enough in describing how reporters should balance sensitivity and objectivity.

Rolling Stone was sensitive in their coverage (at least, until they disgustingly reported that they “lost faith” in Jackie), but they weren’t objective in their methodology of reporting.

Recently, Rolling Stone took down “A Rape on Campus,” and published a critique of the story by the Columbia Journalism Review. The critique picks apart every “reporting path” the writer should have taken to check and confirm Jackie’s story. From finding and interviewing Jackie’s friends to researching the campus events (specifically, the fraternity party) that happened on the night of Jackie’s assault, the Columbia Journalism Review makes clear that there were countless oversights on the part of Rolling Stone that would have prevented their journalistic failures.

They should have checked out some of the details of Jackie’s story, and they should have sought out more sources to interview.

Investigating for confirmable truth doesn’t discredit Jackie’s experiences, and finding gaps in knowledge or details doesn’t mean Jackie is lying. Fact checking and investigating are the basic jobs of journalists, and failing to do these basic jobs results in failing the subjects of stories (i.e. Jackie) and the readers of the publication.

To many, this mentality might seem robotic and lacking in sympathy, especially since the topic of sexual assault is sensitive. It is triggering. It is delicate.

But this topic is so important, and it needs to be covered right.
So, let's see...if you fact-check and find a lot of information that indicates the accusation is essentially a crock, isn't that "triggering?" I mean what's the point? You can only be "compassionate" by having excuses for every lie and discrepancy and insisting from the get-go, that the "survivor's" tale must remain sacrosanct...what's the point in even giving the other side?

We are not allowed to disbelieve.

I am so truly sick of all this babble, I need to find a safe place myself.
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abb
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Joan Foster
May 7 2015, 05:01 AM
So, let's see...if you fact-check and find a lot of information that indicates the accusation is essentially a crock, isn't that "triggering?" I mean what's the point? You can only be "compassionate" by having excuses for every lie and discrepancy and insisting from the get-go, that the "survivor's" tale must remain sacrosanct...what's the point in even giving the other side?

We are not allowed to disbelieve.

I am so truly sick of all this babble, I need to find a safe place myself.
What's alarming, this person is a "journalism" student. The basic questions for ANY reporter is who, what, when, where and why. If there was no WHAT, then there is no story to report. Yet she breezes right past that.

Amazing.
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kbp

abb
May 7 2015, 05:08 AM
Joan Foster
May 7 2015, 05:01 AM
So, let's see...if you fact-check and find a lot of information that indicates the accusation is essentially a crock, isn't that "triggering?" I mean what's the point? You can only be "compassionate" by having excuses for every lie and discrepancy and insisting from the get-go, that the "survivor's" tale must remain sacrosanct...what's the point in even giving the other side?

We are not allowed to disbelieve.

I am so truly sick of all this babble, I need to find a safe place myself.
What's alarming, this person is a "journalism" student. The basic questions for ANY reporter is who, what, when, where and why. If there was no WHAT, then there is no story to report. Yet she breezes right past that.

Amazing.
I wondered WTH it was about when I got to:

...No journalist wants to ‘confirm’ what happened, because what right do they even have to inquire?

What are journalist for if they do not inquire, just a reporting service for any wishing to create a narrative?
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Payback
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kbp
May 7 2015, 09:22 AM
abb
May 7 2015, 05:08 AM
Joan Foster
May 7 2015, 05:01 AM
So, let's see...if you fact-check and find a lot of information that indicates the accusation is essentially a crock, isn't that "triggering?" I mean what's the point? You can only be "compassionate" by having excuses for every lie and discrepancy and insisting from the get-go, that the "survivor's" tale must remain sacrosanct...what's the point in even giving the other side?

We are not allowed to disbelieve.

I am so truly sick of all this babble, I need to find a safe place myself.
What's alarming, this person is a "journalism" student. The basic questions for ANY reporter is who, what, when, where and why. If there was no WHAT, then there is no story to report. Yet she breezes right past that.

Amazing.
I wondered WTH it was about when I got to:

...No journalist wants to ‘confirm’ what happened, because what right do they even have to inquire?

What are journalist for if they do not inquire, just a reporting service for any wishing to create a narrative?
I remember when "Inquirer" used to be a name for a newspaper.
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Quasimodo

Quote:
 
http://tinyurl.com/prnd2lv


U-Va. dean sues Rolling Stone for ‘false’ portrayal in retracted rape story


A University of Virginia associate dean of students filed a multi-million dollar defamation lawsuit against Rolling Stone on Tuesday, alleging that the magazine portrayed her as callous and indifferent to allegations of sexual assault on campus and made her the university’s “chief villain” in a now-debunked story about a fraternity gang rape.

Nicole Eramo is seeking more than $7.5 million in damages from Rolling Stone, its parent company Wenner Media and Sabrina Rubin Erdely, the investigative journalist who wrote the explosive account of sexual assault on the campus in Charlottesville, Va. The magazine retracted the story after news organizations and the Columbia University journalism school found serious flaws in it.

[Read the complaint: Rolling Stone portrayal “categorically false”]

Eramo, who is the university’s chief administrator dealing with sexual assaults, argues in the lawsuit that the story destroyed her credibility, permanently damaged her reputation and caused her emotional distress. She assailed the account as containing numerous falsehoods that the magazine could have avoided if it had worked to verify the story of its main character, a student named Jackie who alleged she was gang raped in 2012 and that the university mishandled her case.

(snip)

“Rolling Stone and Erdely’s highly defamatory and false statements about Dean Eramo were not the result of an innocent mistake,” according to the lawsuit, which was filed in Charlottesville Circuit Court. “They were the result of a wanton journalist who was more concerned with writing an article that fulfilled her preconceived narrative about the victimization of women on American college campuses, and a malicious publisher who was more concerned about selling magazines to boost the economic bottom line for its faltering magazine, than they were about discovering the truth or actual facts.”

The complaint focuses on a 9,000-word expose called a “A Rape on Campus,” that caused a sensation when it published online in November. The story led with a vividly detailed narrative of a brutal sexual assault at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house in September 2012. Jackie, identified only by her first name, said that as a freshman she was ambushed at a party, seven men taking turns raping her while two others watched.

(snip)

In early April, the Columbia University journalism school published an independent review of the magazine’s reporting and found that the article was “deeply flawed.” The next day, Phi Psi announced plans to file a lawsuit against Rolling Stone, but they have not yet done so.

Rolling Stone and a lawyer for Jackie declined to comment about the lawsuit Tuesday, and Erdely did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The University of Virginia released a statement supporting Eramo, saying she is well within her rights to pursue the private legal action.

“The University of Virginia previously stated that the Rolling Stone article is an example of irresponsible journalism, which has damaged the reputation of many innocent individuals and the University of Virginia,” the statement said. “The University fully supports and appreciates the professional competency and contributions of Dean Eramo and all of her colleagues who work tirelessly in the support of our students and their safety and wellbeing.”

[So why isn't the university suing also? Or was it complicit?]


Rolling Stone has retracted the story and has publicly apologized. Erdely released a statement after the Columbia University report was released, also apologizing “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.”

Last month, Eramo blasted Rolling Stone and Erdely and said she was smeared and that Rolling Stone privately told her that their portrayal of her was “fair” and stood by the account.

In a statement released in response, Rolling Stone spokeswoman Kathryn Brenner wrote that “we sincerely regret any pain we caused Dean Nicole Eramo and others affected by this story.”

According to Eramo’s lawsuit, filed by lawyers with the Clare Locke lawfirm in Alexandria, the magazine alleged that Eramo acted disdainfully to Jackie’s claims, “did nothing in response,” and that the dean sought to suppress “Jackie’s alleged gang rape to protect UVA’s reputation.”

“Erdely and Rolling Stone’s epic failure of journalism was the result of biased, agenda-driven reporting,” the lawsuit says. The suit claims that the magazine’s account represented “a purposeful avoidance of the truth, and an utter failure to investigate the accuracy of Jackie’s claims.”

The magazine also printed a photo illustration of Eramo that she argues is inflammatory;

[think: Newsweek mug shots of the lax players?]

the lawsuit says the magazine turned a mundane Cavalier Daily photo of her addressing a classroom and turned it into a wild-eyed image of her sitting in an office giving a “thumbs-up” in front of distraught sexual assault victim as protesters hold signs outside. The lawsuit claims the doctored image “demonstrates the lengths Erdely and Rolling Stone were willing to go to portray Dean Eramo as a villain.”
[See above.]

The complaint details that in the wake of the story’s publication Eramo received hundreds of spiteful e-mails from alumni and others who judged her based on her portrayal in Rolling Stone. In addition to rape and death threats, the messages described Eramo as a “wretched rape apologist” and “a disgusting, worthless piece of trash” who should “burn in hell forever.”

As the story gained international attention, Eramo lost sleep, had difficulty eating, experienced emotional distress, and sought counseling, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit also alleges that Eramo, stressed out and emotionally and physically drained, suffered surgical complications during an operation to treat a recurring case of breast cancer, leading her to spend additional days in the hospital.

The truth that Eramo knew at the time, the suit argues, was that the dean had made considerable efforts to help Jackie, who first spoke to U-Va. officials about her alleged assault after she was summoned to a meeting about her having failed three classes.

The suit says that Eramo quickly arranged for Jackie to meet with police, helped introduce her to sexual assault support groups on campus and encouraged the student to get other alleged Phi Psi rape victims to “come forward so that UVA could take action against the fraternity if the allegations were well founded.”

The complaint portrays Eramo as a beloved figure on campus among sexual assault prevention activists and rape survivors, and many people on campus have told The Post that Eramo is a force for good at the school. A crowd-funding Web site aiming to raise $500,000 to help Eramo pay her legal fees against Rolling Stone has collected more than $20,000 in donations from administrators, students and alumni in its first days.

Eramo joined the U-Va. faculty shortly after her graduation from the public flagship in 1997, and she proceeded to receive a master’s degree and doctorate in education at the university, making her a “triple-Hoo.” She has spent much of her time on campus dedicated to causes related to sexual assault.

From 1998 to 2006, Eramo served as a volunteer at a shelter for domestic violence victims. Since 2006, Eramo has overseen the university’s sexual misconduct board, which adjudicates allegations of rape on campus. She’s received multiple awards for her advocacy on behalf of women and sexual assault survivors at U-Va.

The lawsuit further claims that Eramo is misquoted in Rolling Stone and that she also never told Jackie that the administration does not publicize sexual assault statistics “because nobody wants to send their daughter to the rape school,” as the Rolling Stone account reported.

Eramo’s lawyers claim that Jackie had informed Rolling Stone prior to the article’s publication that Eramo’s quotes were false and that the student “never told Erdely that Dean Eramo made these statements.”

The complaint notes that Jackie told the magazine that she disagreed with its depiction of Eramo. After the Rolling Stone article published, Jackie joined other sexual assault prevention advocates and survivors in a letter of support for Eramo. Jackie wrote that Eramo counseled her with compassion at a time when the student was severely depressed.

“Dean Eramo has truly saved my life,” Jackie wrote. “She listened attentively to my story and provided me with several resources. . . . I can’t imagine what my life would be like now if it were not for Nicole Eramo.”

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