| UVA Rape Story Collapses; Duke Lacrosse Redux | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Dec 5 2014, 01:45 PM (60,425 Views) | |
| abb | Jul 2 2015, 04:23 AM Post #1171 |
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http://dailycaller.com/2015/07/02/department-of-education-still-standing-by-comments-official-made-in-debunked-rolling-stone-article/ Department Of Education Still Standing By Comments Official Made In Debunked Rolling Stone Article Posted By Chuck Ross On 12:36 AM 07/02/2015 In | No Comments Tweet The Department of Education is sticking by negative comments an official with the agency’s office of civil rights made about a University of Virginia dean during an interview with disgraced Rolling Stone reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely. The dean, Allen Groves, says that he was maligned in the article, “A Rape on Campus.” In that now-debunked piece, Erdely asked Catherine Lhamon, a 2013 Obama appointee to head the Department of Education’s civil rights division, about remarks Groves made regarding sexual assault investigations at UVA during a Sept. 2014 board of trustees meeting. Video of the meeting shows that Groves responded to a question from a trustee about any ongoing sexual assault investigations at the school. While Groves appeared to give a thorough and measured response, Erdely characterized him as much more nefarious in her 9,000-word article. Erdely wrote that after the trustee asked the question, Groves “swooped in with a smooth answer.” Groves downplayed the inquiry into the school by saying that the Department of Education’s investigation was only “a standard compliance review,” Erdely claimed. But in fact, as video of the meeting shows, Groves did not “swoop in” with an answer — he was directly asked. He also told the trustee that UVA was being investigated for a specific sexual assault complaint and was also undergoing a standard compliance review. Lhamon was not at the meeting. But Erdely described Groves’ remarks, and the civil rights officer offered a response, telling the reporter that Groves comments were “deliberate and irresponsible.” “Nothing annoys me more than a school not taking seriously their review from the federal government about their civil rights obligations,” Lhamon said. But in a March letter to Steve Coll and Sheila Coronel, the two Columbia University deans who did an independent investigation of Rolling Stone’s failures, Groves pointed to the video of the meeting and said that Erdely’s report “did not reveal the true substance of my response.” “I can see no basis for the approach that Ms. Erdely took other than bias and malice,” he continued, adding that “the personal and professional damage inflicted as a result was quite real.” Groves did not directly address Lhamon’s remarks. That’s not a surprise given that Lhamon’s civil rights division holds tremendous sway over most colleges and universities in Title IX cases. Non-compliant schools can lose federal funding or face other sanctions. Despite Erdely’s apparent mischaracterization of Groves’ comments, the Department of Education is not retreating from Lhamon’s remarks. “We continue to stand by the statements Catherine made during her interview with Rolling Stone,” Department of Education press secretary Dorie Turner Nolt told The Daily Caller. But it’s unclear if Lhamon should have been talking to Erdely about UVA in the first place. Emails obtained by The Daily Caller this week in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request show that Department of Education officials wanted to make sure that Lhamon knew she could not specifically discuss UVA. In an email the day before Lhamon’s interview with Erdely, Helen Boyer, a confidential assistant at the Department of Education, wanted to confirm with agency spokesman Jim Bradshaw that he “told this reporter that [Lhamon] can’t specifically discuss UVa.” “Yes, we’ve conveyed that several times,” Bradshaw responded. “The reporter understands that’s off-limits.” Nolt did not respond to TheDC’s inquiry about whether Lhamon overstepped her boundaries by talking about UVA with Erdely. Reached for comment, a UVA spokesman referred The Daily Caller to Groves’ letter. The spokesman also said that Groves too had received a response to a FOIA request for records pertaining to Lhamon’s interview with Erdely. He received a document showing that the interview had been scheduled for Lhamon. But the documents did include any notes from the call itself. It is unclear if Groves plans to follow the lead of Nicole Eramo, another maligned UVA dean. Erdely portrayed Eramo as unsympathetic to the main accuser in “A Rape on Campus.” But Eramo has since come forward to dispute that claim and has filed a $7.5 million defamation lawsuit against Rolling Stone. An email sent to Erdely went unanswered. |
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| cks | Jul 2 2015, 07:44 AM Post #1172 |
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I hope Groves sues. |
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| abb | Jul 14 2015, 06:42 AM Post #1173 |
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http://reason.com/blog/2015/07/09/what-have-we-learned-from-the-uva-rape-s What Have We Learned from the UVA Rape Story? Bad Campus Policies Are Here to Stay We will get fooled again. Robby Soave|Jul. 9, 2015 9:05 am UVAPublic DomainMedia Matters ran an interesting piece that asked the editors at elite journalism outlets whether they changed any of their procedures in the wake of Rolling Stone’s disastrous University of Virginia rape story. The answer, for the most part, is no. Here were a few representative responses: "I don't think that story holds any larger lessons about rape coverage, or whether one should believe alleged assault victims," New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet told Media Matters via email. "It was a poorly-done story ... It doesn't make me any more or less likely to believe a source. We always verify, get the other side, and report the heck out of a story, no matter the subject." For Martin Baron, editor of The Washington Post, the same is true: "Nothing has changed in our coverage. We always try to be both sensitive and careful, and to report such stories thoroughly." Robert Rosenthal, executive director of the Center for Investigative Reporting, said via email, "This is very sensitive and difficult reporting and the Rolling Stone incident did not teach us anything except to rely on the standards and practices CIR has maintained for 37 years when it comes to verification for all of our work. And to do everything we can to make sure we are fair in our conclusions and that they are based on facts and sources who are named, not anonymous." There is nothing particularly wrong with these answers. Newspapers and magazines already claim to vigorously edit and fact-check their stories. Rolling Stone compromised its procedures, but that doesn’t mean the procedures themselves are inadequate. (It does mean that Rolling Stone engaged in unfathomable levels of recklessness for which the chief perpetrators have scarcely even apologized—let alone been disciplined—but that’s another matter). And yet I fully expect reporters and media commenters to fall for another Jackie. Indeed, they already have. The Hunting Ground—a documentary about the campus rape crisis that was produced by activists, but initially drew favorable press from mainstream-ish outlets like The Huffington Post—came out after Jackie’s lies were fully exposed. The film highlights several alleged assaults on campuses and was hailed as an expose of sorts, reinforcing the notion that colleges are brimming with abusive sociopaths. Weeks after The Hunting Ground’s debut, Slate’s Emily Yoffe exposed one of its central stories—the alleged rape of Kamilah Willingham—as false. The long version is here. The short version is this: Nothing remotely criminal happened to Willingham. The victim was the male student she accused, whose entire life was put on hold because of her claims. This cycle—outrageous rape story, heaps of praise and righteous indignation, thorough debunking—has continued in the wake of UVA, and existed long before it (remember Duke lacrosse?). Getting duped by fabulists is a recurring motif of the campus violence beat. But why is that the case? Toward the end of the Media Matters article, National Organization for Women President Terry O’Neill provides an answer, of sorts: "To me, the worst aspect of the Rolling Stone article was the fact that the magazine and the author insisted on telling the most salacious story they could find, the most outrageous, the most sensationalistic story of rape they could find," said Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women. "They worked directly with the head of the student group that advocates around sexual assaults, but they didn't [use many of those stories] and my understanding is that the less sensationalist stories were abundant. I think that right there tells you what's wrong with coverage of sexual assault in the United States today." A media racing to break the most incredible, gut-wrenching, salt-the-earth story is a media that’s going to fall for a Jackie every single time—particularly when so many people are predisposed to think that horrific, ritualistic campus violence is widespread (1 in 5! 1 in 5!). The truth is harder to reduce into a shocking headline and simple theme. When today’s teenagers arrive at college, they are liberated from increasingly overbearing parental authority for perhaps the first time in their lives. The evidence suggests that they are drinking more recklessly than they were before the imposition of the federal drinking age in 1985, chugging more alcohol in shorter periods of times and in sketchier environments. And then they are having sex. Regrettable things can happen to teenagers under these conditions. They will consent to things they otherwise wouldn’t. They will do things they don’t remember later. They will misinterpret each other’s social cues. Their feelings about their decisions will change as their heads clear. This is not to say that all instances of campus sexual assault are actually just alcohol-induced confusion, but rather, that genuine confusion is often going to be a significant component of these disputes. This gives the media the difficult task of remaining objective and working extra hard to fairly investigate both sides. It’s not an easy job, and it cuts against the desire to publish incendiary stories. Think of the Emma Sulkowicz story. The most unbiased, objective analysis of the Sulkowicz-Nungesser dispute is that it’s impossible to say for sure who's lying—though we should give weight to the fact that Nungesser was cleared, presented circumstantial evidence in his favor, and appears to be the target of a small social conspiracy. But nobody wants a complicated campus rape story with unclear answers. Indeed, I’ve been criticized by both pro-Sulkowicz and pro-Nungesser camps for failing to deliver a scathing condemnation of one or the other. The media’s penchant for campus sex drama—and eschewing of complicated narratives—has been eagerly embraced by policymakers who prefer simple, do-something solutions: it gives them an excuse to interfere. That’s why legislatures are trying to redefine consent to make rape more prevalent—if you don’t have explicit permission, at each step down the road toward copulation, it’s rape—while vigorously policing sexual harassment on an ever-broadening, subjective basis. The Title IX inquisition, and the neo-Victorian push to make most campus sexual activity borderline illegal, are partly the result of the media’s shock-and-awe storytelling when it comes to campus rape. And for the meantime, we will be stuck with these policies, no matter how many times the Jackies of the world are debunked. Read my initial report on the UVA rape story—which recently won a Southern California Journalism Award—here.` |
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| Quasimodo | Jul 14 2015, 07:48 AM Post #1174 |
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All the media in the US went down to Durham, and couldn't find out a single fact about Mangum; and they accepted what they were spoon-fed by Nifong (regardless of how contradictory it was). So much for reliance on the media watchdogs...
That describes it better... [/big] |
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| abb | Jul 18 2015, 05:16 AM Post #1175 |
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http://www.mediaite.com/online/uva-gave-credibility-to-rolling-stones-campus-rape-story-newly-revealed-letter/ UVA Gave Credibility to Rolling Stone‘s Campus Rape Story: Newly Revealed Letter by Jamie Frevele | 4:10 pm, July 17th, 2015 In May, Associate Dean of the University of Virginia Nicole Eramo filed a $7.5 million defamation lawsuit against Rolling Stone magazine for making her look like a villain in the magazine’s infamously now-retracted story “A Rape on Campus.” But now, the magazine has claimed in court that Eramo was, in fact, one of the reasons why the magazine thought that the student at the center of the story, “Jackie,” could ever be trusted. A letter from Rolling Stone to Eramo’s lawyers, which was considered inadmissable as evidence but was allowed because Eramo referenced it herself, states the following: “…Rolling Stone believed in the credibility of Jackie’s story because it came with the imprimatur of UVA, and of Dean Eramo specifically.” Going back a bit, the Rolling Stone writer, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, had approached a woman named Emily Renda, a rape survivor who was working on UVA’s staff on sexual assault issues on campus in the Student Affairs office. It was Renda who gave Erdely the story about “Jackie” as the rape case that could serve as a “single, emblematic college rape case” that would accurately represent the prevalence of rape culture at UVA. Someone with whom Renda was working very closely on this issue was Dean Eramo. The letter makes it sound as if there was no reason for Rolling Stone to question this case because it had a seal of approval from not just a UVA staff member, but from Eramo herself. Surely if Eramo was working in Student Affairs on an extensive piece of journalism in a mainstream publication she would know what kind of information was being provided. So, if Eramo is being named as the “primary villain” in a story that Rolling Stone has since retracted, can she sue them for calling her the bad guy when she helped facilitate the story in the first place? In their response to the suit, Rolling Stone said that they weren’t trying to smear Eramo, but “any libel inquiry turns on what Rolling Stone knew and believed at the time of publication,” and the story that was enabled by Eramo hinged on what Eramo — or Eramo’s own Student Affairs staff — gave them. It’s another wrinkle in an extremely complicated story, and the logic of such disclosure is that if the UVA Student Affairs staff — led by Eramo — handed Rolling Stone “Jackie,” then why would they have doubted the school as a source? UPDATE — 7:50 p.m. ET: Eramo’s counsel, Libby Locke, provided the following comment in response to the Rolling Stone lawyer letter: Rolling Stone‘s claims that Dean Eramo was somehow the imprimatur for the story is categorically false. Rolling Stone‘s sole basis for that conclusion (found in the Rolling Stone lawyer letter) is that “Erdely was directed to Jackie by Emily Renda, then working closely with Dean Eramo in the Student Affairs office ….” That is false. Renda was a student advocate for sexual assault victims at the time she directed Erdely to Jackie. She was not working closely with Dean Eramo on sexual assault cases, she did not — and has never — had access to University sexual assault case information in any capacity, and Dean Eramo did not participate in providing Renda or Rolling Stone facts to support this false and reckless story. It is shameful that Rolling Stone is trying to shift the blame to Dean Eramo for their own malicious and reckless reporting. |
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| abb | Jul 18 2015, 05:17 AM Post #1176 |
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/rolling-stone-denies-it-defamed-u-va-administrator-in-campus-rape-story/2015/07/17/5003d884-2bd8-11e5-a250-42bd812efc09_story.html Rolling Stone denies it defamed U-Va. administrator in campus rape story 7/17/15 Rolling Stone magazine says it did not defame a University of Virginia administrator in publishing a story that implied she did not take seriously an allegation that a student had been raped by members of a campus fraternity. The magazine defended its actions in a response filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Charlottesville, the publication’s first detailed remarks concerning a multimillion-dollar defamation complaint by Nicole Eramo, an associate dean at U-Va. Eramo, who filed the lawsuit in May, is seeking $7.5 million in damages. She says she was portrayed as callous and indifferent to a claim of a fraternity gang rape on campus; she says she took the claim seriously, contacted police and worked closely with the woman who said she had been attacked. The magazine steadfastly denies Eramo’s allegations, and its attorneys are seeking to have the lawsuit dismissed in court. [U-Va. dean files defamation lawsuit against Rolling Stone] Eramo is now U-Va.’s top administrator addressing sexual assault claims at the flagship university. Her lawsuit focuses on last fall’s 9,000-word exposé, “A Rape on Campus,” by journalist Sabrina Rubin Erdely. This image is from a $7.5 million defamation lawsuit against Rolling Stone. (Eramo v. Rolling Stone) The story began with a vivid narrative in which a student named Jackie claimed to have been brutally raped at a campus fraternity in 2012, possibly part of a hazing ritual for new members, and that university officials ignored her allegations. Eramo said she was portrayed as the story’s “chief villain” representing the U-Va. administration and argues in her lawsuit that the Rolling Stone story destroyed her credibility, tarnished her life’s work and hurt campus efforts to help sexual assault survivors. After reports in The Washington Post in December showed inconsistencies in Rolling Stone’s reporting of the alleged attack — including that there was no fraternity party the night of the attack; that there was no member of the fraternity fitting the assailant’s description; and that Jackie’s friends disputed key details of the account — Charlottesville police concluded that the rape claims could not be substantiated. The magazine retracted the article after the Columbia University journalism school also found serious discrepancies in the account. “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. “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.” In a detailed rebuttal, the magazine’s lawyers acknowledge that the Columbia report, commissioned by Rolling Stone, found that the original U-Va. story was deeply flawed. The editors and Erdely apologized for their mistakes. But attorneys for Rolling Stone deny that the magazine libeled Eramo, noting that the account also highlighted that she is seen as an asset to the community of rape survivors on campus. Rolling Stone’s attorneys alleged that Eramo’s assertions in the lawsuit “are not capable of being proven true or false” and therefore not subject to legal action. They also state that the editors and Erdely did not publish the story “with actual malice” against Eramo, meaning that they did not know that the information was false. In addition, the magazine’s attorneys say that the original article was not published “with recklessness, negligence or any other applicable degree of fault” and that the story was vetted by fact-checkers. “At the time of publication, they had no doubts as to the truth of the article,” the attorneys wrote. Libby Locke, the attorney for Eramo, said the magazine’s response shows that her client has a strong case. “It is unfortunate, however, that Rolling Stone continues to deny wrongdoing and seeks to avoid all responsibility for their malicious and reckless journalism that has caused Dean Eramo and the entire UVA community so much harm,” Locke said. T. Rees Shapiro is an education reporter. |
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| abb | Jul 18 2015, 05:27 AM Post #1177 |
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http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/rolling-stone-argues-university-virginia-809468 July 17, 2015 11:41am PT by Eriq Gardner Rolling Stone Argues University of Virginia Vouched for Discredited Rape Story The publication responds to a $7.5 million lawsuit and shares a confidential letter it sent to an attorney for Dean Nicole Eramo. Associated Press The publication responds to a $7.5 million lawsuit and shares a confidential letter it sent to an attorney for Dean Nicole Eramo. On Thursday, Rolling Stone magazine responded in court to a $7.5 million lawsuit filed by University of Virginia associate dean Nicole Eramo over a now-retracted article titled "A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA." For perhaps the first time, there's a suggestion that the University may have contributed to the faulty story. Eramo sued in May after the media poked holes in Rolling Stone author Sabrina Erdely's account of a fraternity gang rape of a freshman identified as "Jackie." The plaintiff claims she was cast the "chief villain" of the story, doing nothing to help the victim and presiding over an academic institution that was "indifferent to rape on campus, and more concerned with protecting its reputation than with assisting victims of sexual assault." Rolling Stone commissioned the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism to look into the story and the investigation resulted in a report faulting the magazine for failing "basic, even routine journalistic practice." That didn't stop Eramo from filing a 76-page complaint, which Rolling Stone responds to paragraph-by-paragraph on Thursday. Read here. Perhaps most interesting — and a sign of how Rolling Stone will defend itself going forward — is the letter that the publication sent to Eramo's lawyers in February. This confidential letter has never been made public, but Eramo's lawsuit briefly referenced it. And so, Rolling Stone decides to detail how it first responded to Eramo "because Plaintiff has chosen to describe such communications in her Complaint, despite their inadmissibility." The letter, attached as an exhibit (and seen in full below), makes the case that Rolling Stone had "good reason" to focus on the University of Virginia because it is "one of only 12 schools selected for a compliance review by the Department of Education's Office" and "has been the scene of well-known sexual and other violent assaults." The attorney for Rolling Stone had written that the suggestion of Jackie's discredited story is "of serious and ongoing concern," but nevertheless rejects that Eramo has a viable libel claim. The letter rejects the premise "that because Jackie's account of her gang rape is somehow flawed or false, all references concerning Dean Eramo or UVA are likewise false." But maybe most provocative is the letter's discussion of a woman named Emily Renda. Who's she? Here's how the Columbia School of Journalism report opened: "Last July 8, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, a writer for Rolling Stone, telephoned Emily Renda, a rape survivor working on sexual assault issues as a staff member at the University of Virginia. Erdely said she was searching for a single, emblematic college rape case that would show 'what it's like to be on campus now … where not only is rape so prevalent but also that there's this pervasive culture of sexual harassment/rape culture,' according to Erdely's notes of the conversation." And now here's how the Rolling Stone letter to Eramo puts what happened: "Ms. Erdely did not stumble on Jackie's story. She was directed to Jackie by Emily Renda, then working closely with Dean Eramo in the Student Affairs office the — same Emily Renda that included Jackie's account of being 'gang-raped' in her Congressional testimony about campus sexual-assault policies. There is no question that both the author and Rolling Stone had full faith in Jackie's credibility and the accuracy of its Article at the time of publication. In no small measure, Rolling Stone believed in the credibility of Jackie's story because it came with the imprimatur of UVA, and of Dean Eramo specifically." The boldface is in the letter. The publication is essentially arguing that Eramo vouched for the credibility of its main source. And this is potentially important because the letter states "at bottom, any libel inquiry turns on what Rolling Stone knew and believed at the time of publication" and a footnote in the letter also says that Eramo is "unquestionably a public figure." Rolling Stone is also asserting in its Answer yesterday that the statements published weren't made with "actual malice" — the standard if Eramo is deemed a public figure — besides challenging plaintiff's harm amid other typical defenses. It's also worth noting Renda's reaction once the story came out and was retracted. Here's what she told The New York Times: "Ms. Renda, who was interviewed for the Columbia report, offered another reason that she felt the Rolling Stone article was flawed: The magazine was drawn toward the most extreme story of a campus rape it could find. The more nuanced accounts, she suggested, seemed somehow 'not real enough to stand for rape culture. And that is part of the problem.' " UPDATED: Libby Locke, counsel for Eramo, gave us this statement: "Rolling Stone's claims that Dean Eramo was somehow the imprimatur for the story is categorically false. Rolling Stone's sole basis for that conclusion (found in the Rolling Stone lawyer letter) is that 'Erdely was directed to Jackie by Emily Renda, then working closely with Dean Eramo in the Student Affairs office ….' That is false. Renda was a student advocate for sexual assault victims at the time she directed Erdely to Jackie. She was not working closely with Dean Eramo on sexual assault cases, she did not — and has never — had access to University sexual assault case information in any capacity, and Dean Eramo did not participate in providing Renda or Rolling Stone facts to support this false and reckless story. It is shameful that Rolling Stone is trying to shift the blame to Dean Eramo for their own malicious and reckless reporting." https://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/271856604?access_key=key-TpG0psXzWEF4TZxKyUL1&allow_share=true&escape=false&view_mode=scroll |
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| Joan Foster | Jul 18 2015, 05:51 AM Post #1178 |
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And still we do not know who "Jackie" is. This is like...if I set fire to Baldo's house...and you all know it...but choose to argue over which of you should have put it out. It's ridiculous. |
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| MikeZPU | Jul 18 2015, 04:34 PM Post #1179 |
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"Rolling Stone's claims that Dean Eramo was somehow the imprimatur for the story is categorically false. Rolling Stone's sole basis for that conclusion (found in the Rolling Stone lawyer letter) is that 'Erdely was directed to Jackie by Emily Renda, then working closely with Dean Eramo in the Student Affairs office ….' That is false. Renda was a student advocate for sexual assault victims at the time she directed Erdely to Jackie. She was not working closely with Dean Eramo on sexual assault cases, she did not — and has never — had access to University sexual assault case information in any capacity, and Dean Eramo did not participate in providing Renda or Rolling Stone facts to support this false and reckless story. It is shameful that Rolling Stone is trying to shift the blame to Dean Eramo for their own malicious and reckless reporting." Sounds like Rolling Stone's "fact checking" is still a joke. |
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| cks | Jul 18 2015, 05:17 PM Post #1180 |
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Did you really expect that Rolling Stone would suddenly start doing any real fact checking? Sure, they got a "dressing down" of sorts from the people at Columbia's School of Journalism which has not been especially forthright in terms of its coverage of the Mattress Martyr's activities. The dressing down was about as effective as telling men to put down the toilet lid when finished using the facilities. |
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| kbp | Jul 19 2015, 04:19 PM Post #1181 |
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OT, but close. Not sure where to put this as much information in my mind on the subject came from the endless daily reporting from Abb. Anyway... If an employee wished to claim the fifth and his employer threatened to end his career unless he testified, that seems like coercion to me. If a student is threatened to be expelled or suspended, knowing that would be the result from a complaint if they did not give testimony at a school hearing, that too seems like coercion. . |
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| cks | Jul 19 2015, 04:50 PM Post #1182 |
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Yes....but remember that as things stand now on college campuses, the rights that one possesses elsewhere in this country do not apply - especially if you are a male and you happened to have consensual sex with a fellow student who the next day (or so) has "buyer's remorse. |
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| MikeKell | Jul 19 2015, 09:24 PM Post #1183 |
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Still a Newbie
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some of these "or so's" have been a year or two later! |
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| abb | Jul 20 2015, 05:02 AM Post #1184 |
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jul/19/rolling-stone-says-university-of-virginia-rape-acc/ Rolling Stone says White House adviser introduced U.Va. rape accuser By Jeffrey Scott Shapiro - The Washington Times - Sunday, July 19, 2015 Rolling Stone has confirmed for the first time in a court filing that a University of Virginia sexual assault victim advocate, who also served on an Obama administration White House task force, introduced the student who became the centerpiece of the magazine's now-retracted story about a gang rape on campus. The move could open the door for the magazine to try to shift blame to the university for a journalism debacle that continues to reverberate across the country. Rolling Stone's legal filing late last week came in response to a $7.5 million libel lawsuit filed by U.Va. Dean Nicole Eramo, who claims she was unfairly depicted as the "chief villain" in the now discredited article about a woman nicknamed "Jackie" who claimed she was gang-raped at a fraternity. Police who investigated the claim said they found no evidence of such an attack. Ms. Eramo argued in her lawsuit that she was portrayed as an official working for a university "indifferent to rape on campus, and more concerned with protecting its reputation than with assisting victims of sexual assault." She filed her complaint shortly after Rolling Stone asked the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism to conduct an independent investigation of the article, which concluded in a scathing report published in April that the magazine disregarded "basic, even routine journalistic practice." But Rolling Stone's recent legal answer adds another twist, pointing to a young woman, Emily Renda, who the magazine says played an important role in the story. According to Rolling Stone's legal filing, Ms. Renda facilitated the introduction between the reporter, contributing editor Sabrina Rubin Erdely, and the purported victim, and essentially pushed the story in Washington and in Charlottesville, Virginia. "Defendants admit that Erdely was directed to Jackie by Emily Renda, a recent UVA graduate and sexual assault survivor who, at the time she met Erdely, was an employee of UVA working on sexual assault issues," the magazine's filing says. "Defendants further state that the fact that Emily Renda worked at UVA and directed Erdely to Jackie, coupled with the fact that Renda included Jackie's account of being 'gang-raped' by multiple fraternity men in her June 2014 congressional testimony regarding campus sexual assault issues, provided credibility to Jackie's story." Neither Ms. Renda nor Ms. Erdely returned calls to The Washington Times on Sunday seeking comment. Ms. Renda was a UVa. student and outspoken rape victim advocate who held several positions in Charlottesville since 2011 to combat the problem of sexual assault. A former intern in the Sexual and Domestic Violence division of the U.Va. Women's Center, Ms. Renda, according to her LinkedIn page, now works as a project coordinator for the U.Va. vice president for student affairs — a position she also held at the time Ms. Erdely first came to the small college town. Ms. Renda introduced the reporter to a young woman named Jackie, who had been visiting with her victims' advocacy group, One Less. She was even personally acquainted with Ms. Eramo. The recent legal filing's references to Ms. Renda shed new light on several roles the rape victims' advocate assumed on campus in Charlottesville and the unusually high credibility she garnered in Washington. On June 26, 2014, just before Ms. Renda introduced Jackie and Ms. Erdely, she testified about Jackie's incident before a U.S. congressional committee. She also served as an adviser to a White House sexual assault task force and reportedly visited the White House six times last year. Ryan Duffin, one of the three U.Va. students who befriended Jackie her freshman year and came to her aid the night of the purported rape said he was not surprised that Ms. Erdely connected with Ms. Renda. "Emily was working with all these [sexual assault organizations], and so that would make her a logical person for Sabrina to contact," he told The Times. "The organizations are very prominent at U.Va." |
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| Mason | Jul 20 2015, 05:48 AM Post #1185 |
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Parts unknown
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. WHITE HOUSE.... I said before and the White House had zero interest in Serial Rapist/Serial Murderer preying on UVA students and others in the VA. area. Another marker where they have keen interest in broadcasting and amplifying some - while totally ignoring other cases. . |
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