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UVA Rape Story Collapses; Duke Lacrosse Redux
Topic Started: Dec 5 2014, 01:45 PM (60,410 Views)
Quasimodo

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Addressing the “public figure” argument, Conrad sided with the magazine in classifying Eramo as a “limited purpose public figure,” meaning that she was involved in a public controversy within a narrow area of interest. Because the article in question dealt with sexual assault, Eramo could be viewed as having a public position within that controversy as the chair of U.Va.’s Sexual Misconduct Board.

Eramo’s attorneys had previously argued that their client would not fit this classification, because she never attempted to bring the controversy into the public spotlight.


And how would a judge have ruled on the status of the lax players? They were victims of bad press, even malicious press,
and did not seek to inject themselves into a public controversy.

Showing my level of cynicism, should I trust a court to have made a decision in their favor, which might have made it less hard for them to win a judgment against the MSM?

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Quasimodo
Sep 16 2016, 07:51 AM
Quote:
 

Addressing the “public figure” argument, Conrad sided with the magazine in classifying Eramo as a “limited purpose public figure,” meaning that she was involved in a public controversy within a narrow area of interest. Because the article in question dealt with sexual assault, Eramo could be viewed as having a public position within that controversy as the chair of U.Va.’s Sexual Misconduct Board.

Eramo’s attorneys had previously argued that their client would not fit this classification, because she never attempted to bring the controversy into the public spotlight.


And how would a judge have ruled on the status of the lax players? They were victims of bad press, even malicious press,
and did not seek to inject themselves into a public controversy.

Showing my level of cynicism, should I trust a court to have made a decision in their favor, which might have made it less hard for them to win a judgment against the MSM?

IMO, that ruling needs to be appealed.
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http://www.nbc29.com/story/33132494/both-sides-of-rolling-stone-lawsuit-discuss-evidence

Both Sides of Rolling Stone Lawsuit Discuss Evidence

Posted: Sep 19, 2016 5:54 PM CST

Lloyd Snook, NBC29 legal analyst

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) -

Both sides of a multimillion dollar federal defamation lawsuit are discussing what evidence they don't want a jury to see.

The clock is ticking for those involved in litigation over a now retracted Rolling Stone article about the rape of a University of Virginia student.

The 10 day trial is scheduled to start October 17 and both sides filed a slew of motions arguing the other side can't use certain pieces of evidence because it could be prejudicial to their client.

Lawyers for UVA Associate Dean Nicole Eramo filed four motions. Eramo is suing Rolling Stone, its publisher, and the author of the article for $7.5 million.

Rolling Stone’s defense team filed 12 motions.

The defendants want to bar key people in the article from testifying. They also want to exclude a Charlottesville police investigation into the rape and a Columbia review of the article's journalistic failures.

“It seems clear that Rolling Stone doesn't want to make this a journalistic malpractice case. If they think it's a journalism malpractice case, the jury is going to probably be harsh toward Rolling Stone because Rolling Stone really didn't do a good job,” said Lloyd Snook, NBC29 legal analyst.

Among other requests, Eramo would like to keep two letters quiet including one from the National Organization for Women that criticized her lawsuit.

Both sides will argue the motions at a hearing, which has not been set yet.

The judge will make the final decision about what the jury will and will not hear as evidence.
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http://lawnewz.com/high-profile/lawyers-claim-law-order-svu-episode-inspired-uva-rape-allegations/


Lawyers Claim Law & Order: SVU Episode Inspired False UVA Rape Allegations
by David Bixenspan | 12:55 pm, September 20th, 2016

Law & Order: SVU cast (Shutterstock) “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” is the longest running drama currently on television, with its 18th season set to premiere on Wednesday. As it approaches that milestone, the show colloquially known as “SVU” has become a central issue in one of the most contentious lawsuits in the country: The defamation case stemming from Rolling Stone’s now retracted article about an alleged gang rape in a fraternity house at the University of Virginia.

Associate Dean of Students Nicole P. Eramo filed the suit against Rolling Stone, its parent company, and reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely. The case is set to go to trial on October 17th. With just four weeks to go, both sides are working overtime trying to get evidence unfavorable to them excluded from trial, filing numerous motions over the weekend. For the defense, this includes an attempt to strike all references to the plaintiff’s theory that “Jackie,” the subject of the article, made up her allegations after seeing an SVU episode about a fraternity gang rape.

In a July filing, Eramo’s lawyers, referring to Erdely’s notes, wrote that the reporter knew “that Jackie claimed that her rape was just like a rape that occurred on an episode of Law & Order SVU” titled “Girl Dishonored” where, to quote “Jackie,” “this girl who is at a fraternity party, and one guy takse her up to a room and calls his friends in, and like four of them gang rape her.”

Eramo’s attorney’s points to how, in the episode, “one of the attackers yells ‘Grab her leg!’ just as Jackie claimed to Erdely that one of her attackers yelled during her alleged attack, ‘Grab its motherf–king leg.'” The defense, however, rebuts this, pointing out that on cop shows “depicting a gang-rape scene where one of the assailants says ‘grab her leg’ while trying to hold the victim down is so common as to be ubiquitous.”

Even setting that aside, the defense pointed out that this doesn’t really fit the timeline of events. Besides being speculation about the truth of the story Jackie gave Erdely, which is not technically at issue, Erdely’s notes show that “Jackie” clearly said that she saw the episode as a rerun a year after she first reported her rape to UVA. The defense argues that it’s “irrelevant to her subjective state of mind at the time of publication” and can’t be used to show she believed the article to be untrue.

The defense also has another concern: If the judge lets this into the trial, it will open the door to a lot of minutiae about SVU:

One could demonstrate that the information contained in the specific episode Eramo has chosen was hardly unique, which would require introducing and playing episode after episode of the show. Given the lack of foundation for Plaintiff’s speculation that Jackie made up her assault based on Law & Order, subjecting the jury to this sideshow would unnecessarily prolong the trial and make it impossible to conclude in two weeks.

If nothing else, that sure sounds like a waste of time and money.
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Quasimodo

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If nothing else, that sure sounds like a waste of time and money.


Blame Jackie, and send her the bill...

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MikeKell
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Still a Newbie
If nothing else, "journalists" siding with their own.
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Quasimodo

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http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/rolling-stone-headed-trial-uva-931972

SEPTEMBER 22, 2016

Rolling Stone Headed to Trial Over Campus Rape Story

The court has found that UVA's dean Nicole Eramo is a limited-purpose public figure and will face a higher bar in proving the story defamed her.

A jury will decide whether Rolling Stone defamed the University of Virginia's dean in its since-retracted article about a gang rape at a campus fraternity, after a federal judge on Thursday denied summary judgment on key issues in the lawsuit.

Nicole Eramo sued Rolling Stone in May 2015, claiming the story cast her as the chief villain and painted the school as one that is indifferent to rape on its campus.

During the time of the alleged incident, Eramo was in charge of performing intake of sexual assault complaints, providing support to victims and participating in panels and conferences related to the issue. She claims the November 2014 article destroyed her reputation as a supporter of sexual assault victims and triggered hundreds of threatening messages from the public.

Within weeks of publication, Rolling Stone issued an editor's note acknowledging that there were discrepancies in the story "Jackie" told reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdley — who admittedly did not attempt to contact any of the men Jackie claimed raped her or even confirm their full names.

Chief U.S. District Judge Glen E. Conrad on Thursday concluded that Eramo is a limited-purpose public figure, which means she will have to prove the magazine acted with actual malice to prevail on her defamation claims.

“The volume of her media appearances, and in some instances their depth, supports the conclusion that Eramo attempted to influence the outcome of the controversy,” writes Conrad. "[Th]e court's analysis of the five requirements for limited-public figure status, and its overall review of the record, lead to the conclusion that defendants have met their burden of establishing that, at the time of publication, Eramo warranted the limited-purpose public figure designation."

Conrad explains that Eramo will have to prove the magazine "entertained serious doubts as to the truth" of its story. Rolling Stone had moved for summary judgment on the issue of actual malice, but Conrad dismissed it Thursday.

Conrad also tossed the magazine's argument that the statements in the article concerning Eramo were protected opinion and not actionable under Virginia law.

"After reviewing the Article, the court believes that it is not 'clear to all reasonable listeners' that all twelve statements targeted by the plaintiff are 'exaggerated rhetoric' or 'the opinion of the author," writes Conrad. "On the contrary, Erdely has written at least five other similarly-styled, solemn and fact-intensive articles about rape. These circumstances support the notion that 'A Rape on Campus' was largely a report of a factual occurrence."

Conrad stopped short of answering whether or not Eramo was defamed, finding that question should be left to a jury. (Read his full opinion below.)

Earlier this summer the magazine beat a different lawsuit from a handful of Pi Kappa Psi brothers who also claimed to be defamed in the story. There, a New York federal judge found the "the article's details about the attackers are too vague and remote from the plaintiffs' circumstances to be 'of and concerning' them."


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Quasimodo

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Conrad explains that Eramo will have to prove the magazine "entertained serious doubts as to the truth" of its story.


I think the lax players could have met that standard easily; or, that the media were recklessly negligent...


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https://www.scribd.com/document/324962403/Rolling-Stone-Opinion#fullscreen&from_embed
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http://reason.com/blog/2016/09/22/nicole-eramo-v-rolling-stone-is-going-to

Nicole Eramo v. Rolling Stone Is Going to Trial: Judge’s Decision a Partial Win for UVA Dean
Whether Jackie's lies and Sabrina Rubin Erdely's mistakes satisfy 'actual malice' is a question only a jury can answer, judge rules.

Robby Soave|Sep. 22, 2016 9:40 pm

EramoScreenshot via WUVANicole Eramo, the University of Virginia dean maligned by Rolling Stone's debunked gang rape story, will get the chance to argue to a jury that she was maliciously defamed by the magazine.

That's according to Judge Glen Conrad's decision, released Friday afternoon, which weighed in on several factual disputes.

Eramo and Rolling Stone had both filed for summary judgment on key assertions. Conrad granted some of them and denied others. The bottom line, however, is this: in the judge's view, Eramo's case is strong enough to justify a jury trial.

That's a significant win for Eramo, albeit a partial one. Rolling Stone prevailed in a critically important aspect: the judge agreed with the magazine that Eramo is a public figure rather than a private figure. This distinction matters, because court precedent holds that defamatory statements against public figures should be held to a higher standard. Since Eramo is a public figure, she must prove that the statements made about her weren't just wrong, but were motivated by "actual malice"—that Rolling Stone knew, or really should have known, it was lying about Eramo when it published the article in question.

But in virtually every other respect, Eramo has reason to celebrate. That's because the judge found ample evidence that a reasonable jury could conclude Rolling Stone acted with actual malice.

"While ill will or intent to injure alone is insufficient to show actual malice, plaintiff has also advanced evidence indicating Erdely had a preconceived story line, did not adequately investigate in the face of contradictory information, and had a reasonable basis upon which she would likely understand that her portrayal of Eramo was inaccurate," wrote the judge. "The court believes that a reasonable jury could infer actual malice in light of this record."

To be clear: the judge did not say that Rolling Stone acted with actual malice—he said the idea cannot and should not be dismissed outright before a jury can consider it.

The judge also declined to issue a definitive opinion on whether Rolling Stone's December 5 Editor's Note—which was published two weeks after the initial article—made Eramo look better or worse. Eramo has argued that the Editor's Note represents actual malice: by December 5, the editors knew the story was false, but instead of retracting it, they re-published it with an insufficient disclaimer, her lawsuit claims. Rolling Stone has countered that the Editor's Note was "an effective retraction." This will be a matter for the jury to decide, according to the decision.

To my mind, this is one of the stronger aspects of Eramo's lawsuit: essentially, Eramo has claimed that Rolling Stone continued to expose new readers to false information about the dean, long after its editors admitted to realizing the story was false. And she will get to make this case to a jury.

Of course, the jury could well conclude that Rolling Stone's numerous failings aren't substantial enough to satisfy an actual malice test, and that the Editor's Note was a retraction rather than a re-publication. We'll find out in the months to come.
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http://www.wsj.com/articles/rolling-stone-defamation-case-to-go-to-trial-1474591272

Rolling Stone Defamation Case to Go to Trial
Federal judge rules suit against magazine over retracted rape story will move forward

By Jacob Gershman
Sept. 22, 2016 8:41 p.m. ET

A defamation suit against Rolling Stone over its explosive and later discredited story about a fraternity party gang rape can go to trial, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

The case centers on the magazine’s November 2014 article, “A Rape on Campus,” which described a brutal alleged sexual assault of a female college student at a University of Virginia fraternity house and depicted school officials as indifferent to her plight.

The article by journalist Sabrina Rubin Erdely made national headlines first as a shocking example of campus sexual violence and then as a journalism scandal when its central claims unraveled and Rolling Stone retracted it with an apology to readers.

In a lawsuit filed last year, then-UVA associate dean of students Nicole Eramo alleges that the article cast her as the callous villain of its tale and falsely asserted that she discouraged a student identified only as “Jackie” from taking her rape allegations to the police.

Rolling Stone, which apologized to readers for the story, disputes the lawsuit’s characterization of its reporting about Ms. Eramo. The magazine said in a statement Thursday that it looks forward to the jury’s decision in the case. Rolling Stone and Ms. Erdely “firmly believed in the credibility of Jackie when the article was published,” the publication said.

While allowing the case to go before a jury, U.S. District Judge Glen E. Conrad set a more challenging hurdle for establishing defamation. He said Ms. Eramo thrust herself in the spotlight as UVA’s point-person in responding to the rape allegations, making her legally a “limited-purpose public figure,” As such, she must prove “actual malice,” meaning the magazine didn’t merely act negligently but made statements about her it knew to be false or published them with a “reckless disregard for the truth.”

But in allowing the case to move forward, Judge Conrad said a “reasonable jury could infer actual malice in light” of the record established so far.

There was evidence that Ms. Erdely “had a preconceived story line, did not adequately investigate in the face of contradictory information, and had a reasonable basis upon which she would likely understand that her portrayal of Eramo was inaccurate,” the judge wrote in a 26-page opinion.

The judge also held that a Dec. 5, 2014 online editor’s note published by Rolling Stone first acknowledging discrepancies in Jackie’s allegations could constitute a “republication” of defamatory material, exposing the magazine to larger damages.

Ms. Erdely, who is represented by the same legal team defending the magazine, remains a Rolling Stone contributing editor but is no longer under contract.

Ms. Eramo is still employed at UVA. Her lawyer, Elizabeth Marie Locke, said there is “ample evidence” to win the case. “Rolling Stone’s reporting... may be one of the clearest cases of actual malice in the last decade,” she said Thursday.

Judge Conrad scheduled a two-week trial scheduled to begin Oct. 17.

Rolling Stone also faces a pending defamation suit in Virginia state court brought by the fraternity that was the focus of the article. A judge earlier this month declined to dismiss the complaint.

Write to Jacob Gershman at jacob.gershman@wsj.com
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/09/23/nicole-eramo-is-a-limited-purpose-public-figure-but-may-be-able-to-show-reckless-disregard-on-rolling-stones-part/?utm_term=.3ac15c0a9605

The Volokh Conspiracy - opinion
Nicole Eramo is a limited-purpose public figure — but may be able to show reckless disregard on Rolling Stone’s part
By Eugene Volokh September 23 at 8:35 AM

In yesterday’s decision in Eramo v. Rolling Stone, LLC, the judge held:

1. Nicole Eramo, the University of Virginia associate dean of students, whose handling of an alleged sexual assault was faulted in the Rolling Stone “Rape on Campus” article, is a limited-purpose public figure, because she had injected herself into a preexisting public controversy about “UVA’s response to allegations of sexual assault” generally (not limited to this case):

Eramo voluntarily assumed a position of “special prominence” on the issue: she took advantage of her access to local media, specifically by appearing on WUVA, providing input to The Cavalier Daily, and speaking to local affiliates of national news networks. Furthermore, the volume of her media appearances, and in some instances their depth, supports the conclusion that Eramo attempted to influence the outcome of the controversy.

This means that, to win her libel case against Rolling Stone and Sabrina Rubin Erdely, she has to show that the defendants knew their assertions were quite likely false and yet recklessly disregarded that possibility. (That’s the misleadingly named “actual malice” test, which isn’t actually about malice.)

2. There is enough evidence to go to the jury on the question of whether defendants indeed knew that the accusations were likely false, for instance (some paragraph breaks added):

Pointing to Erdely’s own reporting notes, plaintiff … forecasts evidence that could lead a reasonable jury to find that Erdely had “obvious reason to doubt [Jackie’s, the alleged rape victim’s,] veracity” or “entertained serious doubts as to the truth of [her] publication.”

First, plaintiff offers evidence that could lead a jury to determine that Erdely had a preconceived story line and may have consciously disregarded contradictory evidence….

Second, plaintiff has produced evidence supporting the inference that Erdely should have further investigated Jackie’s allegations. The record suggests that Erdely knew the identity of at least one of the individuals who found Jackie the night of her alleged rape. Erdely, however, did not seek to contact this individual. Plaintiff cites evidence that could lead a factfinder to determine that others at Rolling Stone knew Erdely did not reach out to these individuals to corroborate Jackie’s story.

Additionally, Jackie never provided the full names of her assailants. Consequently, Erdely was unable to test the reliability of Jackie’s story with them. The record also supports a finding that Rolling Stone knew that Erdely had not approached these purported wrongdoers. Erdely’s notes similarly reveal that Jackie had told Elderly she possessed, or at least had access to, certain documents that could have corroborated her story of the rape. Erdely never received a copy of these documents, and Erdely’s notes imply inconsistencies in Jackie’s claims about them.

[Moreover,] Erdely, despite trying, did not speak with Jackie’s mother to confirm Jackie’s claim that her mother had destroyed the blood-stained dress Jackie wore the night of the alleged rape. From these facts, a reasonable jury could conclude that Erdely should have investigated further, and that her failure to do so could imply that Erdely acted with actual malice.

Third, plaintiff has presented evidence suggesting that Erdely had reasons to doubt Jackie’s credibility. E.g., Erdely Reporting Notes (Erdely noted disbelief about Jackie’s assertion as to the identities of the two other victims; Erdely was put on notice that Jackie’s alleged rape, by individuals supposedly being recruited into the fraternity, occurred several months before fraternity recruitment events; and that Erdely found Jackie’s story of three women being gang-raped at the same fraternity “too much of a coincidence”). Erdely was aware that Jackie’s account of her alleged rape had changed but, nonetheless, did not press Jackie to explain the inconsistencies.

Rolling Stone’s fact checker was also cognizant of Jackie’s inconsistent stories. Moreover, a jury could find that Rolling Stone knew that Jackie’s version of the story had not been vetted. The court believes this evidence, taken in a light most favorably to the nonmoving party, could support a finding that Erdely and Rolling Stone were cognizant of Jackie’s inconsistencies and credibility problems at the time of publication.

Fourth, plaintiff offers evidence suggesting that at least three individuals advised Erdely that her portrayal of Eramo was inaccurate…

Fifth, plaintiff points to deposition testimony from which a jury could reasonably infer that Erdely harbored ill will for Eramo or intended to injure the administration…. While ill will or intent to injure alone is insufficient to show actual malice, plaintiff has also advanced evidence indicating Erdely had a preconceived story line, did not adequately investigate in the face of contradictory information, and had a reasonable basis upon which she would likely understand that her portrayal of Eramo was inaccurate….

Arguably, a reasonable jury could find that none of the evidence presented independently supports a finding of actual malice by clear and convincing evidence. Taken as a whole, however, a jury could conclude otherwise….

3. Most of the statements that Eramo says were defamatory were factual assertions and not just opinions; they could therefore form the basis of a libel claim:

For example, a jury could find that the “trusted UVA dean” [referring to Eramo] either did or did not discourage Jackie from sharing her story, that Eramo did or did not tell Jackie that “nobody wants to send their daughter to the rape school,” and that Eramo did or did not have a nonreaction to Jackie’s assertion that two other individuals were raped at the same fraternity. Even the statements asserting that the administration should have acted in light of Jackie’s allegation that two other individuals were raped at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity is capable of conveying a verifiable fact: that the administration did not act.

4. And those statements could indeed be interpreted in a way that would injure Eramo’s reputation:

A reasonable factfinder could conclude that the challenged statements imply the defamatory meaning plaintiff ascribes to them: that Eramo discouraged Jackie from sharing her story, including filing a formal complaint; that Eramo had no reaction to Jackie’s story of two other victims; and that the administration did nothing in light of these allegations.

5. The case should therefore go to the jury to determine whether the statements were false, whether they tended to injure Eramo’s reputation, whether Eramo suffered damages as a result of the statements, and whether the defendants knew that the statements were likely false and acted in reckless disregard of that possibility.

Thanks to Robby Soave (Reason) for the pointer; see also Jacob Gershman’s Wall Street Journal story.

(interesting discussion in comments about the "public figure" legal concept)
Edited by abb, Sep 24 2016, 04:08 AM.
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http://www.wsj.com/articles/rolling-stone-magazine-sells-49-stake-to-singapores-bandlab-technologies-1474812182

Rolling Stone Magazine Sells 49% Stake to Singapore’s BandLab Technologies
Investment doesn’t include ownership in Wenner Media

By Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg
Sept. 25, 2016 10:03 a.m. ET

Rolling Stone has struck a chord with a new investor.

BandLab Technologies Ltd., a closely held Singapore-based social music company, has purchased a 49% stake in the storied music brand, including the magazine and its digital assets.

Terms weren’t disclosed. However, the investment doesn’t include ownership in closely held Wenner Media LLC, Rolling Stone’s corporate parent.

The move comes as many publishers are seeking to broaden their portfolios to become less dependent on print advertising revenue. Time Inc., the country’s largest magazine publisher, has made a string of deals aimed at growing its digital advertising business.

Ad pages declined 14% at Rolling Stone between January and August compared to the same period a year ago, according to data provided by a spokeswoman for Rolling Stone.

BandLab’s investment provides Rolling Stone with the opportunity to expand into the live event, hospitality and merchandising businesses in Asia—areas where BandLab has experience. Its flagship product is a digital platform for creating and sharing music.

“Everyone is trying to figure out the new business model,” said Gus Wenner, who heads up digital at Wenner Media and also oversees ad sales, marketing, and digital editorial across the company.

“We have the quality that most matters, a brand that means something to people and elicits an emotional response,” he said. Mr. Wenner, 26 years old, is the son of Jann Wenner, Rolling Stone’s co-founder, editor and publisher.

Plans call for Rolling Stone and BandLab to form a new Singapore subsidiary called Rolling Stone International. The business, which will include Rolling Stone’s 12 international licensees, will be led by Meng Ru Kuok, BandLab’s 28-year-old CEO and co-founder. Mr. Kuok is the son of Singapore businessman Kuok Khoon Hong.

“Our strength is local knowledge,” Meng Ru Kuok said in an interview. “Rolling Stone is pushing digital, and we’re excited to push the physical experiences around the brand.”

Mr. Kuok said he views the partnership as a venture that will extend for many years. “We aren’t coming in as a traditional investor with a short-term plan,” he said.

Rolling Stone’s website in August attracted 17.7 million unique U.S. visitors, up 59% over a two-year period, according to media measurement firm comScore Inc.

Mr. Wenner said he and Mr. Kuok had dinner a year ago at the Il Cantinori restaurant in Greenwich Village to discuss the possibility of a joint venture. By the time the meal was over, Mr. Wenner said, the two had made a strong personal connection. When Mr. Wenner and his father later decided to look for a strategic investor in Rolling Stone’s digital business, Mr. Kuok expressed interest in investing in the entire brand.

“They are a group that understands what it means to be part of a family business,” Mr. Wenner said. Wenner Media, whose other titles include Us Weekly and Men’s Journal, has no intentions of putting itself up for sale, he said.

“Rolling Stone is approaching its 50th anniversary,” Mr. Wenner said. “I want to see it flourish for another 50 years. This is where I want to be.”

Mr. Kuok declined to comment on whether BandLab is indemnified against potential financial liabilities that may result from a trio of defamation lawsuits filed against Rolling Stone related to an article written by Sabrina Rubin Erdely. The story, “A Rape on Campus,” was published in 2014. Rolling Stone later retracted the piece, which centered on an alleged rape at a University of Virginia fraternity.

One lawsuit, filed by three University of Virginia fraternity members in July 2015, has been dismissed. Alan Frank, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said that he has filed a notice of appeal. A lawsuit filed in May 2015 on behalf of University of Virginia associate dean of students Nicole Eramo is expected to get under way in a district court in Virginia in mid-October, according to an attorney for Ms. Eramo

A third lawsuit, filed by the Virginia Alpha chapter of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity in November 2015, is proceeding through the discovery phase and is on track go to trial in October 2017, according to Rodney Smolla, an attorney for the fraternity. A spokeswoman for Rolling Stone declined to comment on the lawsuits.

Write to Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg at jeffrey.trachtenberg@wsj.com
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-25/jann-wenner-to-sell-49-of-rolling-stone-to-singapore-s-bandlab

Wenner to Sell 49% of Rolling Stone to Singapore’s BandLab
Yoolim Lee
September 25, 2016 — 9:13 AM CDT


There comes a time when even Jann Wenner needs a little help from his friends.

After a five-decade run full of interviews with pop stars and presidents, the founder of Rolling Stone is selling 49 percent of the iconic magazine to an Asian billionaire’s son. It’s the first time Wenner has admitted an outside investor, a deal that encapsulates the plight of an industry fighting to stay relevant in an online age. Wenner Media LLC also owns Us Weekly and Men’s Journal.

Founded in 1967, Rolling Stone became a fixture of American pop culture, helping launch the careers of writers and creative artists over almost 50 years. But like many of its peers, the magazine has steadily lost advertising and readership to nimbler online alternatives. In 2014, Wenner tasked his son Gus with devising a digital strategy. Now Wenner, who started Rolling Stone from a San Francisco warehouse, plans to relinquish as much of his magazine as possible without ceding control.

“It’s a big moment,’’ Gus Wenner, the company’s head of digital, said in a phone interview. “There is a great opportunity to take that brand and apply it into new and different areas and markets.”

The new investor is Singapore-based BandLab Technologies, a budding digital music concern founded by the 28-year-old scion of one of Asia’s richest families. Kuok Meng Ru, the third son of Singapore-based agribusiness tycoon Kuok Khoon Hong, graduated from Cambridge University with a mathematics degree and launched BandLab last year as a social network for musicians and fans. The startup is funded by private investors, including Kuok’s father and JamHub Corp., a maker of audio mixers.

BandLab will have no involvement in the editorial side of the magazine. Rather, it will oversee a new Rolling Stone International subsidiary, which will develop live events, merchandising and hospitality. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed. BandLab will not have a stake in Wenner Media.

Kuok said the two sides have been in discussions for about 15 months. “What has happened last 49 years has already shown that Rolling Stone is more than a brand to people,” Kuok told Bloomberg News. “It is now our shared responsibility to take it into the future.”

For a profile of the 28-year-old Kuok, click here.

Rolling Stone currently reaches a global audience of 65 million people, according to the company. That includes 22 million domestic digital monthly users, almost 18 million social fans and followers, and nearly 12 million readers of the U.S. print publication. The average monthly unique visitors to its website rose almost 40 percent in the first half of this year from a year earlier. It publishes 12 international editions in countries including Australia, Indonesia and Japan.

“Our strategic partnership is focused on brand extensions into new areas we haven’t quite fully been in the past, such as merchandising, live events, hospitality – they are areas we have dabbled in but never really seriously gone after,” said Wenner. “Meng and his team bring a great deal of understanding, infrastructure, know-how and act in that extraordinarily exciting market of Asia and beyond.”

Cutting-Edge Coverage

The magazine made its mark in the 1970s and 80s with cutting-edge music and political coverage. Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson wrote for Wenner for decades, including publishing first in its pages ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,’ which later became a book and movie. Its stable of star writers included P.J. O’Rourke, Cameron Crowe and Lester Bangs. And it published in-depth exposes, including the 11,000-word, 1974 story of how heiress Patty Hearst went from kidnapping victim to radicalized guerrilla.

Even past its prime it could break through to the mainstream. A 2010 profile of General Stanley McChrystal that included remarks critical of the Obama Administration led to the general’s resignation. In 2013, the magazine put on its cover the Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, prompting outrage over what some saw as the glamorization of terrorism.

Under Fire

Last year, Rolling Stone came under fire for its editorial standards. The magazine published an article about an alleged gang rape at a University of Virginia fraternity. The story turned out to be substantially false and prompted the magazine to request an independent investigation from the Columbia University journalism school. The article is now the subject of several lawsuits, including one from a college employee, though Kuok declined to say if his company would be liable for any potential damages.

For Kuok, Rolling Stone marks the latest of his acquisitions of music assets and brands, underscoring his efforts to build a global music empire. BandLab, his flagship business, is a cloud-based online community that allows artists to create, collaborate and share their music. In 2012, Kuok acquired Swee Lee, a sleepy 70-year-old distributor of guitars in Singapore. Since then, he has turned the company into a modern enterprise, selling merchandise online and offering music lessons. It’s now the biggest distributor of instruments and audio equipment in Southeast Asia.

Other recent acquisitions include Composr, a European iOS and web music-making service, and MONO Creators Inc., the San Francisco-based design studio that creates high-end instrument cases, straps and accessories for musicians.

“We are focused on the consumer and the supply chain of music, and innovative business models around music that exist today,” he said. “We see a lot of synergies. At the end of the day, the end consumer is the same. BandLab’s goal is to be a global music business.”
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http://www.mindingthecampus.org/2016/09/rolling-stone-goes-to-trial/

Rolling Stone Goes to Trial
September 29, 2016 KC Johnson

A lawsuit stemming from the most famous of the modern rape hoaxes—the Rolling Stone account of a brutal but fictional attack on “Jackie” at a University of Virginia fraternity—gained ground last week. A federal judge in Virginia ruled that UVA administrator Nicole Eramo’s lawsuit against Rolling Stone should go to trial.

The lawsuit has been of enormous value in producing documents that exposed both the closed-minded incompetence of Rolling Stone and the poisonous, guilt-presuming campus atmosphere at UVA. However, unlike the lawsuit filed by the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity (reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s chief target), an Eramo victory would send, at best, a mixed message.

Judge Glen Conrad’s ruling allowed Eramo’s suit to proceed on multiple grounds. The dean’s strongest claim involves Rolling Stone’s manipulation of a mundane photo of her, to give her wild, almost devil-like eyes, with her back turned to victims demanding justice. Even the Rolling Stone fact-checker, who independently concluded that the fantasist “Jackie” was telling the truth, worried that the photo was too harsh.

Conrad also greenlighted a count involving Erdely’s claim that Eramo had discouraged Jackie from reporting her non-existent attack because she worried that UVA would develop a reputation as a “rape school.” It seems very unlikely Eramo—who comes across in the depositions as a true believer about a campus rape panic—ever uttered such a remark. But Erdely had two sources suggesting otherwise (Jackie and a fellow campus activist), and UVA refused a request to let Eramo be interviewed. Perhaps that will be enough for Rolling Stone to prevail.

Other aspects of Eramo’s lawsuit, however, are deeply troubling. The UVA Dean gathered support from a variety of campus activists—Emily Renda, Sara Surface, and Alex Pinkleton—with a de facto goal of ensuring that the discrediting of the Rolling Stone article won’t discredit their joint cause of fueling a moral panic about the issue of campus sexual assault.

In depositions for the lawsuit, the activists framed Erdely as an irresponsible journalist (which is not hard to do)—but not because she was a closed-minded ideologue who had reached her conclusions before she did any investigation. Rather, the trio of activists criticized her—after the fact—for focusing on Jackie and Eramo, and not on what they see as the epidemic of victims on campus, and the indifference to them of administrators other than Eramo. So in this view, Eramo is a victim of Rolling Stone, but the magazine’s basic thesis was correct.

One Erdely source, Alex Pinkleton, summarized the view of the activists that people must not let Jackie’s lies get in the way of the preferred narrative. “We need to remember,” said she, “that the majority of survivors who come forward are telling the truth.” How people who did not tell the truth about being sexually assaulted could still be considered “survivors” Pinkleton has never explained.

It would not have been difficult for Rolling Stone to have discredited these activists’ depositions—after all, each of them vouched for the veracity of Jackie’s tale in their interviews with Erdely, and each seemed to be eager for the Jackie story to be told at the time. But Rolling Stone ultimately shied away from portraying these figures as the non-credible witnesses they are. The magazine probably had no choice—because Erdely had relied so heavily on them for her article. Moreover, Conrad’s ruling cited the depositions of these non-credible activists as proof that three individuals “advised Erdely that her portrayal of Eramo was inaccurate.”

Perhaps the oddest section of Conrad’s ruling dealt with Rolling Stone’s December 5, 2014 Editor’s Note, which disavowed the story. Eramo claims that because Rolling Stone only said it no longer believed Jackie, and because the magazine did not remove the allegedly defamatory statements about the dean, the disavowal constituted a republication of the attacks on Eramo. This interpretation is bizarre. Jackie was the story.

The repudiation of her truthfulness repudiated the entire article. I cannot imagine how anyone—except, perhaps, the activists who are now riding to Eramo’s defense—could have interpreted the disavowal as Rolling Stone expressing full confidence in everything else Erdely wrote about UVA.

In her deposition, Erdely expressed regret—not to the fraternity members she falsely accused. (She has never apologized to them.) Rather, she said that she wished that instead of orienting her article around Jackie, she had chosen another accuser (“Stacy”) to serve as the article’s spine. The rest of the article would have remained unchanged—and since Stacy’s story was (it seems) not self-evidently false, Rolling Stone would have needed to make no retraction.

I suspect if Erdely had followed that course, none of the activists currently defending Eramo would be on the UVA dean’s side. Ironically, despite the lawsuit, the opinions of campus sexual assault held by Erdely, Eramo, and the UVA activists seem to be almost identical.
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