Sunday, April 5, 2015

“Ultimately, we were too deferential to our rape victim”

"Rolling Stone Retracts Article on Rape at University of Virginia"
In an interview discussing Columbia’s findings, Jann S. Wenner, the publisher of Rolling Stone, acknowledged the story’s flaws but said it represented an isolated and unusual episode. The problems with the article started with its source, Mr. Wenner said. He described her as “a really expert fabulist storyteller” who managed to manipulate the magazine’s editorial process. When asked to clarify, he said that he was not trying to blame Jackie, “but obviously there is something here that is untruthful, and something sits at her doorstep.”

The reporting errors by Ms. Erdely were compounded by insufficient scrutiny and skepticism from editors, the report said. And the fact-checking process relied heavily on four hours of conversations with Jackie.

Ms. Erdely, a contributing editor at Rolling Stone who has also written for GQ and The New Yorker, declined to be interviewed for this article. She said in her apology that reading the report was “a brutal and humbling experience.” She also acknowledged that she did not do enough to verify Jackie’s account.

Rolling Stone’s fundamental mistake, Mr. Dana said, was in suspending any skepticism about Jackie’s account because of the sensitivity of the issue. “We didn’t think through all the implications of the decisions that we made while reporting the story, and we never sort of allowed for the fact that maybe the story we were being told was not true,”

22 comments:

rcocean said...

Actually RS always goes easy on the fact-checking when the "facts" support their liberal agenda or a story that will make them $$$.

They aren't a serious magazine and never have been.

rcocean said...

But good excuse. Hey we just forgot Journalism 101 because we're so gosh darn sensitive toward Rape victims.

Leland said...

What rape victim?

Methadras said...

You mean the phony rape victim who police admit that there is no crime here, but she underwent something horrible anyway. BEWARE THE RAMPANT UNIVERSITY SYSTEM RAPE CULTURE and stuff.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

What rape victim?

They cant deviate from the narrative, even to say the narrative led them down a lie.

rcocean said...

Even if falsely accuse people of Rape - you're still a victim. And need to be protected.

From the truth, I guess.

bagoh20 said...

The only victims were those falsely accused. Everyone else either thought they would benefit from the story or chose to be suckered. They all owe them an apology, a check, or both.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Perhaps there will be some investigative journalism to explain what all motivated the claimant to perpetrate so heinous a fraud in the first place.

Tank said...

This report, at best, is a cover up for what really happened, ie. a total and complete fraud from the beginning. No one is suffering any consequences, and the proper people have not received an apology.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Narrative pimping and fraud trumps truth detection and intellectual curiosity everytime - when you're a good and proper socialist fascist prog.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

A few small examples of hack media hack reporting:

"Iran deal is historic!"


False rape reporting:
"But something DID happen. something must have happened."

Take your vitamin D and drive safely. Thank you nanny hack media.


Amartel said...

Confirmation bias so strong that even after thorough debunking "the victim" is still the victim.

Clinging to their guns and their religion ....

ricpic said...

The "fabulist" bamboozled Rolling Stone? Only because Rolling Stone shared her fantasy. The reporter and editors at Rolling Stone wanted confirmation of the awfulness of the privileged white enemy, the fabulist provided that confirmation and Rolling Stone fell all over itself to get the enemy. No surprise either that Rolling Stone will not fire the reporter. After all, her heart is in the right place.

Leland said...

This isn't some secondary issue to me. I've been a juror for a rape case. We found the defendant guilty, and during the punishment phase, he admitted his guilt in a bid for leniency (it didn't work for him). We were the second jury, the first ended up hung. We were nearly a hung juror.

Why, because two women on the jury had doubts. Not reasonable doubts, but doubts. None of us wanted the stories we were hearing to be true. If true, it meant a 40 yr old couple adopted a child and then from age 8 to 13 (when finally caught) raped the child. I would love for that not to have happened. No doubt that the child lied on the stand in embellishing the initial assault by suggesting a gun was involved, when none was ever mentioned previously. But that lie was not for the incident in which evidence existed that at least on rape assault occurred to an underage minor.

The two women were concerned that if their doubts were founded in truth at a later date, the damage to the man (the wife wasn't being tried, but I personally believe she was complicit) would already be done. They were really reluctant to sentencing a man for life for something they hoped would later found to not be true.

They were reticent because people do lie about rape, and the accused unjustly suffer. They were so understanding of this phenomenon because people like "Jackie" exist and tell false tales, and people like UVa President Thompson punishes harshly the accused without even considering the possibility of innocence. This behavior nearly allowed a real rapist to get away with a heinous crime.

In the Rolling Stones article, there is no rape victim described in the words. But somewhere, an actual rape victim will suffer because a liar was allowed to destroy the lives of several good young men without any consequences. I'm convinced of this, because I nearly watched it occur for the second time to a real rape victim.

Leland said...

Correction to above, UVa President is Theresa Sullivan.

Christy said...

Eric, you fruit bat, the precipitating event was Jackie being called to the dean's office to justify why she shouldn't be dismissed from UVA for failing grades. She blamed trauma from the gang rape she had already made up to pique the caretaking instinct of a boy.

Amartel said...

ricpic said " Rolling Stone shared her fantasy"

Interesting that they call her "our rape victim".

Rapists!

Anyway, this silly music mag of highly suspect credibility (I stopped subscribing in the early 90s because even the music/cultural coverage was derivative and boring) is probably not firing the reporter because they're being sued.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Narrative reporting. It's raping us.

Synova said...

This does no favors to the rape victim.

I feel a bit sorry for some of the people who get caught in these big lies because I understand how easy it is for someone to get caught with no real way to get out of a smaller lie with a smaller scope that they used just to get personal attention.

I hate to say it but I always doubt anyone with too many interesting stories, particularly if they're about something bad that happened, or how someone picked on them... sometimes, clearly it's true, but sometimes I get a vibe like I did from one of my friends who "told stories". I don't approve and it's still a lie but people *do* lie for social benefit and they usually figure it's a "no one gets hurt" sort of thing. But then someone comes along who's like... this is a big deal... a crime... someone should go to jail...

And the liar misses the "window" to fess up and come clean and it snowballs.

A little bit of skepticism and just a wee bit of "can we *prove* this" would be much *kinder* to the *victim*.

Amartel said...

This story was only ever about vilifying a politically unpopular subculture, campus fraternities. It was not ever about preventing rape. Like every recent narrative promotion story, it only served to undermine the cause it was ostensibly promoting. So now the stories of rape victims are less credible. Same with the stories of police abuse, racial profiling, etc. Unnecessary politicizing of nonpolitical issues keeps the political debate alive and does nothing at all for the individual victims. An alleged rape victim's story can be spun as believable, or unbelievable, depending on the individual's politics. The merits of the individual's story, the facts, are replaced by political narrative. It's not a story, it's not a rape, it's not discrimination, it's not abuse, unless it's politically expedient. It doesn't even exist unless it is politically expedient. See, e.g., the Catholic Church child sex abuse scandal v. the child sex abuse non-scandal in public schools, at PBS and the BBC, and Rotherham. Rolling Stone is still living the lie, calling the OBVIOUS LIAR "our rape victim."

I hope this frat sues Rolling Stone out of existence. The media needs to be killed, burned to the ground, and turning off the TV isn't going to be enough. They are delusional (see, e.g., Brian Williams) and will just keep on lying until they die. I hear Dan Rather STILL promotes the truth of his reporting on Bush. People like Clinton and Obama are a dime a dozen. The only thing uncommon about Obama, and to a much lesser extent Clinton, is the hero-worship cults of personality that excuse every deceptive move they make and ignore every misstep. There will always be someone the progs can pluck from obscurity and turn into a celebrity politician, hide and/or excuse the unpleasant, tawdry backstory, stage manage the current presentation with teleprompters and selective reporting, project an outrageously improbable perfect and glorious future, and then send mobs to suppress any dissent. With the media on their side, progs CAN have their own facts as well as their opinions.

Amartel said...

I don't feel sorry for "Jackie". She knowingly harmed innocent people with her false self-promoting accusations. There are a LOT of "Jackies" out there who would do the same thing in a hearbeat for fame and fortune. They are cruel, careless people. Don't feel sorry for them.

Amartel said...

Remember in "Almost Famous" where Rolling Stone fact-checked the entire (true) story submitted about the band and dumped it because the band denied everything?

The magic of the movies ...

William Miller: I'm glad you were home.
Lester Bangs: I'm always home. I'm uncool.
William Miller: Me too!
Lester Bangs: The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool.
William Miller: I feel better.
Lester Bangs: My advice to you. I know you think those guys are your friends. You wanna be a true friend to them? Be honest, and unmerciful.

(Lester did not work for Rolling Stone.)