Rolling Stone’s self-examination became necessary when other big media outlets criticized its process. You conceive of some other kind of “going after”?
Who has “gotten away with” something here? Do you think so long as no one is fired then someone has gotten away with something? I don’t see it that way. Rolling Stone, the writer, and her editors have taken a serious blow to their credibility and in all likelihood to their bottom line. They also face the prospect of legal action. None of that indicates to me that someone has gotten away with something.
Far be it from me to defend Fox News, but it seems that a good way to keep people from flocking to the conservative media with all its flaws would be to stop stonewalling about the flaws in the Salon, Rolling Stone, Huffpo, universe, and the similar issues with the NBC/CNN mainstream. There really are a lot of narrative-seeking, reporters making news to win prizes, Obama-worship, and just plain dumb people working in news. It’s not just some right-wing talking point. The entire saga of this story – which, by the way, EVEN TODAY is still being defended as accurate with anyone who disagrees labeled a “rape apologist” by people who work for major media outlets – will only exacerbate this problem.
I wish that were the case, but journalism is shit most places any more. Just writing down what somebody tell you.
Still, this Rolling Stone piece was worse than that. That writer should be canned and Rolling Stone should vet their stories or stop pretending to report important things.
Not sure if this is the same thing. It may be, but that story is badly written.
Your cite says the details were easily debunked, but those details were good enough to get three men convicted in a court of law. Three men who had lawyers and access to investigators of their own. It wasn’t just the reporter that was misled. It was also the State of Pennsylvania.
You understand that Rolling Stone has not, and cannot, given the facts, blame this all on Sabrina. Mistakes like these are not the mistakes of individuals; they are mistakes of the entire operation as a whole. Sabrina did not just put together a story and publish it by herself under Rolling Stone’s name.
Rolling Stone as an institution is at fault for the errors made here. Blaming it all on Sabrina would be unfair and dishonest.
As I have said before, one disaster of this kind is not enough to conclude that this person was “monumentally bad at what they do.”
Rolling Stone’s motivation is to preserve its credibility. If they do not believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with Sabrina’s character and competence or other personal professional qualities, then it’s to their credit that they aren’t saying “It’s all her fault. We solve this problem by declaring we will never hire her again.”
You’re absolutely right. That’s a good reason that not only Erdely should be fired, but the editor as well.
No, their statement is that this was multiple errors by multiple people and we have dealt with it by declaring that no further articles by this author will be purchased, and the editor who was in charge of making sure that the most cursory of fact checking was done is no longer with us. Credibility restored. Eventually.
This was not a single disaster, it was many disasters rolled into a single story. It required other journalists approximately 23 minutes to fact check it and find many things that could easily have been discovered. As was laid out in the Columbia review yesterday.
We’re just going in circles now. I would not fire anyone based solely on what we know and I would not expect anyone else to either. One incident does not define someone’s fitness to hold a job.
Moreover, I would expect my employer to back me up as well, if I were involved in such a situation that amounted to being too trusting of a source. Being too trusting of a source is not the biggest crime in journalism—it happens rather commonly. The biggest crime is making shit up on purpose.
All that, given that in my history in journalism, I have also made mistakes of judgment and procedure and instead of being fired, I was taught what mistakes were made and procedures were put in place to ensure they wouldn’t happen again.
Well, the quote from the editor in the wake of the report is:
“It’s not like I think we need to overhaul our process, and I don’t think we need to necessarily institute a lot of new ways of doing things. We just have to do what we’ve always done and just make sure we don’t make this mistake again.”
So, not only is no one getting fired, they apparently don’t see any need to do anything differently.
I’m willing to express the minority opinion, if it comes to that.
A handful of opinion articles is not a basis for concluding what “most” journalists think.
It’s easy for outside institutions to call for firings when none of their own people are directly involved (By the way, how does this square with a comment above that journalistic entities do not hold each other to account?)
Not even every single one of those articles says that someone must be fired in order for Rolling Stone to repair its credibility. At least one merely suggests that firing would “send a strong message.”
This is like saying, “The plane crash wasn’t just one air traffic controller’s fault; it was the collective fault of many air traffic controllers. Therefore none of them should be disciplined.”