I pit the rape culture at the University of Virginia

[Acsenray]

@Velocity

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.”

1. Maybe none of them should be “disciplined.” It depends on what “discipline” means and why we do it. Is it punishment? In every case in which there is an unwanted result does it mean that someone should be punished?

2. Even if one or more of them should be “disciplined,” does discipline always mean firing?

3. Is “discipline” automatically the right answer? Perhaps some other form of action other than discipline is more appropriate in order to prevent such future occurrences.

[FXMastermind]

It it wasn’t so completely politically incorrect, there is a fantastic joke here.

[wolfman]

@Bricker

Many people are now indignantly castigating Rolling Stone for their decision to trust one single source as a basis for leaping to judgement.

But the decision to trust a single source and leap to judgement is what the OP of this thread did, too, and many of its earliest participants.

I’ve never posted to the thread, and don’t wish to speak for those who did, but that is not the same thing, and the reason why they need to come down harder.

I read dozens of articles to stay informed. But it is in addition to having a life, not the focus of mine. I simply don’t have time to search for verification of every single article I read. I have to accept some things as true, and have a limited time for consensus building for current events , and it is mostly focused on things I can effect, or have effect on me.

I have a general credibility gauge for most common news organizations, and a baseline skepticism for those I am unfamiliar with.
Rolling Stone was never particularly high on my credibility, and now has been downgraded to “utter shit.” And hopefully, because of their refusal to admit their need to be consequences because of their fuck up, everybody else will downgrade them as well, and ignore absolutely everything they ever do again that pretends to be journalism.
As journalists they had a duty to do their research better.
As flawed journalists they had a duty to make sure they took every step to make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Having failed in that , it is now the duty* of the newsreading public to drive them out of business as a warning to other aspiring news sources.

• I have no delusions this will actually happen, but I believe it should.

[marshmallow]

@FXMastermind

It it wasn’t so completely politically incorrect, there is a fantastic joke here.

Don’t puss out.

[FXMastermind]

I don’t do that sort of stand up anymore.

[MichaelEmouse]

Has there been information on why this Jackie accuser made up the story? I’ve only read some vague reference to trying to attract the affection of a boy.

[Clothahump]

@Acsenray

No, doing a shit job on one story is not necessarily a reason to be fired, even if it was a monumentally shitty job on a big story.

However, doing a shit job that libels an organization that is going to sue them and win big bucks is a reason to be fired.

[JRDelirious]

At the very least someone should get reamed good and hard in a manner that everyone in the organization hears about, and moved to some “special projects department” until this cools off.

@wolfman

Having failed in that , it is now the duty* of the newsreading public to drive them out of business as a warning to other aspiring news sources.

I believe it would just have it revert to an entertainment-cultural type publication where the writing on sociopolitical issues was clearly and overtly opinion-based and with a point to make (e.g. Hunter Thompson’s). As I said in another thread, IMO the “trust” Wenner wants to maintain is the trust *of writers *that *they *should come to RS to submit edgy stories and hot scoops. Not the trust of the general public that this is a reliable information journal.

[jimbuff314]

@MichaelEmouse

Has there been information on why this Jackie accuser made up the story? I’ve only read some vague reference to trying to attract the affection of a boy.

Here is an article that publishes an email “Jackie” was later determined to have sent to Ryan Duffin, the guy who turned her down romantically. She pretends it was from some guy named Haven Monahan, who she claimed she was on a date with on the night the “assault” took place. Monohan was determined later to not exist. More info in article.

The email is … odd. She acknowledges he (Ryan Duffin) has no interest in her romantically, yet can’t pull herself away from wanting him. I don’t easily see a connection between what she wrote here (5 days after the supposed attack) and the story she made up out of whole cloth.

[CairoCarol]

@FXMastermind

It it wasn’t so completely politically incorrect, there is a fantastic joke here.

My handbasket is extremely comfortable, containing lush, sinfully soft pillows, a large HD TV, a built-in bar, and a selection of fine chocolates.

It has room for us both. Just sayin’.

[Ibn_Warraq]

IIRC, UVA has a really strict honor code.

It’ll be interesting to see if she gets expelled for falsely accusing other students of violent felonies.

[Acsenray]

@Ibn_Warraq

IIRC, UVA has a really strict honor code.

It’ll be interesting to see if she gets expelled for falsely accusing other students of violent felonies.

If she had identified any real person, it would have been easy to see some kind of discipline based on the honor code, but perhaps it is expansive enough to include this.

If the fraternity proceeds with a defamation claim, it will be interesting to see.

It will be made interesting by the fact that no specific, real person was ever accused by name. They would probably have to argue that the descriptions in the article were sufficient to identify certain individuals and specifically harm their reputations.

If they were suing for commercial disparagement or the corporate version of libel, they would have to show monetary losses or some other commercial harm resulting from the harm to the organization’s reputation.

[Smapti]

@MichaelEmouse

Has there been information on why this Jackie accuser made up the story? I’ve only read some vague reference to trying to attract the affection of a boy.

I think it went something like this; Jackie was interested in Ryan, but he wasn’t interested in her. So she creates Haven, this smart clever older student who likes the same stuff she does, to try to make him jealous. She uses burner phones and internet sockpuppets to impersonate him to her friends. Eventually she realizes they’re going to want to meet Haven sooner or later, so she comes up with the rape allegation to explain his sudden disappearance.

[Velocity]

@Acsenray

It will be made interesting by the fact that no specific, real person was ever accused by name. They would probably have to argue that the descriptions in the article were sufficient to identify certain individuals and specifically harm their reputations.

But with this, couldn’t people hypothetically get away with false accusations deliberately calibrated to cause harm but be vague enough to avoid liability?

[Acsenray]

@Velocity

But with this, couldn’t people hypothetically get away with false accusations deliberately calibrated to cause harm but be vague enough to avoid liability?

I suppose, but then you can find margins like that in almost any legal question.

[Haberdash]

Organizations can be libel plaintiffs. The fraternity itself was libeled and is bringing the claim. It may not matter at all whether any individuals were harmed.

[Whack-a-Mole]

@Acsenray

I wouldn’t have fired anyone. Journalists should get fired for intentionally fabricating stories, not for what happened here.

Well, while Erdely did not fabricate the article out of whole cloth she had a preconceived notion and went looking for evidence of it. She let her confirmation bias rule her judgement and only saw what she wanted to see. And keep in mind that she did not pen this overnight or off-the-cuff. She worked on the story for six months. Plenty of time to get it right.

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.

SOURCE: Rolling Stone and UVA: The Columbia School of Journalism Report

That may not be fabricating a story from whole cloth but it is the next worst thing for a journalist.

She also seems to have a history of doing this:

In 2011 Erdely reported a story for Rolling Stone about child abuse within the Roman Catholic Church in Philadelphia. Erdely’s story told about a fifth grade altar boy referred to by the pseudonym “Billy Doe” whom “brutal attacks turned … into a sullen, drug-addicted loner,” alleging a “high-level conspiracy.” Billy Doe was an adult when he made his accusations, resulting in criminal charges leading to the jailing of three church employees and a major civil suit by Billy Doe against the church.

Ralph Cipriano wrote in Newsweek that “Erdely didn’t know or bother to find out … that Billy had already told his story to the archdiocese, police, and a grand jury, and would subsequently retell it to two different juries in two criminal cases. And every time he told his story, the details kept changing.” In the first iteration of the rape Billy Doe claimed to have endured, he was knocked unconscious, stripped, tied to a church altar with sashes, and then anally raped on the altar for five hours. Subsequent iterations of the rape recounted by Billy Doe became increasingly less dramatic; a final version omitted the five-hour altar anal rape. Instead, Billy Doe explained, he had been coerced into engaging in mutual masturbation.[12] Cipriano also criticized Erdely for failing to include information on Billy Doe’s background that could have impugned his credibility; he had, for instance, been arrested six times, once while trafficking 56 bags of heroin.[13][14]

When Erdely was covering the Billy Doe story, her husband was a criminal prosecutor for the District Attorney of Philadelphia which was overseeing the case. Rolling Stone editors said that it was not a conflict of interest because he was not personally involved in the prosecution.[15] William Anthony Donohue at the Catholic League denounced “malicious distortions of the kind found in Erdely’s diatribe.”[10] The conviction of one church employee has since been overturned and a new trial ordered for the one remaining (the third church employee died in prison while appealing his conviction).

SOURCE: Sabrina Erdely - Wikipedia

Chris Cillizza at The Washington Post sums it up well for me:

I am not one to call for other reporters’ heads when mistakes are made, as I have made mistakes before and had my head called for. But there are mistakes and then there are MISTAKES. A poorly chosen tweet or, in my case, a poorly conceived and unfunny parody, is one thing. Totally misreporting allegations of a gang rape in a hugely high-profile magazine story is another. One is poor judgement, often in the world of Twitter expressed (and regretted) in a millisecond. What Erdely did is journalistic malpractice, failing to do the basic blocking and tackling of reporting because, frankly, the story she had was just too good to check.

SOURCE: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2015/04/06/rolling-stone-isnt-firing-anyone-thats-terrible-for-journalism/

[Peremensoe]

@Acsenray

Unless you can show that this failure can be attributed to:

(1) An identifiable flaw in a person’s character, integrity, or ethical makeup, or
(2) It was done with a demonstrable intent to falsify,

Then it’s not because this journalist was incompetent, but because for this particular incident, this journalist, or group of journalists erred.

Competent people do not make colossal errors.

@Acsenray

Yes, they made the wrong decisions, but, you know what, even good journalists are going to occasionally slip up in this way.

No. Not this way.

[Acsenray]

@Haberdash

Organizations can be libel plaintiffs. The fraternity itself was libeled and is bringing the claim. It may not matter at all whether any individuals were harmed.

I have to admit I’m not too well versed in this area but do you have a cite for this kind of claim?

The only cause of action for a corporate entity I am familiar with is commercial disparagement, which requires a showing of monetary harm, as I said above.

[Peremensoe]

@Acsenray

A failure in one instance, even if it is a big failure, is not necessary enough to conclude that you don’t have the skills and knowledge to adequately perform your job. It also doesn’t mean that you don’t have the ability to acquire the skills and knowledge to adequately perform your job. Journalism is learned on the job, and almost all of your mistakes are going to happen on the job. If every journalist got fired for every mistake—even a big one—you wouldn’t have very many people in journalism, and you probably wouldn’t have many people who have learned to avoid mistakes.

Nobody is suggesting that every journalist be fired for every mistake. The reasonable position is that,
(a) journalists be fired for gigantic, easily-avoidable, gross failures in basic technical rigor and ethical responsibility; and,
(b) neophytes not be put in a position to make such errors in major outlets.