[T]he reporter, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, allowed herself to be bound by a vow she made to Jackie not to contact the alleged rapists, especially the pseudonymous Drew, said to have lured her into the room where seven men raped her. Erdely may not even have tried to identify them....
“If I had to guess what happened at UVA—and at this point, we can only guess (which is why we should not be passing judgment),” Wendy Kaminer, a civil libertarian and feminist who has written extensively on both rape and free speech on campus, emailed me, “I’d guess that the story is neither entirely fabricated nor entirely true, and, in any case, compels a real investigation by investigators with no stake in their findings.”
December 2, 2014
"Rolling Stone Never Gave the Villains of Its Gang Rape Story a Chance to Defend Themselves."
Writes Judith Shulevitz in The New Republic.
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That would be "The New Republic".
Couldn't we say that the alleged rapists are in some sense immigrants and then discuss the story from that angle?
And yet this will drive more traffic to Rolling Stone.
The RS story has many indicia of unreliability.
"Writes Judith Shulevitz in The New Republican." The Old Progressive, more like it. Wishful-thinking typo?
Bias confirmation? The story hit every element of what a preppy fraternity gang rape is supposed to be like. That raised my suspicions.
Also, if this conduct is a "rite of passage" why are there no other incidents coming to light?
In any event what were the "villains" going to say? Once they talk they get named in print. For now, even though their names are probably all over the UVA campus, the media is being careful about naming them.
The story is rather unbelievable on a lot of levels.
Several dudes, sober, planned a gang rape. This has been a practice for years and was not an isolated incident. Yet, NOBODY has ever said a word to an authority. Not the raped. Not a pledge. Not anybody.
She is thrown through a glass table and is raped on shards of broken glass for hours and doesn't go to the hospital? Her friends tell her not to go? Are her friends psychopaths? Going through the table alone will cause some damage. Being raped on glass is going to cause impressive amounts of bleeding.
The author claims that this fraternity, for years, has had a perfect record in getting absolute sociopaths to pledge. They have planned gang rapes and had it kept quiet. They've had multiple gang rapes in their frat house and NOBODY has said anything. Not the women, not the college...nobody.
The author cannot verify that the victim even knows who did it.
There's so little here that seems plausible that way more info needs to be provided for this to be believed. As it stands, this looks like another hoax from a SJW trying to champion their cause de jour.
...and, basically, their cause is that college should never be co-ed. Ever.
At 799 years old, signed in 1215, don't you think the Magna Carta is getting a little long in the tooth?
Doesn't sexual identity and racial identity trump old and white concepts like "fair trials"? What is a "fair" trial anyway?
While I won't say the story is impossible, it just seems to appeal to too many SJW tropes, while at the same time, defying our sense of what human nature demands of "friends" to be believable without some further evidence. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, or at least some proof.
They need an investigative team from Duke.
I was in a car accident thirty years ago where the vehicle rolled over and my shoulder was forced into the glass door window as it hit the ground. Pieces of glass continued to migrate out of my arm through my skin for twenty years. The scar is still there. I just felt it to be sure. So it is not like gathering evidence is impossible. These scars should be badges of SJW honor.
Similar scars should be visible on the perps.
If the story turns out to be false, every institution insinuated to be guilty by the magazine and any individuals with legitimate damages ought to sue the Hell out of Rolling Stone.
Poor journalism on Ederly's part. Even a "we contacted the accused and they had no comment" would have at least indicated a willingness to give the other side a chance to rebut. So now we have one uncorroborated account, which has numerous troubling details.
The story is false.
Seven guys would not rape a woman on a glass strewn floor for three hours. Even stupid fraternity guys.
Fraternity furniture never, ever, includes glass topped tables. Especially on the second floor. Especially not in specially equipped rape rooms.
Three hours or 180 minutes divided by seven is a long time for college studs to get their jollies. Not impossible but
It is implied that all members of the fraternity have to engage in rape to be admitted. Only a female writer totally clueless about fraternities would reach out and grab this silly stereotype.
The rape as a pledge requirement would mean that dozens of women every year would be raped by aspiring members of this one fraternity. And only now coming to light. The fraternity has been on campus for decades.
The friends of the "victim" race to meet her in the middle of the night. Despite being raped for three hours on a pile of broken glass and despite having been slugged they talk her out of going to the hospital.
Being raped in a completely dark room but being able to identify more than one of the rapists requires more than night vision.
There are a few members of the press who smell a rat here and are beginning to ask the questions that will bring this stupid story to its conclusion. With nothing learned, by the way.
Rolling Stone Never Gave the Villains of Its Gang Rape Story a Chance to Defend Themselves
"Only we can do that to our pledges."
"Wendy Kaminer, a civil libertarian and feminist who has written extensively on both rape and free speech on campus, emailed me, 'I’d guess that the story is neither entirely fabricated nor entirely true . . . .'" "Guessing", even by a "civil libertarian and feminist", isn't a substantial contribution to the public discussion. A shorter way to describe a story that is neither entirely fabricated or entirely true is "false".
Some stories are too true to be fake.
This story seems like a hoax. The fraternity has pledges only in the spring, not the fall. It said none of its members was a lifeguard that year, and said there was no party on September 28 of that year.
Having been in a fraternity, albeit 60 years ago when college life was very different, I never read stories about fraternities in magazines, especially left wing ones. They fail the Michael Crichton Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia Effect:
“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories.
Paper’s full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”
The same applies to magazines double.
There's a lot wrong with the details of Jackie's story--which doesn't mean she wasn't raped in that frat, but does suggest that if she was it went down differently than the article suggests.
1) Premeditated gang rape. Even if you're evil, how dumb would you have to be to plan a gang rape on a victim who can identify your frat and the date who brought her? Not to mention others who are not in the frat partying downstairs, and likely to hear things or at least testify that she went upstairs that night. She didn't go to the police or hospital, but how could the rapists have predicted that she wouldn't? Then it would only take one participant cracking under pressure and everyone else goes to prison.
2) Broken glass table. Let's say you plan a gang rape, and unwittingly leave a glass table nearby and it gets smashed in the scuffle. You're going to rape someone in the dark, knowingly on shards of glass with your most vulnerable parts exposed?
If this woman was raped, I'm guessing it happened a bit differently. Maybe no broken coffee table, maybe she was drugged or drunk beyond ability to resist (still making it rape, but perhaps the rapists convinced themselves it wasn't) and no physical signs of struggle. This would also explain why her friends didn't think going to the police would make a difference--maybe they thought it wasn't really rape, or at least she had no evidence of it.
Still would be an awful gang rape, but perhaps misremembering the story after two years and not wanting to make the story "foggy" (by admitting to being under influence at the time) the story came out differently. Anyway, I'd be interested in hearing the followup on this.
Are her friends psychopaths?
Seriously!
It is one thing to write thinly sourced, single person stories in magazines, it is quite another for the university to take it so seriously as to shut down all fraternities without any investigation whatsoever. That is madness.
It is seems that journalists never talk to the other side anymore, not even a vague ‘so and so was unavailable or refused to talk’. Makes it hard to write any damn thing you please if you have to interview the other side, I guess.
Who cares if it's fake.
What we need a symbol of protest, like the apocryphal "hands up" of Ferguson.
It must be true per the editor.
First, a fact checker talked to Jackie. Which only proves Erdely isn't a fabricator.
Second, "Besides, he said, since the article came out, several UVA women have also come forward with their stories of rape." Ergo, other vague, unsubstantiated claims is all that is needed to support the original argument.
Sounds like the Mary Mapes/Dan Rather school of journalism.
It also reminds me of the TNR article from the Iraq soldier running over dogs with his tank. Pot meet kettle.
Oops, I could be wrong. The referenced soldier/tank article may have been in "The Nation". Is there a difference?
I call BS on this story for the reasons given by other commenters and by the slack-jawed credulity and sloppy (nonexistent) journalistic tradecraft. No effort to contact the fraternity? The university? No examination of the scars on the complainant from 3 hours of lying on broken glass?
I think UVA should sue RS and the writer for defamation and other economic torts.
" This would also explain why her friends didn't think going to the police would make a difference--maybe they thought it wasn't really rape, or at least she had no evidence of it."
Sure, like I said, the Magna Carta is getting kind of old, so we should be able to keep inventing scenarios until we get to one that can't be disproved with the evidence at hand.
If the story is fabricated, there is no "other side" to interview. The frat said there were no lifeguard members and there was no party on that day. The police do not need a complaint to investigate and press charges. They can talk to "Drew".
Actually, I get it now. UVA has been looking for a pretext to shut down the frats. This is perfect for them: a tsunami of BS to overwhelm any principled objections as "hater sexist bigotry" and then they can walk through the aftermath and shoot the wounded. No way will they question the story.
"Sure, like I said, the Magna Carta is getting kind of old, so we should be able to keep inventing scenarios until we get to one that can't be disproved with the evidence at hand."
I'm just suggesting one of many possibilities here. She could have completely fabricated the whole thing, too. But the story as reported strains belief.
What is likely to happen here is she won't want to prosecute, so the authorities won't have anything to go on, and the issue will be dropped.
The writer says she hopes a thorough investigation can be conducted, but absent a confession, how the hell is that supposed to happen? There is no physical evidence left. Likely, at least some if not all of the supposed participants and friends have graduated.
If you want charges to be taken seriously and prosecuted you should report them immediately. IF not, then you are just telling unverified stories years later, which people can believe or not believe as they see fit.
Michael K wrote;
"You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues."
This has happened to me several times over the years. Working in law enforcement, I've read newspaper stories about incidents I was either directly or indirectly involved in. The story got so many facts and details wrong as to make it unreadable.
The lesson I've learned is, don't bother to read these people or believe them, in anything.
It's a shame so many do read them and believe them.
Second, "Besides, he said, since the article came out, several UVA women have also come forward with their stories of rape." Ergo, other vague, unsubstantiated claims is all that is needed to support the original argument.
Judging by the Cosby standard, it must be true now that several more women have come forward, right?
If the story turns out to be false the University of Virginia could sue "Rolling Stone" for enough to build up their endowment very nicely.
I hope the lawsuit cripples Rolling Stone.
"the University of Virginia could sue "Rolling Stone"
Does anyone believe this could happen ? The UVA admin was happy to have an excuse to shut down Greek houses which, as everyone knows, are remnants of an ancient past when SAT scores meant something and society was not "enlightened."
Fraternities and sororities are always on the edge of being banned at every university I'm aware of. The only thing that saves some of them is that alumni of them tend to be donors some day.
"That would be "The New Republic"."
LOL. Sorry. Fixed.
"The New Republican"... Meade proofread and thought this must be an interesting new publication.
Seems related to the David Weigel post.
Duke was, like, so long ago, dude.
I'm sure we'll see a lot more women coming forward saying they were raped on shards of glass some years ago as well. Things that can no longer be proved. The only way to get past the "rape culture" is to make sure all allegations are investigated (if possible), and false rape accusations are prosecuted.
The fraternity should go after Rolling Stone. No table with a glass top. No member who was a lifeguard. No party on the noted date. No policy that a pledge has to rape a woman to gain admittance.
You can bet that the alumni of this fraternity have the means to make trouble. They should make trouble.
@Shanna,
She was supposedly raped on broken glass for hours. I am not sure what you know about scars, but if this happened, the scars are there. And if they are there, not only should these guys be charged with rape, but with torture, as such an experience would be excruciatingly painful. Imagine the screams. And if she was knocked out and didn't feel anything, the scars would be that much worse as she could not actively protect herself.
This story is complete SJW bullshit.
Michael k@1039am/
^^^THIS!!!
(Class of '66...slowly fossilizing :) )
I guess this fraternity's pledge initiations are sort of like the Cuban club scene in Godfather II. Except in Cuba, finding a girl who could be disappeared was a lot easier than finding university students who could be gang raped without fear of repercussion.
Face it, this is "too good to be true" from an SJW perspective. You have to believe it because it confirms every prejudice you have, and confirmation of those prejudices is so rare.
I am not sure what you know about scars, but if this happened, the scars are there.
If this happened it should have been prosecuted, but the issues proving it at this late date still stand. There is no DNA to prove rape occurred, and who did it. Absent that, or as I said, absent confession, how would you prosecute?
If she did produce scars from glass, it would be proof something happened, certainly. And perhaps other witnesses could be found, even at this late date. Perhaps they could make it work in court, I don't know.
I do find it very hard to believe that a person would be raped on glass for hours by multiple people and not report. Or go to the hopsital.
I find this almost impossible to believe, quite frankly. Absent STRONG evidence otherwise. And that any friends would find someone in that condition and advise her not to report it.
I'm proud of TNR for going against groupthink on this and actually posting something questioning the veracity of the story.
'With No Stake in the Findings.' That would seem to exclude the university, yes? Seems to be sort of case in point on why this whole deputize-school-administrators-when-it-involves-sexual-assault movement is a really really bad idea. This seems like a job for, I don't know, cops maybe? As with all rapes?
ATTENTION ON DECK. Rape is a felony. College Administrators should be charged with obstruction of justice if they fail to call the cops upon receiving a report of a rape.
I saw Gone Girl yesterday. Is the Rolling Stone "reporter" also a screenwriter or is the "victim's" real name Amazing Amy?
Glad what remains of journalism is questioning the reporting of this article. I called BS on the writer on the previous thread for inconsistencies I could discern on a quick read, as well as for the other incredible facets such as none of the woman's "friends" were helpful either that night or since, and that the administration would so blithely disregard the implications of hearing that story without even a cursory investigation.
So the reporter's story idea was to find rape culture at high-profile universities, and went in search until she found this.
Best story she could find.
Got it.
The SJWs have gotten particularly sloppy these days. When they have some larger crusade to push, one would think it wouldn't be too difficult to find a good case to help advance the narrative. White cops abusing their powers over black suspects? Surely there are better cases than Michael Brown, where the evidence tends to support the police. Rapes occurring on campus and no one being punished? Surely there are better cases than this uncorroborated and increasingly suspect account.
Are these really the best cases they have, or are they just getting lazy? Have years in the bubble kept them from even considering stories that support their narratives with skepticism?
"So the reporter's story idea was to find rape culture at high-profile universities, and went in search until she found this."
Considering their 1 in 5 statistic, it is surprising that they decided Jackie would be the hill they'd fight and die on.
Are her friends psychopaths?
Seriously!
That was my first reaction to the story as well.
Who rushes to a friend's aid in the middle of the night, and then talks them out of going to the Hospital -- if they've just been raped on a broken glass table?!
What I find troubling here--and what a professor who cares to examine the planks in her own eye should find troubling--is that the University of Virginia responded to this unverified article by shutting down all the fraternities for several months. Why are university professors so enamored of collective punishment and the presumption of guilt? (We saw the same thing at Duke.) Does university life attract people who despise humane values? Or does university life destroy the humane values in its participants?
The Glass that was under her during the rape wasn't Stephen Glass, was it? Because that would explain a lot.
Is there a lawyer in the house? What would it take for, say Phi Kappa Psi, to get a libel judgement against Rolling Stone? What would have to be proved? It seems to me that a lot of Erdley's comments would be pretty damning, but I'm not sure what, exactly, has to be proved.
Is Jackie even real?
Of course the victim won't name names.
That would lead to another, (probably much less favorable to her) version of the story coming out.
And she's counting on none of the accused self-identifying. Even if "Drew" had an ironclad alibi with proof, he'd have to be an idiot, in the current environment, to come forward voluntarily.
If someone in a story acts like TV, cartoon or Life Time Original Movie villain -- there's a good chance a part of the story is false. Which is why good reporters pull at threads to unravel the truth.
"Several dudes, sober, planned a gang rape. This has been a practice for years and was not an isolated incident. Yet, NOBODY has ever said a word to an authority. Not the raped. Not a pledge. Not anybody."
-- It's POSSIBLE. How long did it take anyone to say anything about Sandusky? However, we should have a lot more information before we even pretend it was true.
What would happen if RS and UVA applied the same standards of guilt and mass punishment to Muslims as they have to white males in fraternities?
This whole episode is turning me into Hillary Clinton, raking the poor victim over the coals. It is turning us all into Hillary. Except, I guess, for the fact that we don't know Drew is guilty the way Hillary knew her client was guilty. So there's that.
t also reminds me of the TNR article from the Iraq soldier running over dogs with his tank.
That was a Stephen Glass article. Richard Bradley had the same thought.
This is a liberal guy. Of course he was attacked. His response is here.
"Also, if this conduct is a "rite of passage" why are there no other incidents coming to light?"
Actually, two other very similar incidents have come to light. At least, "Jackie" says that two other women have told her the same thing happened to them. But they don't want to file a complaint, and "Jackie" won't reveal their names.
I hate to let the author of this ridiculous article off the hook, since she should never be allowed to publish anything as non-fiction again in her life. But it looks like there really is a "Jackie", since UVA admins have spoken with her, and she appears to have made up the entire tale.
I think feminists are motivated by an urge to help women. The problem with feminism, as I see it, is that this urge is so overwhelming that they can simply run over anybody who is not a woman (i.e. a man, or a baby).
The real problem with feminism is when this ideology overwhelms factual truth. For instance the CDC reports a rape accusation as if it is a rape. And then you look into the study and it turns out these aren't even rape accusations.
interviewers did not ask participants whether they had been raped.
The CDC is reporting that "alcohol or drug facilitated penetration" is rape. That 1 out of 5 statistic starts to make sense if we redefine drunk sex as rape. But think about the problems of defining rape as a non-violent crime where the only issue is consent.
Q: "Have you ever been to the mall when you didn't want to be at the mall?"
A: "Yes! I hate going to the mall, my girlfriend made me go."
And then the researcher puts you down as a kidnap victim, and reports a kidnapping epidemic.
It would be farcical if it wasn't so dangerous to innocent men who are being accused of rape.
Rape, like kidnapping, is a crime of violence. Feminists are redefining rape to make it easier to prove (but also easier for innocent men to be convicted of it). They also see it as helpful to the "war on women" meme. So they don't care if it's actually true or not. It is seen as helpful to rape victims to inflate the rape statistics, so authorities will "do something" about rape. But of course false rape reporting does the opposite of helping actual rape victims.
Michael K, thanks for the reference to the "Gell-Mann effect".
I'm pretty expert in one or two fields (mostly audio and computer software). It used to baffle me that the people writing about these things seemed dumber and more ignorant than in the other fields that I read about.
Then I figured it out: journalists are dicks. They don't know what they're doing, and the successful ones know even less.
If this gang-rape story is false, and it surely smells false, then it's in another category. Usually journalists just don't understand what they're writing about. This one either made it up or didn't have a clue how to check it for veracity.
I suspect that there is a positive correlation between the specificity/technicality of the story/issue reported on and the bull-shittiness of the reporting.
So, for example, if you read a story about a break in a water main on 4th Street, it's likely to be fairly true.
If you read a story about the link between electrical tape and skin cancer among electricians, it's likely to be BS.
Best Response from Richard Bradley's comments section:
Caravaggio
12/1/2014 8:10 pm
They learned from the Duke Lacrosse case. This time they have an accuser whose veracity can’t be questioned: for she doesn’t exist.
Twana Brawley 2.0
What my gal (who doesn't comment here often enough) said!
When I saw there was a "rebuttal" to Bradley's piece, I was interested in reading it, expecting the author to address the points he was making and explain why his skepticism was unwarranted, that the reporter (Erdely) did a professional job, and that Jackie was likely telling the truth.
Instead the Jezebel piece demonstrated the mind of a not very bright child, name calling and ad hominems, and not addressing anything Bradley actually brought up. Then I realized I should have known better--this was Jezebel.
"What we need a symbol of protest, like the apocryphal "hands up" of Ferguson."
First mouth wins. Those inclined to distrust the story distrust the story, but all the Frats are shutdown.
Saint Croix:
The have involuntarily taken some steps back in recent years, but in their heyday, at the height of civil corporatism, the feminist sector resorted to strategies that dehumanized both men and babies. Fortunately, rational and reasonable men and women are confronting the feminists' deep and abiding prejudice and greed, and forcing them to moderate their fanaticism and business model. Unfortunately, corporate feminism and it services have left literally millions of dead and decomposing bodies in its wake.
not only that, but the reporter is kind of fuzzy on the details. And as I recently read, she doesn't want anyone to get "bogged down" in the details. Because then you would miss the larger point. Or something.
Looks like Duke Lacrosse all over again.
Nice discussion in WaPo about the strange journalist practices at Rolling Stone.
Many of us called BS back on Nov 24 when this story first appeared in the Althouse.
Even Slate is coming out against Erdely and her story. This whole thing is unraveling.
"I saw Gone Girl yesterday."
I read the book, thinking that I would understand the story better when I saw the movie. It stunk. Haven't seen the movie and won't.
The book has over 28,000 customer reviews on Amazon. Amazing. Lemmings on the internet. Who knew ?
I think the UVA story is yet another propaganda narrative in service to the "rape culture" mythology of campus feminist man-haters.
Why is it that all the progressive examples of some societal problem turn out to be utter bullshit when examined in detail?
From Ferguson to UVA to faked racial hate crimes on college campii, the entire platform of the social justice warriors is based on lies and bullshit posing as "oppression" and "racism".
Jupiter, you assume Jackie is real and/or telling the truth.
Saint Croix, it's worse than that. If someone ever asked you to go to the mall when they knew you didn't want to go and you didn't, it's still kidnapping.
Saint Croix,
Q: "Have you ever been to the mall when you didn't want to be at the mall?"
A: "Yes! I hate going to the mall, my girlfriend made me go."
And then the researcher puts you down as a kidnap victim, and reports a kidnapping epidemic.
Well, exactly. Or, for the mall, substitute class, the dentist, whatever. If you didn't want to go (or even decided in retrospect that going was a bad idea), you have been abducted by whoever persuaded you.
You thought parents kidnapping their children was a rare event, to be met with Amber Alerts and police chases? Nonsense. Every parent who ever lived is a kidnapper.
The reporter put more strock in the bawdy lyrics of a silly song with verses interspersed throughout the article than actual facts. Proof of her critical theory.
As I noted on the thread of a week ago, she also de facto blamed blonde people (whitest of the white?) And charged that UVA is for rich kids (not true) so of course they believe in gang rape, or something.
Seemed more like a failed master's thesis than a news report.
Lori: "Seemed more like a failed master's thesis than a news report."
Au Contraire!
It's only an actual failed news report that fails the "reality" test.
On the other hand, it seems like a perfectly acceptable and all to predictably successful masters thesis.
The three friends launched into a heated discussion about the social price of reporting Jackie's rape, while Jackie stood beside them, mute in her bloody dress, wishing only to go back to her dorm room and fall into a deep, forgetful sleep.
Does the above sound more like "creative writing" than a description of an actual event to anybody else?
She's in a bloody dress and wants to fall into a forgetful sleep.
Her three best friends are most concerned about social consequences.
1- And yet she is still friends with these girls?
2- Would reporting a gang rape at a fraternity house really hurt her social life? Do that many people support gang rape? i think no.
"The three friends launched into a heated discussion about the social price of reporting Jackie's rape, "
This is the purest BS. My daughter graduated from college last year. One night two friends got into a fight and the guy starting beating up his girlfriend. My daughter yelled at him to quit and, when he didn't and started coming after Annie, she locked herself in her car and called the cops.
A year later, his case was coming up to trial and his sleazy defense lawyer wanted to talk to Annie. He was trying to get her to admit she had been drinking and might have over reacted.
Nothing doing. These girls are not hot house flowers like the lefties.
"Hold its leg!"
Because rapists speak like this all the time.
I note that the RS reporter has covered her six pretty well. She cannot confirm much of anything, but the horrific tale belongs to Jackie and she (Erdely) believes her. Meaning that if the whole story unravels, Erdely was simple the victim of a confused, but emphatic, coed.
Trashhauler: "Because rapists speak like this all the time."
Speaking of rapists: Terrence Bean.
Not that you'll read about it in any "mainstream" media.
Of course.
Speaking of another rapist: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/former-democratic-congressional-aide-pleads-guilty-to-sexual-assault/2014/12/02/0afae166-7a7a-11e4-b821-503cc7efed9e_story.html
#TeachDemocratStaffersNotToRape
Slate does a story on the journalism.
This reminds me of the way liberal journalists failed in their journalism in regard to Kermit Gosnell and the murder of babies. Instead of seeing articles about the horror of what was going on, journalists would run articles about journalists. The journalists became the story. That seems to be happening here, with Rolling Stone becoming the story. Why didn't the reporter do this? Why didn't the reporter do that?
A false rape claim, like the murder of newborns in an abortion clinic, does tremendous damage to feminism. Reporters don't want to cover that story.
Buried in that Slate article is a rather frightening peek inside the mind of a progressive journalist.
As Flanagan pointed out to us in her email, if the story doesn’t check out, “it is going to cause so much trouble in the area of reforming fraternity sexual assault, I can’t even tell you." At the moment, there is significant pressure to enact those reforms. At a faculty meeting on Tuesday, UVA President Teresa Sullivan said she is considering having both the Charlottesville and the university police do a joint patrol of the fraternities, as well as holding more classes on Fridays.
For her part, Flanagan has recently been invited to speak to a large gathering of fraternity advisers about addressing fraternity rape. Inviting her, she says, is a “huge opening” in their thinking. “But if this turns out to be a hoax, it is going to turn the clock back on their thinking 30 years.”
It's ugly and weird to be discussing the benefits of a rape claim. More police surveillance of fraternities! Plus now we have opportunities to indoctrinate them! It's also ugly and weird to be discussing the drawbacks of a false rape claim. Setback for feminism! Men will evolve backwards 30 years!
Gee, I hope this is not a hoax. Don't look too hard!
In addition to the glass-topped table, the rape room also contained some clowns and robots they'd borrowed from a day-care center.
The Central Park jogger is maybe the most famous case of a gang rape.
She was raped and beaten almost to death. When found about four hours later at 1:30 am, she was suffering from severe hypothermia and blood loss from multiple lacerations and internal bleeding, and her skull had been fractured so badly that her left eye was removed from the socket.
As a result of the severe trauma, she had no memory of the attack or of any events up to an hour before the assault.
So this is a horrific crime, and a high-profile case. It received national press attention. And the police arrested the wrong people, charged the wrong people, and convicted the wrong people.
Years later the actual rapist confessed to the crime, and his DNA was a match for the DNA found at the crime scene. Only one person's DNA was found at the crime scene.
5 innocent boys (ages 14-16) were sentenced to juvenile detention for several years. They later sued the city for $250 million dollars. The city settled for $41 million in payments.
Read this case, think about it, and then think about what our reactions should be to this gang rape. And if it's a hoax, what should our reactions be to that?
Darleen mentioned Tawana Brawley. Very good summary of that case here.
New York Times runs this article on November 24.
New York Times runs this article on December 2.
When this story crashes and burns--as it almost certainly will--it'll be another in a long line of rape hoaxes (Duke Lacrosse, Hofstra, Brawley) and the average reader will become ever more skeptical of future rape accusations. Surely, some accusations in the future will be genuine, and yet accusers won't be believed because the SJWs decided to accept uncritically any accusation from a mentally disturbed attention whore or liar.
Note to the SJWs--if you want to advance your cause, pick your poster children carefully. This would be like discovering Rosa Parks was never on any bus in the first place.
-- It's POSSIBLE. How long did it take anyone to say anything about Sandusky? However, we should have a lot more information before we even pretend it was true.
The numbers keeping quiet about this would be quite a bit larger than the people keeping quiet about Sandusky.
Every member of that frat for years, the numerous women they raped, the friends of those women, etc ALL had to keep quiet.
9/11 conspiracy theories have more logical backing than this.
"Every member of that frat for years, the numerous women they raped, the friends of those women, etc ALL had to keep quiet."
I agree the story as reported is implausible, and likely only printed as is because Rolling Stone wanted to believe it was true so much that they couldn't take a step back and think logically about it.
However, all we know for certain right now is that we don't know what, if anything, happened that night. All we have is one individual's story with many hard to believe elements to it.
I could imagine a frat keeping many things secret--perhaps even "ambiguous" sexual encounters that they may have convinced themselves weren't rape (e.g., riding a train on a girl too drunk to consent, if they thought she wasn't that drunk). But they'd need Mafia-like codes of silence to keep a premeditated brutal gang rape secret.
>>Jackie stood beside them, mute in her bloody dress, wishing only to go back to her dorm room and fall into a deep, forgetful sleep.
I've met a few rape victims, as a first repsonder. In my limited experience, none of them wanted to go to sleep. Without exception, they wanted to take a shower or a bath and get "clean". It's difficult to convince them they need to not do that, as it destroys the evidence of the crime.
Again, only a few data points, but very consistent...
Brando: When this story crashes and burns--as it almost certainly will--it'll be another in a long line of rape hoaxes (Duke Lacrosse, Hofstra, Brawley) and the average reader will become ever more skeptical of future rape accusations.
Readers with anything on the ball, yes. Unfortunately, the "average reader" probably walks around with nothing but the original media "narratives" rolling around in his head - from the gullible acceptance of hoaxes to the grossly biased and inaccurate "reporting" of actual events. And not just for rape.
"I've met a few rape victims, as a first repsonder. In my limited experience, none of them wanted to go to sleep. Without exception, they wanted to take a shower or a bath and get "clean". It's difficult to convince them they need to not do that, as it destroys the evidence of the crime."
The not going to the police or hospital after a rape I can sort of understand--but if you've been violently beaten and crashed through shards of glass and raped on said shards for hours, I don't see how you wouldn't need medical attention. That's not the sort of thing you can take care of with bandaids.
However, all we know for certain right now is that we don't know what, if anything, happened that night. All we have is one individual's story with many hard to believe elements to it.
Didn't the frat deny that any of the members were a lifeguard and state that there was no event on the night in question?
"Didn't the frat deny that any of the members were a lifeguard and state that there was no event on the night in question?"
I understand they did, which at least demonstrates that the story is contradicted. If it can be shown that none of their members was a lifeguard at the time, then Jackie was lying about that part, and if no witnesses can back up that there was an event at the frat that night, then that part, too, is a lie.
Could Jackie have still been raped under other circumstances, and embellished her story to make the frat seem more awful? It's possible, but as each part of the story unravels it becomes more likely the whole thing was made up.
We must believe the vagina!
The combination of such a sensational story and such a comprehensive lack of any confirmation was really suspicious right from the start.
In this story, there are ten people who the alleged victim claims had direct experience with either the rape or its immediate aftermath (7 rapists, 3 "friends"). *None* of them was asked for their side of the story, or even gave a no comment. The alleged rape allegedly took place in a crowded fraternity during a big party. Nobody at the party was interviewed. Nobody who might have indirect knowledge -- say, a fraternity brother who lives on the same floor -- was interviewed...
The woman must have been a walking bruise and scab for days if not weeks after the alleged incident. People *are* quoted as noting that she became withdrawn and depressed during this period, but they don't mention what must have been very noticeable wounds.
Considering the length of the article and the number of quoted sources, it's very surprising to me that the author took one person's word for it on the single most explosive claim.
From the Washington Post article:
On-the-record comments come from Rachel Soltis, a suitemate of Jackie in 2012, who says, “At the beginning of the year, she seemed like a normal, happy girl, always with friends. Then her door was closed all the time. We just figured she was out.”
Note that a person living in the same suite as Jackie and who is specifically talking about something being wrong does not mention any physical injuries, although she had ample opportunity and motivation to notice precisely that sort of detail.
It could be that Erdely did try her hardest to reach the alleged rapists. Or it could be that she didn’t, out of deference to Jackie. We’ve interviewed many of Jackie’s friends, including some who were quoted in the Rolling Stone story. They verified that Jackie did get very upset when Erdely wanted to find out more about the alleged assailants.
This is a very common feature in confidence scams. It is extremely important that the mark only get information from the con. Trying to get information from another source is a betrayal of the relationship, and an occasion for an emotional outburst or guilt trip. It's a pathological case of a relationship built on trust rather than on truth.
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