Jann Wenner’s Dishonest “Note to Our Readers”
Posted on January 14th, 2015 in Uncategorized | 51 Comments »
In the current issue of Rolling Stone—Nicki Minaj’s breasts are on the cover—”editor and publisher” Jann Wenner writes a brief commentary on the discredited “A Rape on Campus” article.
Maybe I just can’t find it, but Wenner’s note doesn’t appear to be online, so I’m going to reproduce it here.
A Note to Our Readers
In RS 1223, Sabrina Rubin Erdeley wrote about a brutal gang rape of a young woman named Jackie at a party in a University of Virginia frat house [“A Rape on Campus”]. Upon its publication, the article generated worldwide attention and praise for shining a light on the way the University of Virginia and many other colleges and universities across the nation have tried to sweep the issue of sexual assault on campus under the rug. Then, two weeks later, The Washington Post and other news outlets began to question Jackie’s account of the evening and the accuracy of Erdely’s reporting. Immediately, we posted a note on our website, disclosing the concerns. We have asked the Columbia Journalism School to conduct an independent review—headed by Dean Steve Coll and Dean of Academic Affairs Sheila Coronel—of the editorial process that led to the publication of this story. As soon as they are finished, we will publish their report.
Jann S. Wenner
Editor and Publisher
There are some problems with this short disclosure.
First, it’s worth noting how Wenner frames the article—it’s the same sort of revisionist history that Sabrina Rubin Erdely tried to engage in after people began to doubt her article. The gist of the article was “shining a light on the way the University of Virginia and many other colleges and universities across the nation have tried to sweep the issue of sexual assault on campus under the rug.”
But that’s not really true. The centerpiece of this article was Jackie’s story, and it was an essential part of the argument that UVa administrators tried to cover up sexual assaults on campus. Wenner wants to compartmentalize Jackie’s story as if he’s cutting a bit of mold off a block of cheese, but it’s not that simple.
There’s another bit of historical revisionism here when Wenner says that The Washington Post and other news outlets began to question the accuracy of the story. It’s as if he doesn’t want to acknowledge the contributions of the blogosphere—not just myself, but others who “began to question…”
The Post, to its credit, was the first to report factual errors in Jackie’s story—but it wasn’t the first to question the accuracy of Erdely’s article. I and others were. I can’t imagine why Wenner would deny that. Maybe he thinks that Rolling Stone is too important to be brought down by lowly bloggers; maybe he wants to create the impression that admiration and praise for the article were universal until “news outlets” began to question the reporting.
And let’s be clear on one other point: The Post did not question the accuracy of Erdley’s reporting; it demonstrated the inaccuracy of that reporting. There is a very big difference between those two things.
Wenner’s being dishonest here, and he must know it.
There is one other possibility for that language, and it’s Wenner’s assertion that “immediately, we posted a note on our website, disclosing the concerns.” I’ll leave the detailed timeline to others, but this is clearly not true. As this New York magazine timeline establishes, I, Robby Soave, Steve Sailer and others had been criticizing the piece for, well, weeks over a week before Rolling Stone acknowledged the Washington Post’s reporting on December 5th. In fact, up until the Post story ran on the 5th, Rolling Stone and Sabrina Rubin Erdely had been vigorously defending the story.
Now, you could say that the magazine didn’t need to say a word until the Post story ran; the Post was the first to establish factual errors, rather than just suggest their existence. That’s not a crazy argument. At the same time, Rolling Stone had ample opportunity to do its own digging before the Post did—my blog post ran on November 24th—and chose not to. It could have addressed the “concerns,” which were clearly serious; internally, people at Rolling Stone, unless they were completely blinded by ideology, must have known that their emperor had no clothes. But it did nothing; to the contrary, Rolling Stone tried to tough it out until that was no longer possible. The magazine was far from the responsible, responsive “news outlet” that Wenner presents it to be.
All of this matters, I think, because it helps get to the bottom of how this mess happened in the first place. As Michael Dukakis famously once said, “The fish rots from the head down.” If Jann Wenner can’t be honest about what happened even now, what does that suggest about the editorial culture he fosters at Rolling Stone? He’s the founder, the editor, the publisher. Ultimately, it’s on him.
51 Responses
1/14/2015 6:21 am
I, Robby Soave, Steve Sailer and others had been criticizing the piece for, well, weeks,
Since we are in a hostile environment here, I would be careful with this statement. Technically “weeks” means at least 14 days unless we want to get into whether one week and a fraction of a week equals weeks. In any case between your article on 24 Nov. and the acknowledgement of problems on 5 Dec. we only have 11 days. “More than a week” might be a better way to put it.
1/14/2015 7:00 am
Fair enough! Consider it fixed.
1/14/2015 8:04 am
I’m really starting what to wonder what UVa knew and when they knew it as in terms of did they investigate the claim when Jackie first reported it to Eramo? Did they conclude it was bogus then internally? We know Jackie chose not to contact the police or file a formal complaint on both occasions but what did the administration think based on what they knew or tried to uncover? Is it possible they came to the same conclusion as WP and just decided to leave it alone?
1/14/2015 8:41 am
Wemmer’s note is pathetic and revisionist.
Rolling Stone isn’t the only publication attempting to whitewash their own history.
The UVa student paper is trying to pretend they were in favor of due process all along.
This just after an article that said (on January 12th, more than a month after the debunking) “Though the facts of Rolling Stone’s report were later called into question, University President Teresa Sullivan continued the suspension of fraternity social activities, reiterating the importance of staying focused on addressing sexual violence in the University community.”
Nothing remotely promoting due process there.
The Cavalier Daily is not allowing many comments critical of their reporting, so I wrote a longer response below:
https://medium.com/@leecockrell/dismaying-uva-sexual-assault-response-by-president-sullivan-uva-student-council-and-cavalier-de6cf7fd888c
1/14/2015 9:06 am
Why didn’t R/S disassociate itself with Erdley as quickly as Bloomberg disassociated itself with Pressler after she wrote the bogus teen millionaire story?
They need her badly for future articles? They want her around because they are a half-way house for bogus reporters (cf. second chance to Stephen Glass)?
1/14/2015 9:19 am
It is absolutely frustrating to me how RS, with the active assistance of New York Times and other major left-leaning publications have swept this story under the rug by reducing what is clearly a case of wholesale fraud into minor “discrepancies”, and then pushing the line that “A Rape on Campus” was never really about any particular rape.
I consider myself center-left on most issues, but this fiasco has caused me to question conventional sources of information. Perhaps it is for the best to be always skeptical. As practical Russians used to say, “There is no truth in Pravda and no news in Izvestia.”
1/14/2015 9:26 am
I know Richard has asked this many times, but where oh where is Sabrina R.E.? I don’t care what the lawyers were telling me, if it were me, I would not be able to keep any respect for myself or my profession if I hid so shamelessly for so long.
1/14/2015 9:32 am
CJS needs to be very careful here lest they end up as discredited as RS is. The longer they take to complete their ‘investigation’, the more criticism will accrue to them, and in direct and inverse proportion to whatever (if any) criticism they have of RS. On the other hand, is a school that allows the president of Iran — a country that stones homosexuals to death — to speak on multiple occasions — yet disallows ROTC on campus because of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ credible in any accepted sense of the word?
After all, what can be taking so long to investigate? The various facts of RS’s incompetence and/or deliberate sliming of UVA are already established, and it requires, to quote everyone’s favorite feminist liberal — Hillary Clinton, ‘the willing suspension of disbelief’ to think that RS was a paragon of objective fact-finding and reporting, and that this whole episode is the result of an unfortunate run of bad luck that was beyond their control. And speaking of which, has Mrs. C. weighed in on this yet?… She is on record on the cops in Furgeson and NYC, and…
1/14/2015 2:10 pm
[…] Read the “Note to Our Readers” in this month’s edition of Rolling Stone, reproduced here. […]
1/14/2015 3:18 pm
With the police report, one part of this is coming to an end, while the rest continues to do work. My hunch is at Uva two tracks take place - Jackie either apologizes , leaves the school or the public learns more about her, maybe some back story. There arent many options and I would guess some lawsuits are coming for her in the absence of some clarity on her part, even if she never meant for any of this to blow up. The second track is that uva moves into the positive ledger on sexual assault and does it with its own apologies and the fraternities commitment, a happy ending for a school that didnt deserve the mess laid at its door following the real tragedy there, the death of the poor student who was abducted, Hannah Graham. That is the real story worth investigating, and that is for the larger community.
As for the life of the rs article, i would hope Erderly issues a How I went wrong piece, so. that she can return as a reporter and do better work. I would also hope that other outlets keep the story alive as an example of the toxic mix of bad reporting, good intentions, and stereotypes ( in this case of frat boys, but in others these days of police, blacks, whites etc).
I would also hope the group that vandalized the frat house issues an apology as well. But maybe any or all of this is too much to ask.
1/14/2015 3:54 pm
Interesting to note: according to local Charlottesville pub, The Daily Progress, admission applications at UVa are down for the first time in 12 years. While the total # of applications is only down by a few hundred, this is notable when you consider that the total # of applications has been rapidly increasing in recent years. For example, the pool of applicants in the 2012-2013 cycle increased by approx. 3,600.
1/14/2015 4:28 pm
Erdely’s career as a writer of non-fiction is over, or should be. She has made a career of compellingly-written stories that are nonetheless filled with un-verifiable quotes and dialogue, where the narrative is more important than the facts. I have trouble believing any credible publication would risk hiring her right now, especially if one of the parties hurt by the UVA story decides to pursue legal action. It seems utterly rational to me that she might now slink off into no-comment-land, write a novel or two, and apply her active imagination and powerful writing to some other field. If I were a journalism professor, I would teach a compare-and-contrast between the recent Serial podcast, where the reporter’s persistent self-doubt and commitment to thoroughness don’t get in the way of great storytelling, and the RS UVA fiasco.
1/14/2015 8:37 pm
The notion of punishing or prosecuting a young woman at UVa who may be both delusional and fragile does not present itself, at this moment, as an obvious action. Sure, her confession to RS has created a chaotic situation for which she is partially responsible. However, if significant pathology is the source of all of this, it may not be possible to prove malign intent on her part. Allowing her to move on in relative anonymity may be the most viable option instead.
1/15/2015 12:05 am
Yes, DWLindeman, let the NEXT seven men she falsely accuses of raping her deal with it.
1/15/2015 1:07 am
What’s the latest with Jackie Coakley? Has anyone heard of her in the last few weeks? Is she at home, being protected by the parents? Is she back at school?
1/15/2015 2:34 am
The true believers will never admit they are wrong. I just read, for the first time, a piece by Amanda Marcotte (on another topic). Chances of that shrieking harpy ever mending her ways are slim to none… and Slim just left town.
But there may be a sea change in the body politic, and it will be driven by women. Women who have fathers, brothers, sons. And whose sense of fairness is intact.
1/15/2015 2:57 am
“this short disclosure”
Is an exercise in self-righteous goalpost moving. It’s truly disgusting.
“if it were me, I would not be able to keep any respect for myself or my profession if I hid so shamelessly for so long”
I suspect that if SRE were you, she wouldn’t have published that article in the first place. She would have tried to verify at least a few random facts and the fabricated nature would have been very, very obvious.
1/15/2015 3:08 am
What about Haven Monahan? Where’s he at these days? You can run, Haven, but you can’t hide!
1/15/2015 3:16 am
Jackie is no longer listed in the student directory. That would happen if you withdrew.
“The second track is that uva moves into the positive ledger on sexual assault and does it with its own apologies and the fraternities commitment, a happy ending … ” - JMil
If they had an ounce of honor… but that appears to be too much to ask of this administration. Instead of apologizing, and working with us, they’ve rammed through a new list of regulations that will expose us to even greater liability than before. And this was after the story was exposed as a fraud.
The advocates on grounds show little sign of introspection either. The emails I’ve received over the past few weeks have urged me to “move on” and they’ve tried to remind me of “the greater problem of sexual assault.” I’m sorry, but when you’re trying to lynch my brothers on the back of a filthy lie - I’m not going to forget it - I’m not going to get over it - and I’m sure as hell not going to tolerate their willful abuse of the facts.
CS
1/15/2015 5:32 am
“What about Haven Monahan?”
Haven’s great, actually. I mean he’s smart. He’s sensitive. He’s funny. He’s a scaredy cat. If you creep up behind him, he’ll jump right out of his skin. It’s pretty amusing. He’s honest. He always calls them just like he sees them. You can count on getting the truth from Haven, even if the truth hurts.
1/15/2015 6:20 am
Sullivan appears to be moving along as if the expose never happened. Her pet, the White House interned and her own personal intern of sociology Renda currently employed at the school, is still chugging along with the entire plan. Good news is two fraternities have called them out and refuse to buckle. The coincidences of university president, said president’s activist intern on payroll expediting students to RS Erdely as if they were on a tasting menu, White House, Erdely the fabulist, Rolling Stone, and unstable student with just the right story cries for legal discovery. Sullivan needs to go now for exposing the school to this kind of harm and liability not mention the loss of reputation and honor.
1/15/2015 12:30 pm
Richard,
I agree with you that Wenner is ultimately responsible. Careless disregard for the truth is not a characteristic that one looks for in an editor. The cover of RS was interesting, too, for a magazine that ostensibly purports to concern itself with the welfare of women.
Much good is coming from this, in spite of Erdely and Rolling Stone. The university is cracking down on alcohol abuse. That is good for all students. There will be a larger police presence on Grounds. That is also a positive development in a university community in which three murders have occurred in less than a decade. Fraternities will be required to have sober members present at social functions. That is an adult requirement, sort of like having someone be a designated driver. If there are no problems with alcohol at fraternity parties, why should there be concern about liability? If there are problems, who should shoulder the responsibility and the liability? The university?
In addition to measures the university is taking, the Virginia legislature is considering a bill that, if passed into law, will require university police to report alleged sexual assault to local authorities. If the bill becomes law, men and women at the university will be protected: men from being falsely accused of sexual assault, and women (or men) who have been assaulted from accidentally not preserving evidence properly, since both will be referred to proper authorities. This is the best outcome that can be hoped for, at this point, in my opinion.
As far as Phi Psi goes, the police are investigating the vandalism that occurred, are they not? And Phi Psi has its honor firmly intact by the actions of its student leadership. The ones who will suffer now will be RS and Jackie. I still have some sympathy for Jackie because she is so young and so misguided. I have none for Rolling Stone. All staff, from the top down, should have known better. Thanks for your solid reporting on this story, Richard.
1/15/2015 12:47 pm
I don’t understand the sympathy for Jackie Coakley at this point.
Her “story” was not a secret, not something dug up by SRE to be exploited; she was peddling her lies and libel all over campus for a year or more at activist rallies, “slut walks,” and defaming the guys at Phi Psi at every turn (and let us not forget her cohort and accomplice Emily Renda, who used Jackie’s story at a government hearing in order to push her radical anti-male, anti-due process agenda founded on the statistical fabrication of “1 in 4″ on a national level). Where the hell is the demand for accountability? Why the hell is she STILL being protected? Frankly, this is one of the most sickening elements in this whole disgrace.
Sullivan needs to go. Renda needs to go, or at the very least be investigated her very active part in all of this. Jackie needs to be held accountable for her crimes. She should not be allowed to just disappear, and neither should SRE.
1/15/2015 12:57 pm
As for the new fraternity party requirements… did these chapters not have Risk Reduction chairs? I was Sigma Nu 00-04, and our own policies were so much more stringent than what UVA is attempting to adopt. I don’t see the outrage… most of it is common sense.
Granted, we did not have a house and were a small chapter, but we held massive campus-wide shuttled parties every semester, with up to 500 attendees. Third party venue, properly liquor licensed, off duty cops as security, hiring a licensed guy to check ID’s, 5 million in liability insurance, campus public safety working with us at shuttle stations, full guest list and oh shit… every brother was sober! If you had booze on your breath, you were immediately suspended on the spot. Oh yeah, every semester we had required education courses from nationals on sexual assault, alcohol abuse, understanding the insurance angle, and also reviewed a number of cases from other chapters as well as other national fraternities who screwed up and got themselves in trouble.
1/15/2015 1:04 pm
[…] Finally, Rolling Stone is still in denial about its role in creating this mess for UVA Greek life. Journalist Richard Bradley—who was the source in my initial report questioning Jackie’s story—reports that Rolling Stone‘s latest issue contains a note from the publisher addressing “A Rape on Campus.” Unfortunately, the note fails to admit what everyone already knows to be true—that the story is false and the product of an incomprehensible journalistic failure. Here’s the note, according to Bradley: […]
1/15/2015 1:21 pm
It looks to me that the cover of the latest edition of Rolling Stone (the one featuring Nicki Minaj’s breasts) objectifies women as sex objects. One wonders what will RS’s radical feminist readers will think about that. Can’t RS make up their minds about how they see women in society?
1/15/2015 1:25 pm
Perhaps Nicki Minaj is on her way to a Slut Walk…
1/15/2015 1:26 pm
In the ‘You can’t make this stuff up’ category:
Columbia University (of which Columbia Journalism School is a part) is being investigated by the feds for its handling of sexual assault complaints. CU’s response is pretty much ‘no big deal… we’re improving our procedures and policies’ without apologizing for or even attempting to explain behavior on their part that may have been against the law in terms of reporting, etc.
So we have (CJS being part of CU) these guys investigating RS… it all sounds like something Lewis Carroll might have written…
How is it that we keep hearing these complaints about how colleges and universities handle allegations of sexual assault when for the last twenty-five years most of their top administrators have been women? Is it possible that the ‘war on women’ is actually being waged by liberal, and even, ahem, ‘progressive’ women against other women? Who knew!
1/15/2015 1:48 pm
Robby Soave from Reason Magazine is a class act. In his latest update to the UVA fake rape hoax, he readily gives credit where it’s due: “Journalist Richard Bradley—who was the source in my initial report questioning Jackie’s story…”.
If only all other media outlets could be this honest.
1/15/2015 1:56 pm
Wow! The student has withdrawn? That is huge - I remember she had stated to Washington Post that her original intention was to go to another school, Ivy League or something like that (which was odd to include in an interview and suggested that the student was having misgivings about (fill in the blank with whatever you want - maybe her taking things too far). Here’s the quote from that. I don’t include this to disparage Jackie, who to me has a real problem (willingness to hurt other people to get what she wants, or what she thought she wanted) but who probably didn’t intend to have all of this blow up (she also said “I never asked for this [attention]”. This is from the December 5, 2023 report from Washington Post’s Shapiro (“Key elements of Rolling Stone…”)
“Jackie said she never wanted to go to U-Va. Graduating near the top of her high school class of 700, she had planned to attend Brown University. She dreamed of pursuing a career in medicine, like her childhood hero, Patch Adams.
“I wanted to help people,” Jackie said.
She said she was disappointed when her family told her that they could not afford the Ivy League tuition. She enrolled at U-Va. without ever visiting the school.”
I guess in this instance she’s decided to just leave it behind (pretty rational…but very cowardly and about as disappointing as SRErderly not stepping up to the plate and saying: “I MESSED UP!”).
I’m actually glad that the issue is not dying with the 24 hour news cycle - the police are going to arrive at the conclusion that no assault took place, and they will get there in the next two months I think, something like that. That will really put an end to that one.
As for the fraternities on campus…what can I say other than “sorry”. They seem to be “paying” too high a price for the past and for some stereotypes and myths, and it’s completely unfair. That said, life is unfair - sometimes you have to step up the plate anyways and lead. I think the fraternities on grounds, to their credit, have in many ways done this. Setting an example for responsible and safe use of alcohol is a big deal. It’s also good to make a conscious effort to work against the stereotypes and for what it’s worth the fraternities seem to be doing that too. I think they will have a pretty good recruiting cycle this spring (just from a distance) and will probably get some quality recruits who can get onto the business of setting an example, righting the ship, so forth and so on.
As for Dr. Sullivan - listen she is a good President for UVa, and she is big enough to admit where they went right and where they went wrong. If the UVa student body believes that working against sexual harassment is a worthy cause, then the fraternities can set an example here and work with its perceived adversaries - work with the assault groups etc, to be on board. Sometimes you can’t choose the battles you are in, and that’s life too.
Sure it’s unfair. So what. A lot of things are unfair. You have to deal anyways.
Now with the reporting…that was a VERY GOOD idea about professors comparing the Serial series with the RS reporting and how to do it right. I think everyone is right that Erderly may not be big enough to go ahead, flush the rest of her reputation down the drain for the sake of integrity and admit where she went wrong and how. This was the worst mix of reporting - a student who made something up (who I think the evidence shows did, given that the amount of evidence opposing the story is now the size of the Himalayas), combined with a journalist bent on going after UVa for their own reasons (and it seems an enormous, national cause and agenda and…whatever), combined with a media dedicated to believing without checking facts…pandora’s box.
This is one of the few times in the history of my life when I can say my god…can it be? Ann Coulter got this right.
Anyways - I still hold out for this.
1. An apology from the student to Rolling Stone and from the student to UVa, the fraternities, the assault organizations, and her friends. Given that the student has run away from all of this, this probably won’t happen. Welcome to lawsuits….
2. An accounting from Erderly on how she went wrong, even if this is the end of a career in journalism (the commenters here have convinced me that it probably is better for them to leave journalism - the error is a bad one, and making up stories [even with the help of an unreliable source] is wrong. It’s not up there with the reporting in 2003 where an entire journalistic establishment lined up behind the iraq war - it’s not - but it’s plenty bad. I don’t like saying “they shouldn’t be in this profession”, but if you ruin peoples’ lives that don’t deserve any of this, this isn’t the profession for you. Erderly is probably going to be sued also for defamation of character, I would think. UVa has not gone after Erderly but the fraternities might sue her, so I don’t see another way out for Erderly but “I MESSED UP”. Doing this, at least for the sake of other journalists, would be a big person thing to do. She should also apologize to the fraternity, maybe even to the student body.
I just don’t see how the student and journalist can just walk away from this - they started this mess and have to contribute to cleaning it up / participate in it.
3. As for RS - they will survive as a publication, probably because of the Columbia School of Journalism’s report, which I hope recounts how this went down and gives some lessons. I hope their editor learns from it too. You can’t defend what can’t be defended, and in the case of this reporting it has no legs.
4. Media? Wow, I have no idea. There are SO many publications that have gotten this wrong. Is sexual assault important? Yes. That said, there is real collateral damage here, it was ugly to see how some publications just picked up whatever Rolling Stone reported and ran with it, for their own reasons. So irresponsible.
5. On grounds, this remains for UVa to work through. UVa will probably get through this and the title whatever thing will be removed (thankfully) given the real efforts now. But the feelings of everyone affected - I have no idea. I’d guess the fraternities come out OK - recruiting intact, leading some things, and essentially showing they aren’t who people think they are. Educators on grounds will have to apologize too for going against their own profession - going on evidence rather than their feelings about right and wrong. It’s WRONG to push something where it doesn’t belong. It’s wrong to decide to move against student groups that didn’t do anything.
6. Past survivors: All I can say here is sorry - this really isn’t about them. Yes, what happened to them is criminal, but it cannot help to add fuel to the fire where…there is no smoke. That just creates even more problems. There is no reason to stand with someone who nothing happened to, at least not at UVa. That’s the same problem that got everything here in the first place - pushing something for the wrong reasons.
Everyone’s capable of beginning their own war for their own reasons - but that doesn’t mean they should, or that they will like the results.
1/15/2015 2:40 pm
Richard - Have you seen this? And would you care to comment?
http://www.chicagonow.com/dennis-byrnes-barbershop/2015/01/another-claim-of-shoddy-journalism-by-sabrina-rubin-erdely-and-rolling-stone-surfaces/
1/15/2015 5:45 pm
[…] Finally, Rolling Stone is still in denial about its role in creating this mess for UVA Greek life. Journalist Richard Bradley—who was the source in my initial report questioning Jackie’s story—reports that Rolling Stone‘s latest issue contains a note from the publisher addressing “A Rape on Campus.” Unfortunately, the note fails to admit what everyone already knows to be true—that the story is false and the product of an incomprehensible journalistic failure. Here’s the note, according to Bradley: […]
1/15/2015 5:59 pm
According to The College Fix, UVA is imposing different party rules on white fraternities than on non white fraternities and different rules on sororities than on while fraternities.
1/16/2015 12:30 am
Must say Washington Post’s reporting from Shapiro has been A++. When the Rolling Stone story came out I thought to myself - wow, I knew the fraternities could do some bad things but this really does it, but also thought, innocent until proven guilty - if the “victims” have the right to due process then so too the alleged attackers.
But Shapiro turned this on its head with the “Erderly and Rolling Stone, THIS IS HOW TO REPORT” reporting. Very classy, ear to the ground and getting it right one painstaking detail at a time. Bravo.
The recent Washington Post article goes into how the fraternity Phi Psi has responded - how the actual members keep working through the situation. They took a hit for the school and now they are showing how to respond. Well done. Another thing I never thought I’d do: say that a fraternity got something completely right. Shows my bias - these guys are going to be fine.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/u-va-phi-kappa-psi-members-speak-about-impact-of-discredited-gang-rape-allegations/2015/01/14/d781ad90-9c04-11e4-bcfb-059ec7a93ddc_story.html
1/16/2015 12:35 am
JMil,
“then the fraternities can set an example here and work with its perceived adversaries – work with the assault groups etc, to be on board. ”
That’s what I find so frustrating, we couldn’t be more involved and it mattered little. No one cares, we’re still just as white and just as (ostensibly) privileged.
I think our extensive involvement in sexual assault awareness also backfired, at least in this respect. We ended up spreading quite a few of the movements myths, such as 1-in-4, thus feeding the anti-greek sentiments in the general community. By repeating the refrain, we were damning ourselves. We were telling the world that we were a problem, that we were responsible for a rape epidemic on grounds. It wasn’t true of course, there was no epidemic and we weren’t monsters, but that’s what we said. And all because we wanted to be good citizens, because we wanted to be upstanding members of the community.
We were cutting our own throats.
- CS
1/16/2015 2:01 am
[…] Finally, Rolling Stone is still in denial about its role in creating this mess for UVA Greek life. Journalist Richard Bradley—who was the source in my initial report questioning Jackie’s story—reports that Rolling Stone‘s latest issue contains a note from the publisher addressing “A Rape on Campus.” Unfortunately, the note fails to admit what everyone already knows to be true—that the story is false and the product of an incomprehensible journalistic failure. Here’s the note, according to Bradley: […]
1/16/2015 6:04 am
UVa set up the fraternity very well. Terrorizing them into cooperating with their own destruction. How often have we seen this? It has been standard operating procedure for quite some time. Admit complicity even if nonexistent, hope the targeting moves on to the next target, get punished, slandered, libeled for lies, and hope for the best. You cannot appease them. Nothing is ever enough except total destruction and capitulation. This tactic is being applied to everything. Enough.
1/16/2015 9:24 am
Current Student,
Thanks for keeping us all in the loop as to the current goings-on on campus. Those emails from the social justice warrior brigade need to see the light of day.
“The emails I’ve received over the past few weeks have urged me to ‘move on’ and they’ve tried to remind me of ‘the greater problem of sexual assault.’
Would you mind pasting those veiled threats and demands here as a comment, and also give the names of these groups? After all that’s been done, they really do not deserve a shred of anonymity any more and need a spotlight thrown on them for the world to see how insular and radical they truly are.
1/16/2015 1:08 pm
I really think the student needs to apologize. It makes a big difference. I also think Erderly needs to apologize to the fraternity.
As for the rest of the thing, really it’s as much up to the fraternities to win hearts/minds on grounds as it is any student group. It’s a hard slog (sadly, though this allegation was completely false, some others from the past - even a distant one - were not). But there are ways to do this - one way is to ask for a public health study and invite researchers to survey fraternity members and compare it against the rest of the student body.
It’s not easy but fraternities have a lot to gain through this process. I don’t think recruiting will be down and some of the students that become brothers will rush because of the example of the fraternities, because they see they aren’t what they thought they were. That’s a hard earned win.
There’s always a silver lining somewhere.
I do really hope though that the two principal people responsible for the mess do come forward and say: “we are sorry”. That’s on the student and the reporter. Otherwise the work of the Washington Post will get there anyway - they aren’t letting the 24 hours news-cycle get in the way of reporting The police investigation will wrap up and that will be reported, and probably an entire long form article about it as well.
It is interesting that some people are not changing their minds in light of the facts, and I think (sadly) that many people were willing to merge the tragedy of Hannah Graham with the reckless reporting of Erderly and Rolling Stone - these two stories could not be more different - one really happened and the other is mostly fiction. Some very powerful, credible people will have to right the ship for that to happen.
Here’s an example. If I say something to one of my relatives that contradicts what they believe, they are unlikely to change their mind. In their eyes, I’m not credible and couldn’t possibly know more than they do, and their biases are working over-time to prevent the new information from altering their perspective. However, if someone they consider an expert tells them exactly what I said, they will believe I’m still wrong but that the expert is right - and then adopt that view. Something along those lines needs to happen.
I’d hope Rolling Stone says “boy, we were wrong, wrong wrong!” That would be very helpful. Columbia School of Journalism’s report, I’d hope, would be accurate and challenge the Rolling Stone account - a case where a publication really, truly messed up. The ends DONT justify the means.
1/17/2015 11:09 am
Today’s Washington Post: now Liz Seccuro, who herself WAS a true victim of a rape at the fraternity at UVa, doubts the Rolling Stone account. Shapiro and Washington Post continue to correct the record. It seems as though the Post - via Shapiro - is making somewhat of a case for the alleged victim’s borrowing Seccuro’s account to fabricate another.
I really hope the student apologizes and Erderly also.
Quote:
“[Seccuro] told The Post that she was struck by how her own story was “similar in so many, many ways,” to Jackie’s account in Rolling Stone. Seccuro, who has spoken on the U-Va. campus about her attack, said she does not know whether Jackie’s story was influenced by her book.
“It’s been suggested to me,” Seccuro said. “It’s a horrifying thought. . . . I don’t want the attention to be on me. But there’s only been one documented gang rape at Phi Kappa Psi, and it’s mine, so do the math.”
Seccuro, who has never interacted with Jackie, said she believes that the student “suffered a trauma of some sort” and that she would like “to know the real story, whatever it may be.”
1/17/2015 11:12 pm
One of the best ways RS can begin to restore its credibility is to publish a piece destroying the 1/4 Myth. Written by a Greek student. Title doesn’t have to be: “F.U. B1tches!”
1/18/2015 3:52 am
Um, Richard, have you seen the latest bit of sensationalism from New York Mag? A story of (nearly) adult consensual incest that doesn’t quite pass the smell test: http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2015/01/what-its-like-to-date-your-dad.html
1/18/2015 8:18 am
What are you talking about MediaSkeptic. It’s SCIENCE™. I know because it says so right at the top of the page. What are you, some kind of SCIENCE™ denier???
/s
1/18/2015 11:50 am
MediaSkeptic,
Everything this person writes is titled What It’s Like….. The most interesting seems to be the self revelatory titled What It’s Like To Have A Condition That Gives You Extremely Terrible Body Odor.
1/18/2015 3:43 pm
Sounds like a rip-off of Reddit’s AMA (Ask Me Anything) sessions, Elliot. Only with 75% less fact-checking, if NY Mag is running to form.
1/19/2015 5:45 pm
“Seccuro … said she believes that the student “suffered a trauma of some sort””
Yeah, the trauma was she got friend zoned by the scardy cat.
1/19/2015 11:34 pm
speaking of journalistic honesty, I learned today that the NYTimes DealBook is financially supported by Goldman Sachs and some Wall St law firms. I think that should be prominently disclosed on every issue. The reader beware
1/20/2015 2:05 am
And still little discussion of how, if everything in the RS article were true, it hardly supports the theory that UVA or other schools sweep rape under the carpet.
I am a lawyer - and I would never attempt to satisfy my burden of proof with a handful of accounts - one 30 years old - for such an explosive claim.
1/20/2015 5:42 pm
The NYTimes just escalated the frat-rape-culture narrative:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/21/opinion/sororities-should-throw-parties.html.
Anti-fraternity slurs include “frats … are hubs for binge drinking and hooking up, sometimes consensual and sometimes not … [and intentionally play] music loud enough to mask … cries of protest.” It wants to “prevent … punch spiked with date-rape drugs — that can lead to violence.” It links to an anonymous accusation of date rape drugs being given at a large off-campus Berkeley fraternity party.
They continually give prominent voice to Social Justice Warriors with solutions in search of a problem. Actual use of date-rape drugs is rare.
http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/212000.pdf
1/21/2015 10:12 am
Richard - Is this another case of ‘Here we go again…’?
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/duke-student-drugged-raped-off-campus-frat-party-police-article-1.2086404
1/21/2015 6:27 pm
A NYTimes editorial just doubled down on frat-phobia.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/21/opinion/sororities-should-throw-parties.html
“frats …are hubs for binge drinking and hooking up, sometimes consensual and sometimes not … music loud enough to mask … cries of protest … punch spiked with date-rape drugs.” It links to an unsubstantiated anonymous accusation of roofying at an off-campus Berkeley frat.