Has Rolling Stone Learned Anything?
Posted on March 4th, 2015 in Uncategorized | 28 Comments »
In its pages, reviewer Alex Morris writes glowingly of the campus rape doc, “The Hunting Ground.”
So glowingly—and with such utter credulity—it’s as if the magazine has learned nothing from its experience with Sabrina Rubin Erdely, Jackie and the University of Virginia.
The film is, Morris says, a “stunning documentary” that “shows how universities cover up sexual assault cases”—something that Sabrina Rubin Erdely tried and failed to prove in her bogus article, “A Rape on Campus.”
(“Alex”, by the way, appears to be short for Alexandra.)
And then there’s this:
At the heart of The Hunting Ground are the stories of the survivors, each of which is hauntingly similar in its salient points: sexual violence followed by callous dismissal at the hands of a much-trusted institution.
There is not a single cautionary word here to suggest that, in addition to “the stories of the survivors,” there is at least one other side to these cases to hear and consider. Rolling Stone, of all magazines, should know this; should have learned that lesson by now. But…no.
Morris continues:
Simply put, ignoring or undermining survivors keeps rape stats low, which not only helps maintain the school’s brand but also protects fundraising (a large percentage of which comes from Greek alums or is tied to the performance of sports programs)….
This idea that university administrators across the country consistently sweep accusations of rape under the carpet “in order to keep rape stats low” and not harm fundraising is just a paranoid fantasy. An incident here or there, perhaps if it involves a star athlete—certainly possible. But a nationwide cover-up? To maintain the flow of donations from Greek alums, even though they are allegedly the perpretrators of these campus assaults?
(You can’t really have it both ways, can you? Saying that frat members commit most sexual assaults but that frat alums are so concerned about sexual assault statistics that they’ll stop writing checks.)
What a lost opportunity this is for the magazine to show that it has considered the lessons of Sabrina Rubin Erdeley’s fabricated article and integrated them into its coverage of this issue.
The debate about sexual assault on campus has grown considerably more nuanced and thoughtful since Rolling Stone’s false article came out. How weird that Rolling Stone doesn’t seem to notice. Perhaps they’re the ones making money off stories of campus sexual assault…
28 Responses
3/4/2024 1:55 pm
Say, did Sabrina Rubin Erdely ever “re-report” her story? And how is that Columbia Journalism Review investigation of the story coming along?
I’m not holding my breath.
3/4/2024 2:28 pm
“To maintain the flow of donations from Greek alums, even though they are allegedly the perpretrators of these campus assaults?”
Yes, that could be the case, if the Greek alums were concerned not about university administrators’ lack of response to sexual assault allegations, but instead that the administrators would respond to them and it would reflect badly on the fraternities.
3/4/2024 2:35 pm
“…the stories of the survivors, each of which is hauntingly similar in its salient points: sexual violence followed by callous dismissal at the hands of a much-trusted institution.”
An important task for journalists is simply to examine, where possible, the specific claims put forward by the women featured in the documentary.
3/4/2024 2:40 pm
Oh, good, Chip is running with the ball. Any public statement by an accuser makes her a target for probing by the entire media. Everyone should hide their shameful private lives rather than denouncing their assailants.
I have heard NOTHING to suggest that anyone featured in the movie is lying. There is NO BASIS to attack them. Criticize the filmmakers all you want, but be a human being attentive to other human beings unless there is some *individualized* basis for skepticism.
3/4/2024 3:25 pm
SE -
How are you?
I’m making an observation… not voicing an opinion as to whether I think it’s right or wrong, and I’d like the legal view (from you) on the legal view:
Outside of reporting on judicial proceedings, if any, how is anyone supposed to know about the ‘*individualized* basis for skepticism,” if not from other media reporting on stuff like this? I agree with you that the women should be treated with respect up until it becomes almost certain that something is rotten in Denmark.
By being featured in the movie, have the women made their cases public, or more properly, do they become public figures in the eyes of the law? And does that judgement change depending on whether someone was actively involved or just had their part played by someone else without their consent?
Remember… be gentle.
3/4/2024 5:08 pm
“Any public statement by an accuser makes her a target for probing by the entire media.” -SE
If you’re trying to send someone to prison then your accusations NEED to be probed by the media, police, attorneys, and yes, the public. If you’re not trying to send someone to prison, then you should just keep your story to yourself, otherwise people WILL question your story and pick apart any inconsistencies and impossibilities. Jackie and Mattress Girl are two perfect examples of liars who should have just kept their stories to themselves.
3/4/2024 10:21 pm
Is it normal for Columbia School of Journalism, or any organization, to take this long in reviewing a story? I do not know anything about the process, and it probably doesn’t happen that often, so maybe it could be a 3 month process.
However, if it is not, then the hypocrisy of Rolling Stone is infuriating. RS came out with a bombshell story accusing a university of indifference, stonewalling, proactive obstruction, etc. When the story was “proven” false, it did not apologize (I don’t count their apology - again, more hypocrisy, in explaining why SRE did not try to contact Jackie’s alleged attackers, Rolling Stone used the same line of reasoning for which SRE lambasted the UVA community) and it so far has swept the issue under the rug in an even more blatant way than it accused the university of doing with sexual assault.
Why would CSJ want to be involved in this? As an outsider all I know is that it is a well-regarded graduate school for journalism, I don’t know anything about its politics. Does it not damage their reputation to be associated with a possible coverup / delay / softening of dishonest and reckless journalism?
3/5/2024 1:16 am
As we know from some prominent cases — UVA and Duke immediately come to mind — it is shockingly easy to make up a false accusation of sexual assault. Therefore any claim of sexual assault has to be judged on its individual merits — as everyone did who was skeptical of the UVA story before it fell apart — and then, in the interests of fairness and historical accuracy the input from the alleged assailant and the investigative institution accused of being callous should also be allowed to tell their side, and they too will be evaluated on their individual merits.
Otherwise all we are left with are (presumably) women who want to talk about how they feel about a sexual assault that they claim occurred. But there is no external metric in this film (apparently) for testing whether these claims are true, partly true, exaggerated, or created out of whole cloth.
3/5/2024 12:54 pm
I’ve seen many articles recently which, similar to the movie, treat questionable and even discredited accusations as completely factual, not to mention obviously absurd and alarmist statistics. Activists seem to believe their best strategy is to simply refuse to admit reality exists. It’s hardly surprising they’ve reached this conclusion since they’ve operated under it for decades.
Given this environment I think Rolling Stone has learned the lesson it wants to: propaganda works. Their desire to advance their political agenda means more to them than the loss of credibility they will suffer from people who care about truth. Maybe choice is driven by their belief that the issues are important enough that the cost is acceptable. Or maybe its driven by the understanding that advocacy attracts more readers than it or the absence of truth repels.
I think Richard’s incredulity is caused by not understanding how different their goals are from his. He seems to think that because he values professionalism and accuracy over advocacy everyone else does also, and therefore the RS actions seem an inexplicable “failure to learn”. But ultimately Rolling Stone’s actions seem perfectly congruous with other principles we can discern from their actions.
3/5/2024 1:50 pm
To answer the question. The editors of RS have not learned anything because they do not want to learn anything.
They want to push forward an agenda and world view and the best way for them to do that is to pretend SRE is an unperson who never wrote for them and to push the next accusations of blonde frat guys raping young women as far as they can.
Back in the cold war years I made a habit of reading lots of communist press. The techniques become clear soon enough and it’s easier to spot the same techniques when used by the modern US media.
3/5/2024 9:02 pm
So, it looks like Rolling Stone, Eberlay, and Jackie got awat with it, eh?
3/6/2024 6:56 am
SE, there are good reasons to think that Erica Kinsman is not telling the truth http://www.realclearsports.com/articles/2015/02/17/new_york_times_and_jameis_winston_98148.html
There are good reasons to think Laura Dunn is not telling the truth http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/23/the-media-is-making-college-rape-culture-worse.html
3/6/2024 10:44 am
Conrad, your points are well taken. Based on the evidence apparently linked in these posts (which I haven’t read all the way through), I agree that those two cases should be weighed with more skepticism than either the movie or the reviewers seem to manage — i.e., more than zero.
Note however that the findings of these investigations can be more charitably framed than “the accusers are liars.” The Winston investigator said that he “did not find the credibility of one story substantially stronger than that of the other.” And the Dunn story contains evidence of ongoing contact, just like the Sulkowicz story; that is, of course “a reason to think Laura Dunn is not telling the truth,” but it is not *nearly* adequate, on my reading, to get to that point.
Others are less charitable. I get that. And I am not defending the movie’s one-sidedness. But a REFLEXIVE move to be and act (dickishly) skeptical whenever a rape accusation emerges is a seriously retrograde impulse. And it hurts people in a way that thorough, evenhanded investigation arising from taking charges seriously does not.
3/6/2024 10:47 am
Cliff wrote:
To answer the question. The editors of RS have not learned anything because they do not want to learn anything.
I believe that is correct.
Accordingly, I would hope that our host gives the “rape culture” sexploitation by Rolling Stone and its fellow travelers a pass for a while.
Have been browsing the SiTD archives and found it a treasure trove of trenchant critiques of journalism, often to agree with, sometimes to disagree. You could save tens of thousands of dollars that you would spend on journalism school, just reading SiTD. I look up to Richard as an “elder statesman” of journalism (though he is not old). Hoping that he will cast his net wider in future again.
3/6/2024 11:04 am
Re UVa, etc:
In addition to the CSJ review, the university launched its own investigation (headed by a Philadelphia law firm), and the state of Virginia’s investigation (directed by the Office of the Attorney General) has not been completed, nor has that of the Charlottesville police. The results of all of these inquiries will eventually be made public, according to previously published reports. So this spectacle is far from conclusion…. Who knows, the information contained in these inquiry reports may provide an impetus for some real investigative reporting (which has so far been conspicuously MIA in the world of “serious” journalism).
Re “The Hunting Ground”:
The documentary can be seen as a supplement and a supportive update to the lurid RS story. Dick and SRE both cast their superior understandings of a complex problem from a perch of moral indignation….
3/6/2024 1:30 pm
Interesting article here in the guardian yesterday called “My boyfriend sort of raped me and i didnt even break up with him”.
It sound a lot like many of the cases that we are dealing with. Woman says she only consented to half a sex act, then wonders whether she got half raped.
I don’t really see anything wrong with woman taking more control in sexual relationships. And I think that might be a legitimate goal of feminism. But there is just something strange to me about a woman saying, I consented to him having sex with me, but I didn’t say he was allowed to ejaculate, that’s rape. It reminds me of the Seinfeld sketch were Kramer says he borrowed half a can a coke from Jerry, then Jerry opens a can and says, “that’s the sound of you buying the whole can”.
3/7/2024 10:09 pm
SE are you Sabrina Erdely? that would defiantly liven up the thread.
Also I do not believe asking questions about serious accusations is ” dickish” that is a pretty immature response to critism of your beliefs.
3/8/2024 12:55 am
As others have observed above, at this point it’s a bit idle to expect Rolling Stone to exhibit any sort of integrity with respect to the stories it publishes. At least that’s one thing we can be sure of about them.
3/8/2024 10:34 pm
Has anyone else noticed the not-so-coincidental connection between the “topics/agendas du juor” covered by Sabrina Rubin Erdely in Rolling Stone & Kirby Dick’s documentaries? Aka, rape in the military (“The Invisible War”) and campus rape (“The Hunting Ground”)
3/9/2024 6:55 am
@ Carrie….”topics/ agendas du jour”-
Yes, Dick and Erdely both covered rape in the military and campus rape. And they both covered the “Catholic sexual abuse” scandal (cf. Dick’s “Twist of Faith”).
Erdely’s earlier work is reportedly being scrutinized with a more critical eye. Dick’s documentaries certainly mirror the agendas followed by SRE….
3/9/2024 10:51 am
We are not far out from the 90 day mark in terms of CJS ‘investigating’ RS, and you have to wonder why it is taking so long… anytime the accused (RS) gets to choose who investigates them (CJS), you have to be three stops beyond naive to believe it’s any sort of serious investigation.
3/10/2024 1:44 pm
SE,
There are good reasons to think the University of Oregon accuser is not telling the truth either http://www.oregonlive.com/ducks/index.ssf/2014/05/lane_county_district_attorney.html
So at this point there are 3 cases featured in the documentary that I have been able to find some information about online. In each of these three cases there are good reasons to think the accuser is not telling the truth.
That’s pretty astonishing. If there are so many sexual assaults on campus surely it should not have been difficult for the documentary makers to find a lot of persuasive cases.
And if it is so rare for people to falsely report rape, then it would have been exceedingly unlikely that each of the 3 cases I’ve been able to find some information about can plausibly be regarded as instances of false allegations.
3/10/2024 1:47 pm
SE wrote: “But a REFLEXIVE move to be and act (dickishly) skeptical whenever a rape accusation emerges is a seriously retrograde impulse.”
I’d say that up until about 4 months ago I would have agreed with you, but not anymore. I now use as a rule of thumb: If an ordinary person says they were raped, trust but verify. If a feminist activist says she was raped, be skeptical but verify.
3/11/2024 8:55 am
There are good reasons to think the University of Oregon accuser is not telling the truth either http://www.oregonlive.com/ducks/index.ssf/2014/05/lane_county_district_attorney.html
all witnesses agree the alleged victim had the opportunity to leave the party, or at least ask for help,
J) Alleged victim indicated a desire to only have her assailants’ “wrists slapped”, not ruin their lives.
A surprising number of women seem to believe the legal system should reprimand men for not being as gracious to their sexual partners as those partners would prefer. I wonder what gives them the idea that rules expressly labelled sexual assault include such circumstances?
3/11/2024 8:56 am
There are good reasons to think the University of Oregon accuser is not telling the truth either
From the link:
all witnesses agree the alleged victim had the opportunity to leave the party, or at least ask for help,
J) Alleged victim indicated a desire to only have her assailants’ “wrists slapped”, not ruin their lives.
A surprising number of women seem to believe the legal system should reprimand men for not being as gracious to their sexual partners as those partners would prefer. I wonder what gives them the idea that rules expressly labelled sexual assault include such circumstances?
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4/6/2024 12:01 am
“Has Rolling Stone learned anything?
The fact that everyone involved in the UVa story gets to keep their job makes resoundingly clear that the obvious answer is “NO.”
7/2/2024 4:18 pm
Emily Yoffe wrote an excellent article in [Slate]: “How The Hunting Ground Blurs the Truth.”
Like Rolling Stone, it seems that Senator Kirsten Gillibrand didn’t learn anything from UVA, either. On March 24, 2015, Capital Press Room interviewed her on the radio. It seems that the UVA hoax hasn’t deterred her agenda.
Then Gillibrand makes a cameo appearance in [The Hunting Ground].