Shots in the Dark

6 Responses

• Anonymous
  3/27/2015 5:40 pm

  “He’s good.”

  No, he’s not.

• Steve Sailer
  4/5/2024 7:03 pm

  From the NYT Easter afternoon:

  Mr. Dana said that the report was punishment enough for those involved, and that they did not deserve to lose their jobs because the story “was not the result of patterns in the work of these people.” …

  Mr. Wenner said that Ms. Erdely would continue to write for Rolling Stone, and that Will Dana, the magazine’s managing editor, and the editor of the article, Sean Woods, would keep their jobs.

  http://www.unz.com/isteve/rolling-stone-sabrina-rubin-erdely-punished-enough-will-keep-her-job/

• Steve Sailer
  4/5/2024 7:15 pm

  From the Columbia Journalism School report:

  Rolling Stone published “A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA” on Nov. 19, 2014. It caused a great sensation. “I was shocked to have a story that was going to go viral in this way,” Erdely said. “My phone was ringing off the hook.” The online story ultimately attracted more than 2.7 million views, more than any other feature not about a celebrity that the magazine had ever published.

  A week after publication, on the day before Thanksgiving, Erdely spoke with Jackie by phone. “She thanked me many times,” Erdely said. Jackie seemed “adrenaline-charged … feeling really good.”

  Erdely chose this moment to revisit the mystery of the lifeguard who had lured Jackie and overseen her assault. Jackie’s unwillingness to name him continued to bother Erdely. Apparently, the man was still dangerous and at large. “This is not going to be published,” the writer said, as she recalled. “Can you just tell me?”

  Jackie gave Erdely a name. But as the reporter typed, her fingers stopped. Jackie was unsure how to spell the lifeguard’s last name. Jackie speculated aloud about possible variations.

  “An alarm bell went off in my head,” Erdely said. How could Jackie not know the exact name of someone she said had carried out such a terrible crime against her – a man she professed to fear deeply?

  Over the next few days, worried about the integrity of her story, the reporter investigated the name Jackie had provided, but she was unable to confirm that he worked at the pool, was a member of the fraternity Jackie had identified or had other connections to Jackie or her description of her assault. She discussed her concerns with her editors. Her work faced new pressures. The writer Richard Bradley had published early if speculative doubts about the plausibility of Jackie’s account. Writers at Slate had challenged Erdely’s reporting during a podcast interview. She also learned that T. Rees Shapiro, a Washington Post reporter, was preparing a story based on interviews at the University of Virginia that would raise serious doubts about Rolling Stone’s reporting.

  Late on Dec. 4, Jackie texted Erdely, and the writer called back. It was by now after midnight. “We proceeded to have a conversation that led me to have serious doubts,” Erdely said.

• Mespo727272
  4/5/2024 8:12 pm

  Well, Richard you finally got some credit for getting it right. Bravo.

• Anonymous
  4/6/2024 8:05 am

  Richard,
  CSJ article is out.
  Hope you respond.
  Looking forward to hearing your commentary.

• uva1991grad
  4/6/2024 8:58 am

  Wow, the CJS evaluation strikes me as, at most, a good start.

  But it misses a whole bunch.

  At bottom, it fails to address the journalistic trickery involved. Jackie is from Stafford County, which has the 6th highest median income in the US, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-income_counties_in_the_United_States and very much in DC’s suburbs, but got characterized as a naive damsel from “rural Virginia” (I quote), in a pretty red dress.

  CJS completely ignores the innuendo that UVa culture is reflected in a seldom sung, bawdy, drinking song, most of whose 35 “verses” are completely apocryphal.

  When it is difficult to reach a college presendent, Erdely concluded stonewalling, but apparently did not conclude stonewalling when Jackie would not identify the names of three friends who might corroborate her story.

  CJS does not seem to capture that there was a real effort to pick and choose facts, spinning them thereafter.

  I give them a C minus.

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