Now Nicole Eramo is Suing
Posted on May 12th, 2015 in Uncategorized | 75 Comments »
The Washington Post reports that UVA dean Nicole Eramo is suing Rolling Stone for $7.5 million.
Eramo, who is the university’s chief administrator dealing with sexual assaults, argues in the lawsuit that the story destroyed her credibility, permanently damaged her reputation and caused her emotional distress. She assailed the account as containing numerous falsehoods that the magazine could have avoided if it had worked to verify the story of its main character, a student named Jackie who alleged she was gang raped in 2012 and that the university mishandled her case.
“Rolling Stone and Erdely’s highly defamatory and false statements about Dean Eramo were not the result of an innocent mistake,” according to the lawsuit, which was filed in Charlottesville Circuit Court. “They were the result of a wanton journalist who was more concerned with writing an article that fulfilled her preconceived narrative about the victimization of women on American college campuses, and a malicious publisher who was more concerned about selling magazines to boost the economic bottom line for its faltering magazine, than they were about discovering the truth or actual facts.”
It’s actually pretty hard to argue with those allegations. There’s no question that Sabrina Rubin Erdely was more concerned with writing an article that was about fulfilling her preconceived narrative than she was about telling the truth; stupidly, she essentially admitted that before the whole thing started to fall apart. And Rolling Stone was so sloppy, so careless, you’d have to think that buzz and the resulting boost in advertising/circulation were significant rationales for publishing this story.
Given that Rolling Stone and Erdeley both had ample evidence to show that Eramo handled the Jackie situation quite well, yet still chose to suggest very much the opposite, I think Eramo is going to have a strong case.
Generally, I don’t like to see magazines sued, because it’s a tough business and most journalists really do try to do their work well and conscientiously. But in this case, I can’t be that upset. Rolling Stone’s article was the worst piece of journalism I’ve seen in many years. In this one case at least, I’d say that publishing such crap does more harm to the profession than the libel suits that follow it.
75 Responses
5/12/2023 2:05 pm
As hard as it is to believe how bad the original report was, it’s even more difficult to understand Rolling Stone’s post-report gung-ho support of the “narrative” — i.e., that UVa administration has a perverse tolerance for rapists. This was the fallback position of Erdely and the magazine: even if Jackie is a liar, universities are accessories-after-the-fact in the rapes of their students.
That Rolling Stone continued to press that narrative even after Jackie’s lies were exposed — even to the point of lying about having confirmed the accusations of inaction by Eramo and others — is, to me, an even stronger indictment of the publisher and editorial staff.
5/12/2023 2:15 pm
Richard —
Background question. As the story began to unravel in late November and early December last year, didn’t Jackie herself publicly say (or perhaps through an intermediary) that the story’s criticism of Eramo was over the top?
5/12/2023 2:26 pm
You have to laugh at Eramo’s use of the word ‘wanton’ to describe Erdely. Even though she meant it in the sense of being deliberate, there are plenty of other words that she could have chosen that don’t have an other meaning that suggests Erdely is a hussy. Coincidence?
Richard, as for publishing being a tough business, it’s not tougher than any other kind of business, it’s just tough in a different way. The risks are higher, in the sense that you don’t have physical plant and inventory that you can build equity in and that you can borrow against, but the potential rewards for a successful publisher far outstrip the potential rewards for a more traditional business, say, a shoe manufacturer. What other businesses offer pretty close to a 100% return once breakeven has been reached, and excluding general and administrative and marketing expenses? (Only software, which is a remarkably similar business.) The perceived liability of unfulfilled subscriptions are really not what most people think they are either… there is always another publisher willing to take them off your hands in return for your subscriber file.
5/12/2023 2:38 pm
Supportive comments attributed to Jackie were the lead in an article published in the November 25 Cavalier Daily titled “Advocating for Dean Eramo” (it also included other letters and about 200 signatories).
5/12/2023 2:39 pm
@Austin 2:15. Read the last few graphs of the Washington Post article; it details how Jackie herself emphatically refuted RS’s villainous depiction of Eramo and she did, as you suggested, sign a letter of public support for her, insisting that Eramo had “truly saved [her] life”.
InterestedO at 2:26: Not a lawyer, but I’m pretty sure wanton has a specific meaning in legalese because it’s used often to claim reckless disregard for the rights of others.
5/12/2023 2:40 pm
I wonder if Eramo’s lawyers will be examining other work by Erdely for Rolling Stone… given that there have been many questions about some of those other stories, it would seem to be worth exploring.
5/12/2023 2:54 pm
“Eramo swiftly moved to help Jackie and arranged for her to meet with detectives about her alleged sexual assault almost immediately after she learned of the allegations.”
Can someone remind me how we got to a massive online argument supposedly related to this story on the proposition that militant leftist career administrators are obsessed with usurping the role of police and courts so that men can be tried in campus kangaroo tribunals?
I look forward to seeing Eramo educate the public on how professionals do this incredibly difficult job, and shutting up the haters.
5/12/2023 3:10 pm
SE —
YOU took us there by insisting that men who were accused of sexual assault in higher education didn’t deserve constitutional protections of due process, and it morphed from there… How soon we forget…
Let’s also not forget that there are cases where guys were not charged with anything — essentially found not guilty — but were suspended or expelled anyway. That might have something to do with it… are those ‘professionals’ involved in those cases the same ones that you are referring to?
5/12/2023 3:30 pm
Mrs. Haven Monahan —
>> it’s used often to claim reckless disregard for the rights of others
Given that whenever a woman on campus claims to have been assaulted, SE thinks the guy(s) allegedly involved should have no rights, does that make him wanton? What is the male equivalent of a hussy? Does he go out in drag?
5/12/2023 3:32 pm
From the WaPo article: “Rolling Stone privately told her that their portrayal of her was “fair” and stood by the account.”
The fact that Jackie herself publicly denied the accuracy of the quotes yet the magazine STILL stood by their reporting on Eramo is damning and proves they didn’t do a bit of fact checking on Erdely for this article. Not a single bit & not even after the story started to fall apart.
And that photoshop? Good grief. That’s neon-flashing malice right there. Heaven help RS if they get someone like me in that jury box.
5/12/2023 3:48 pm
Interested O - Uh-unh. I’m not getting drawn into the SE Wars here. 😉
But I do think that people here may have over-generalized about the motives of administrators. Sure some of them have been venal, and Eramo was also a dedicated rape advocate, but SE’s right about this: it seems Eramo did do the right thing, despite the mass confusion among her colleagues around the country about the Obama Administration’s crazy Title IX directives to them, and she responsibly directed Jackie to the police who were better equipped to investigate the matter impartially.
If anyone deserves blanket blame for the frightening injustices exacted against the accused on campuses today, it probably isn’t university administrators as a class but Assistant Secretary Rosslyn Ali, her wacked out colleagues at the Office for Civil Rights plus their bosses at the Dept of Education and the rest of the Executive Branch.
They were the ones who demanded administrators at universities which receive federal funding throw due process for the accused out the window as a condition of continuing to receive that funding.
5/12/2023 3:57 pm
Mrs HM —
SE sets up a straw woman — if you think that guys deserve due process, then you don’t understand what a tough job these administrators have, which is completely bogus. Having said that, there are numerous examples of administrators making statements that show they are all for the ‘Dear Colleague” letter.
5/12/2023 4:12 pm
“What other businesses offer pretty close to a 100% return once breakeven has been reached, and excluding general and administrative and marketing expenses? (Only software, which is a remarkably similar business.)”
Only software? How about nonfiction books? Movies? Music? Television? Visual arts? Absolutely any “content” industry?
Journalism is harder because it purports to tell the truth about specific identifiable people and, unlike police or lawyers, journalists do not have the tools that are often necessary to get at the truth, like subpoena power. That makes journalism uniquely risky from a defamation liability perspective, which makes it all the more important to be careful.
RS is about to learn that the hard way. Or at least, RS will be taught a hard lesson. I’m sure the people there will not learn a thing.
5/12/2023 4:49 pm
No doubt you’re right and no doubt that many administrators share the underlying agenda of the Dear Colleague letter, but not ALL did is the point, I guess and it’s as much “guilty until proven innocent” to assume the worst about all of them as it is about assuming the worst about all the victims of rape hoaxes (the non-perpetrators I mean.)
By the way, in re your earlier remark at 2:40 about Erdely’s previous work, the pdf file of the whole complaint is here:
http://t.co/HM0IMIiKHF
I’m still reading through it as I grab a few minutes here & there, but there are interesting comments about her previous work in #s 35-44. Besides the well-known suspect stories (the military & Catholic church ones) she’s been pulling this garbage since she was in school! You could almost say she has an unhealthy fixation with rape. (Watch her cop an insanity plea,lol!)
5/12/2023 4:52 pm
Oops. My reply to InterestedO didn’t show up - probably because I included at link to the pdf of Eramo’s filing.
Her complaint is at amlaw.com if anybody wants to see it. Sorry the link couldn’t go through the filters here.
5/12/2023 4:57 pm
“Or at least, RS will be taught a hard lesson. I’m sure the people there will not learn a thing.”
Perhaps the best we can hope for is that *other* journalists with more highly developed consciences will be more careful going forward. RS has really crapped their own bed just to publish one sensational blockbuster story and its got to be making an impression on journalists elsewhere who care about their careers.
5/12/2023 4:59 pm
It makes sense that Nicole Eramo would consider, and now, has taken this move. Sabrina Erdely’s conception of what journalism ought to be has been exposed as spectacularly distorted. We may note that while the administrators at UVa she attempted to malign have a social function within the university structure, they are not public figures, let alone politicians, and so really deserved far more scrutiny and subtle analysis vis-a-vis their vocations.
This said, it seems to me that Nicole Eramo has a near-impossible job. It’s laudable that someone at UVa speaks to potential victims of sexual assault, however, there’s no guarantee that in real cases of rape, and other types of abuse or assault, that universities can provide either victims, or the presumed accused, the justice they seek
5/12/2023 5:07 pm
Lets hope she wins. Personally I would love to fuck RS and Erdley up the ass hard. I’m prfetty hung, so there is that.,Would be some justicem no?
5/12/2023 5:12 pm
Notably, the complaint does not refer to the Melissa Harris-Perry coverage - you know, the one which she gleefully declared to the facebook universe she was going to in a big black car.
And, interestingly, Erdely seems a bit reserved on the show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbfKzXa6pjg
Makes me wonder whether by 11/29/14 she was sufficiently suspicious of Jackie, and responsive to the scrutiny she was getting SRE barely mumbles “thank you” to Chloe Angyal, and SRE speaks only in the most general of terms.
Perhaps did SRE have a convo with the producers about what she was comfortable discussing by that point?
5/12/2023 5:40 pm
Yep, we all here saw that coming. The maligned fraternity at UVa and the wronged friends of Jackie may want to hold off on filing their own lawsuit against Rolling Stone until Eramo has won hers. Then, the multiple instances of wrongdoing by RS will be on the (judicial) record. All that will be left for them to do is to establish that they have standing to sue and that they were harmed.
(At least, that’s my non-lawyer’s take.)
5/12/2023 6:55 pm
Off-topic: I have the sad duty to inform that our erstwhile hero Cathy Young (who bucked the trend in the matter of “mattress girl” and her alleged rapist at Columbia) has delivered an irresponsible smear piece against Pamela Geller and Robert Spencer, organizers of the “Draw Mohammed” cartoon contest that was attacked by two gun-toting jihadis last week, in the Daily Beast. For a point-by-point rebuttal, go to jihadwatch dot com.
The more I learn about journalists the more disappointed I get. I am even afraid to order Richard’s book on Larry Summers at Harvard, for I fear it will contain only a politically correct, shamelessly pandering attack on a heroic and meritocratic fighter who took on elitist privilege, grade inflation, black and feminist victimism, and was not afraid to take a stand against hypocrisy.
Sheesh, I wish I could be 12 again, when heroes were heroes, if only in the movies and in novels. Being an adult really sucks sometimes.
5/12/2023 7:01 pm
The main difference between this lawsuit and Phi Psi’s lawsuit is Jackie’s role. Jackie apparently never slandered Eramo (looks like Erdely did that on her own). She’s going to be an important plaintiff witness in Eramo’s case (with the obvious fallback being, she has less than no credibility).
When Phi Psi files suit, Jackie will probably play the role of “empty chair” — i.e., the person who should have been sued but for some strategic reason was not. A classic defense lawyers’ technique is to point to that empty chair and get the jury riled up about that person, and not their client.
5/12/2023 7:14 pm
Richard, you are cited in the suit in 82-84 on page 26. I have not read all of it yet but good work to you and Dean Eramo’s counsel.
5/12/2023 7:17 pm
Yes, I-roller. It does seem that it’s probably in the best interest of the frat & Jackie’s pals to sit back & wait to see how Eramo’s case goes to decide what might be the most fruitful claims they could make.
I have a hunch, though, that there will be no Eramo trial. RS’s lawyers would have to be crazy not to settle this one. Her 76 page complaint is pretty devastating and it really hits home that Erdely & her fact checkers deliberately avoided performing rudimentary journalistic obligations such as confirming quotes and interviewing essential witnesses because they *obviously* knew if they tried to confirm any of the facts outside of their unreliable witness’ internally illogical & ever-morphing account that they’d lose their blockbuster scoop.
In fact there were two fabulists at work concocting the RS story side-by-side: Jackie manufactured the bogus charges against the fraternity *and* Sabrina Erdely manufactured the bogus charges against Eremo & her colleagues. Neither storyline would hold up to scrutiny, everyone at RS knew it, and they didn’t want to be stuck holding any evidence that they ever discovered that they didn’t hold up. So they all acted like the see no evil hear no evil monkeys at every level of oversight to publicize both of these fictions.
They published a story they knew or should have known was defamatory & planned to claim gross incompetence rather than malevolence in the event there was a civil action. And this ‘calculated ignorance’ template seems to be Erdely’s SOP her entire rape-smearing career, too.
Sabrina E’s husband is evidently a lawyer, but she should sue him for malpractice if he advised her she could get away this time with smearing Eramo so aggressively by just claiming after the fact that she & her editors & fact checkers didn’t have the journalistic chops to perform a basic “5W” before publishing such explosively damaging allegations against a private citizen - and Eramo may work for a public university but she was very clearly defamed as a private citizen.
5/12/2023 9:18 pm
What are the chances that the legal team at RS simply took the journalists word for it that they had done their fact-checking and they were good to go? It might explain why they decided to go ahead and publish the story even after Eramo told them that the situation was different than what they were claiming, but it doesn’t say much for their competence.
5/12/2023 10:08 pm
InterestedObserver-
Admitting I have no first hand knowledge on the workings of modern magazine journalism, I would guess that the absence of rigorous fact checking is probably fairly common anymore. This would explain a lot about the dubious and heavily slanted state of news today. We tend to get a lot of,”Well, Emily Renda felt trustworthy”, and “Jackie seemed believable”, and “This passed the smell test”. (Until it doesn’t.)
I wouldn’t be surprised if the most important factors in going ahead with this story were Rolling Stone’s history and trust of Sabrina Rubin Erdely, their ambitious lust over a story so theatrical, if horrific, and the confirmation of their own biases, which made the story feel right.
I listened to Hanna Rosin interview Sabrina Erdely last year, and Erdely sounded like someone who hasn’t questioned herself, or been questioned, in a long time. She constantly used an ironic tone and laugh that is clearly intended to imply how obviously correct her viewpoint is, whether or not she verified any of it.
I think self questioning, rigorous vigilance against lazy and indulgent bias, and challenging one’s own narratives, is actually a very noble way to approach anything, especially journalism, and I’m not so sure that kind of nobility is in vogue at the moment, and I would guess that vigilant nobility doesn’t sell magazines very easily.
5/13/2015 1:30 am
“What are the chances that the legal team at RS simply took the journalists word for it that they had done their fact-checking and they were good to go?”
I’d think the lawyers should have been asking what Hanna Rosen asked in her interview with Erdely, which is “if you were a lawyer, how would you prove this story in a court of law”. If you can’t prove a very serious allegation, at least on the balance of probabilities standard, then i’d think that a competent legal team should have been very reluctant to print that allegation in a national magazine.
5/13/2015 2:01 am
[…] It seems to me that Eramo has made a strong case for some kind of compensation. Once again, I concur with Richard Bradley: […]
5/13/2015 5:34 am
CR and Comrade Bala — The only way that the legal team signing off on this story and allowing it to be published makes any sense is that they took Erdley’s, Garber-Paul’s, Woods, and Dana’s word at face value that everything checked out and didn’t do anything to verify that that was in fact the case… in other words, the legal team’s idea of due diligence seems to have been accepting assurances that the editorial team did their own due diligence. That would square with the hypothesis that Erdely enjoyed a great deal of trust at Rolling Stone.
5/13/2015 8:35 am
IO - it’s not the legal team’s job to fact-check the story themselves. They’re there to provide legal counsel to their client, not be back-up fact-checkers. There’s only so much they can do if their client is lying to them.
5/13/2015 8:41 am
^^ In other words, their job is to provide sound legal counsel. It is NOT their job to ensure their client is following their advice. That’s up to the client.
5/13/2015 8:57 am
The Enemy —
Agreed, except that RS famously used in-house legal advice because Wenner long ago tired of paying for outside counsel, meaning that for all intents and purposes, the client and the law firm were one and the same in this case. It should be noted that their existing legal chief was in the process of leaving at the time all of this was taking place, which may have had some effect on all of this. In any case, if the legal advice from inside was not to publish, and they were over-ridden in such a problematic case, it begs the question of why RS used lawyers at all.
5/13/2015 9:11 am
IO - Whether their legal team was “in-house” or not makes no difference — they are still only responsible for providing sound legal counsel and are not responsible for ensuring their client follows it. The counsel they provide is only as good as the information their client is giving them. (That, incidentally, is why attorney-client privilege is such an important part of our legal system.)
Since they are lawyers and not journalists, I doubt they are given final say over whether an article is published. Their role is likely more along the lines of reminding the writers and editors, “these are the steps you need to follow to avoid a libel suit, did you follow them?” Once they do that, their job is done and it is up to the writers and editors to answer honestly for themselves “yes” or “no” and make the decision proceed with publication or not.
If for some reason the legal team advised RS to spike the story and the published it anyway, it certainly isn’t the first nor will it be the last time a client ignored the advice of their counsel at their own peril.
5/13/2015 9:15 am
If Ms. Eramo prevail and wins what she is asking for, does RS have enough insurance and internal resources to cover the award without being bankrupted? Even if they do, does it make sense for any of the other parties considering legal action to continue waiting? It seems unlikely that RS could withstand multiple awards of this magnitude, meaning that the possibility exists that some damaged parties might be left with no one left to pay.
5/13/2015 9:31 am
[…] It seems to me that Eramo has made a strong case for some kind of compensation. Once again, I concur with Richard Bradley: […]
5/13/2015 10:32 am
The Enemy —
Full disclosure: I once published a (much, much smaller) magazine and had an outside law firm review something that our in-house lawyer said we were on dangerous ground with, but which I badly wanted to publish. (The story had the same controversial allure to me and my partners as the UVA story obviously had to RS.) You will know how much I wanted to publish the story when the outside counsel said we were probably okay and I paid for a third opinion to break the tie. (It ended up two to one in favor of spiking the story, which we did.)
This may come down to an honest difference of opinion, but I have a different point of view than you do. I think that the legal guys are being paid to protect the magazine — providing sound legal advice is how they do it — and they have an incomplete picture if they don’t verify everything. They don’t have to double-check everything, but anything significantly contentious needs to be verified. (It’s somewhat analogous to accountants signing off on some assets on a financial statement without actually verifying that the assets exist or that they are valued properly. (As SOP, we made our legal guy actually see the backup material for things that were considered ‘iffy,’ and if there wasn’t any, for whatever reason, the lack of it either had to be justified to the lawyer’s satisfaction or the story was put on ice until it could be produced. Perhaps we were just paranoid, but a large part of our net worth was potentially at stake…)
So we have at least three possible scenarios with RS/UVA:
1) If the lawyers either weren’t required to double-check for things that were clearly seriously problematic or were sold a bill of goods by the editorial staff, that’s a problem with process;
2) If the lawyers knew about the lack of fact-checking and other problems at RS and didn’t have a problem with it, that would seem to be sheer and utter incompetence;
3) If the lawyers were against publishing and were over-ruled by Wenner, it makes you wonder how someone that dumb could build such a successful business. (In the interest of completeness, I’ll note that the lawyers could well have disagreed and only responded to Eramo the way that they did because they were told to do so, and that Wenner might have delegated the ability to make the publishing decision to Dana, neither of which negates my analysis.)
5/13/2015 10:44 am
Dean Eramo is simply the updated 2014 version of (uncaring and devious) Dean Robert Canevari in the 1984-2014 Phi Kappa Psi smear campaign. Eramo’s counsel should look into this IN DEPTH! Jackie harbored no malice against UVa administrators. Who did?
5/13/2015 12:01 pm
I pray rolling bone is destroyed and that filthy cabal is left ruined and penniless.
5/13/2015 1:11 pm
Mrs HM says
If anyone deserves blanket blame for the frightening injustices exacted against the accused on campuses today, it probably isn’t university administrators as a class but Assistant Secretary Rosslyn Ali, her wacked out colleagues at the Office for Civil Rights plus their bosses at the Dept of Education and the rest of the Executive Branch.
Obviously those who developed the policy deserve criticism, but there’s every reason to believe this policy was developed in concert with the university administrators we’re to believe bear no responsibility. First this is simply how politics works. Rules aren’t created in a vacuum, they are reactions to people lobbying. Second we can see this lobbying in action with Emily Renda’s involvement in the presidential commission on campus rape. It’s in the background throughout this story with Erdely being referred through the rape activist network to Jackie.
And we see the blanket pulled back in other cases like Duke Dean Sue Wasiolek’s statement that in heterosexual cases where both parties are drunk only the male is responsible. [no link as they inhibit posting, but KC Johnson has a good article on Minding the Campus]. While Eramo was certainly defamed that doesn’t mean she or the administrator class generally have not acted inappropriately in this or other cases. Many cases of abuse occurred before the Dear Colleague letter, and there are many documented instances of abuse by administrators which cannot be understood as required by existing rules.
5/13/2015 1:11 pm
I look forward to seeing Eramo educate the public on how professionals do this incredibly difficult job, and shutting up the haters.
I think I’ve seen a word for word edition of this excusing cops who kill people with willful disregard. It’s about as convincing.
5/13/2015 1:15 pm
If Rolling Stone ignored their legal counsel their insurance won’t pay on lawsuits. It is often part of the policy. Then Wenner is really screwed.
5/13/2015 1:48 pm
IO: In the scenario where you decided to spike the story, it was still ultimately your decision and not your lawyers’. They couldn’t make you spike it; they could only give you a legal opinion based on the fact pattern presented to them. What the client does with that opinion is still up to the client.
Where your “accountant” analogy fails is that tracking and verifying their client’s assets is the very definition of being an accountant. If the client is hiding assets from the accountant, there’s an excellent chance that something illegal is going on. By contrast, it is not a lawyer’s job to verify that his client is following his advice. While it was a simplification to say their job in this case was to say “here’s the standard to follow to avoid being sued, now have a nice day” — for instance, they can be asked for an opinion of “we did this, this and this to verify, are we in the clear?” — it sounds like you’re faulting them for not getting involved in the editorial process. That’s not their job, that’s the editors’ jobs. Someone who charges you $200/hr shouldn’t be the one meticulously combing through a story when you can pay an editor roughly 1/4th that much to do it.
As to your scenarios… In scenario #1, there may have been a breakdown in process, but the legal team may bear little to no responsibility in that breakdown. Scenario #3 is possible; it could be that the editors took a calculated risk against the advice of counsel and lost. Scenario #2 isn’t merely incompetence, but an ethics violation that could lead to professional sanction up to and including disbarment. Knowingly giving your client bad legal advice is a fast track to unemployment.
5/13/2015 2:51 pm
The Enemy —
Thanks for your very civil replies. I think to the degree that we may appear to have a disagreement, it is due in part to my not being clear enough.
I agree with you 100% that the lawyers shouldn’t be doing the actual fact-checking, but I think that to try and determine the actual legal foundation that the article rests on they have to try and assess how much fact-checking and was done and the quality of it. Even though we might not necessarily think of it in this manner, it should be like deposing someone, or cross-examining them (nicely!).
For example, I think it’s the lawyer’s responsibility to ask questions such as ‘Did you do this?’ If the answer is ‘yes,’ there should be appropriate follow up questions, and if the answer is ‘no,’ the obvious follow up is ‘Why not?’ How else is the the lawyer supposed to give the best advice possible, and merely giving generalized advice as to what should be done strikes me as an inferior approach.
Saying that (A) the RS article is problematic without knowing the behind the scenes shenanigans that took place (or having been lied to about them) and (B) being able to say that the article is extremely problematic because of ‘X,’ ‘Y,’ and ‘Z’ are two very different things in terms of the amount of useful information they offer.
Obviously a client who doesn’t want to know because they have lawyers in scenario ‘A’ immediately above is just as much an idiot as one who chooses to disregard the advice the advice give by lawyers in ‘B’ above. We have no way of knowing at this point what the actual situation was at RS.
To go back to my situation, yes I made the decision, but we did have a policy in place where we consciously placed a legal hurdle in the path of publication that was more what may be the norm — get the lawyer to sign off (perhaps by fixing the deficiencies), drop the article (not likely because that would raise other red flags in our organization), or appeal over the lawyer’s head (again not likely because that would cause me to ask some very difficult questions).
I realize that your mileage may vary, but I continue to believe that my approach is the correct one… whether or not RS loses any legal suits, it’s fair to say that they would have saved themselves a lot of grief if they had done some of the basics instead of behaving like sloppy half-doers (although that’s probably too charitable a description of them given their seemingly mendacious behavior).
Again, I appreciate you taking the time to respond, and the very civil manner in which you did so.
5/13/2015 3:34 pm
This may explain a few things…
Per a report in the NY Observer this past December (excerpted for brevity):
“As Rolling Stone‘s blockbuster campus rape story faces intensifying scrutiny, one question that has repeatedly been raised in the journalism community is ‘how did this get through legal?’
The Observer has exclusively learned that upheaval within Wenner Media’s legal department may have contributed to an environment in which a story sure to generate controversy did not face the magazine’s usual rigorous level of review.
In Spring of 2006, Rolling Stone publisher Jann S. Wenner decided to hire the company’s first in-house attorney, Dana Rosen, then 40.
According to Timothy Welsh, an executive at Wenner Media, the company had tired of paying outside counsel for pre-publication review of its often-controversial stories.
As general counsel at Wenner, Ms. Rosen was soon overseeing not only all story review, but the various other legal matters any publisher will encounter.
For eight years, Ms. Rosen seems to have gotten along swimmingly, citing the defeat of Britney Spears in the pop star’s defamation claim against US Weekly as a particularly satisfying win and sending around a funny memo about the need for employees to maintain their cool amid the excitement of filming of the MTV reality show I’m From Rolling Stone.
And then something curious happened. After the UVA story was published on November 19 but before things started to unravel in early December, Ms. Rosen, who had once professed to having ‘had nothing but good experiences with [Jann],’ suddenly left the company. She took a job as general counsel at ALM, the respected publisher of legal trade properties including Corporate Counsel, The National Law Journal and The New York Law Journal. A fine collection of titles, to be sure, but one would imagine there’s far less chance that Bob Dylan saunters through the offices of The American Lawyer.
In a brief conversation with the Observer, Ms. Rosen could not recall exactly when she tendered her resignation.
‘Really, the dates are irrelevant. My resignation had nothing to do with that story. I just had a great opportunity that came up at ALM, and I chose to take it. But it really unequivocally had nothing to do with that story.’
Asked if she participated with the reviewing of the UVA story, Ms. Rosen, replied, ‘I’m not going to comment on the process. That’s really all I want to say. Again, it really—unequivocally—had nothing to do with that story. Without a doubt.’
According to Ms. Rosen’s close friend, documentary filmmaker Pamela French, Ms. Rosen started at ALM this past Monday, December 8, and ‘had given her month’s notice right before the story hit.’ That would put her date of resignation somewhere around Friday, November 7. The UVA story was certainly already going through legal channels by that point, but it’s unclear what degree of fact-checking and legal review had been completed.”
5/13/2015 3:46 pm
I highly recommend reading the Complaint if you haven’t. It is well written and compelling. (Richard Bradley gets a great shout-out.) One thing that struck me: the Complaint provides a timeline of SRE tweets, media appearances and RS press releases that continued to attack Eramo AFTER the date that SRE now claims she first had doubts about Jackie’s veracity, and AFTER other media outlets had credibly demolished the story. The Complaint provides a compelling anticipatory rebuttal to any claim that SRE / RS might make that they were merely negligent in believing and publishing Jackie’s story. Whatever negligence they may claim morphed into malice because they continued to make patently untrue and outrageous statements about Eramo/ UVA’s callousness, even after they knew the gig was up. They did this in order to try to deflect attention away from the demonstrably false rape story. It is a strong complaint, and makes me miss private practice.
5/14/2015 7:00 am
Can someone explain what SE stands for?
5/14/2015 7:00 am
Can someone explain what SE stands for?
5/14/2015 7:16 am
A heads up — Eugene Volokh has a first look analysis of the case and Eramo’s chances over at the Volokh Conspiracy on the WaPo site.
In brief, he says it isn’t a sure thing by any stretch. This is at odds with common sense, in my opinion. I read the complaint and it seems like a slam dunk. As LadyLawHoo says just above, the fact that RS stuck to their guns even after it became obvious the story was fatally flawed points to malice. This is especially true of their official statement, in which they reiterate their main thesis about the UVA “administration”. Eugene says that this and some of the other statements don’t specifically identify Eramo, and as such may not be legally defamatory.
5/14/2015 10:16 am
A question for people with education law knowledge:
Eramo was not able to discuss the details of Jackie’s allegations with Erdely because of student confidentiality (FERPA?). But this lawsuit completely blows the cover off. the sordid details of Jackie’s false complaints, counseling and assistance from Eramo are excruciatingly laid out in her complaint.
So what changed that allows Eramo to now discuss the details? Is it the fact that Jackie is only partially named? Or did Jackie somehow waive confidentiality by talking to the reporter? Or is there an exception in FERPA for court pleadings?
5/14/2015 10:50 am
Austin-
I have no education law knowledge…clueless about FERPA.
However, it may be worth emphasizing that much of the info about Jackie’s false complaints, counseling and assistance from Eramo, etc., were prominently included in the report by the Charlottesville PD and later in the Columbia inquiry write-up.
Eramo’s complaint is therefore based substantially on previously published (or broadcast) accounts. The nature of what exactly Jackie told Eramo about a specific sexual assault is still not revealed; only that it differed from the sensational RS reporting.
5/14/2015 1:08 pm
Austin- I doubt there is a FERPA exception for court pleadings absent a court order.I have come to the conclusion that the Complaint only provides information that was gathered / available from other sources (such as the police report). Although the complaint discusses communications between her and Jackie, those communications largely appear in the police report, the article itself, Jackie’s letter to the editor. and other sources, so it is likely that Eramo didn’t use anything from the FERPA protected file on Jackie.
5/14/2015 1:29 pm
LadyLawHoo —
You bring up an interesting point — As a general matter, can a third party obtain a court order for a FERPA protected file or is the protection absolute? Does the fact that in this particular case Eramo is presumably part of that file have any bearing on her ability to obtain it? And does Jackie have any say over it?
5/14/2015 1:45 pm
@ The Enemy 5/13/2015 1:48 pm:
Where are you finding media-law lawyers who only charge $200/hour? Can I get a referral?
5/14/2015 9:21 pm
If eramo thinks her reputation took a hit, imagine if she had been falsley accused of rape the way so many men are
5/15/2015 12:38 am
Erderly’s law team has her slowly deleting all social media posts. It’s almost imperceptible.
5/15/2015 8:36 am
Anyone care to wager what the next move will be? Here are some options (check one or more):
1. Defense bumps this case into federal court.
2. Defense asks for change of venue due (ironically) to bad publicity.
3. Quick apology and 6 figure settlement.
4. Quick 7 figure settlement, no apology.
5. Erdely files bankruptcy.
6. RS and Erdely launch vigorous defense in the name of free speech.
7. Phi Psi files “me too” lawsuit.
8. Other:_____________
5/15/2015 10:17 am
@ Austin
I’d hope that Jackie will face criminal charges. Not that I care to ruin her life, but a quick plea deal with no time or probation serves the public to the extent that (1) I cannot believe she should be trusted in numerous sensitive positions and (2) a false statement conviction can be used to impeach any testimony about future allegations of rape.
5/15/2015 12:48 pm
From LadyLawHoo: “The Complaint provides a compelling anticipatory rebuttal to any claim that SRE / RS might make that they were merely negligent in believing and publishing Jackie’s story. Whatever negligence they may claim morphed into malice”
That’s sort of the main thing here, isn’t it?
I believe it was a malicious intent to fabricate a story of Campus Rape Culture (whether through truths, truisms, exaggerations, or outright lies) by Sabrina Rubin Erdely from the get go that allowed her to give herself leeway to feign negligence when things fell apart.
Watching this unfold from original SRE self-aggrandizing publicity tour on eve of story publication to refusal to own up to her actions (e.g. “I wish somebody had pushed me harder.”) and to the final non-apology, it is clear that SRE is not just a terrible journalist but a bit of a psychopath who feigned emotional involvement as a guise for her desire to do real harm.
5/15/2015 4:28 pm
Off-topic, but more evidence that Eric Wemple is a straight-shooter and that he isrespectful of web-only news sites and ones like this:
>> Hear this, knee-jerk detractors of modern web journalism: Absent a comment from ABC News, Continetti & Co. decided to let the matter sit overnight. They just waited.
That’s part of his take on ABC shafting the Washington Free Beacon in favor of Politico in the George Stephanopoulos affair.
Article title: Dear ABC News PR: Tell us you didn’t shaft the Washington Free Beacon
5/15/2015 8:10 pm
@Austin: Interesting list. I’m gonna go with #4 and say quick settlement in the low 7 figures, no apology. I think RS is prepared to pay out. I hope the frat goes through with its own suit. As for Jackie facing criminal charges…that appears highly unlikely. It seems that false rape accusers never face any consequences, unfair though that may be. We can only hope that at some point Jackie is compelled to publicly respond/explain/testify perhaps in court if any libel cases make it to trial.
5/15/2015 9:15 pm
Worst piece of journalism in years - true! It was that bad.
5/16/2015 2:54 am
I’d hope that Jackie will face criminal charges . . .
What would she be charged with?
5/16/2015 7:54 am
@the enemy
She could be charged with false statement/obstruction of justice oriented crime to the extent she might have lied at some point in the police investigation over the rape or the bottle throwing incident.
5/16/2015 8:04 am
We can only hope that at some point Jackie is compelled to publicly respond/explain/testify perhaps in court if any libel cases make it to trial.
If she is as flaky in person as she is in her quotes and fabulist “story”, this may hang Rolling Stone for claiming she is so believable. She has said over and over that she just wanted to tell her story. It didn’t matter if it was impossible, kept growing and morphing, and obviously attention seeking and a way to squirm out of flunking out, Erdely believed her by golly. No once else did but Erdely did and Rolling Stone saw dollar signs and clicks. Maybe even a Pulitzer. They settle because this girl can’t appear in court.
5/16/2015 9:06 am
“Erdely believed her….”
How do we know this? Because Erdely claimed she did (but before she claimed she didn’t)? What a crock.
A more plausible explanation: Erdely knew full well that Jackie’s story was full of holes, but was confident that her “rape culture” agenda/ narrative could withstand doubts and criticism. She also probably assumed that Jackie would keep quiet. SRE must have had a sinking feeling when she learned that Jackie (and friends) had been interviewed by the Washington Post….
5/16/2015 10:07 pm
It’s interesting to speculate on the future outcome and details of this particular lawsuit, but really the whole “rape culture” hysteria (and other current hysterias) makes me believe we are experiencing a modern crisis in meaning and purpose in people’s lives, especially in the lives of particularly privileged, ambitious people. There seems to be a void in these people’s lives that is no longer filled by religion, or self sacrifice, or purposeful direction, but by a dangerous, arbitrary, irrational attachment to some invented view of life that at least temporarily fills the vital void.
It is fascinating to see the tenacity with which these hysterias are supported and fought for, despite crushing evidence indicating zealous, aggressive activism is unwarranted, and disturbing how easily we, as people, will discard due process, fairness, tolerance, and empathy if these things stand in our way. It is almost as if we can’t live without some meaning or purpose, no matter how good our lives are otherwise.
As people’s lives become easier and easier, and the bar is set lower regarding behavior and social graces, and as religious dogma no longer gives us direction and meaning, it seems that many are finding they can attach religious zealotry to almost anything, and are happy to do so if it gives a life meaning. We feel justified engaging in narrow minded bigotry, hatred, torture, violence, and forms of shame and humiliation, even if we stand in opposition to those things ideologically.
In the end, we are not who we claim to be, and there seems to be something important to understand in all this, but I’m not quite sure what it is.
5/17/2015 9:16 am
CR —
You see this dishonesty manifested in all areas of modern life. The current debate regarding gay marriage is a prime example.
People whose religious faith dictates that gay marriage is immoral (my characterization — and note that I’m not saying that I agree with their view), and who own businesses are being called discriminatory and are being run out of business for refusing to participate in a religious ceremony that they fundamentally disagree with, even though they are willing to serve gays in any other context. Not only is this characterization blatantly dishonest, it’s twisting the law against itself. We are supposed to have freedom from government imposed religion in this country, and having the government dictate what constitutes appropriate religious beliefs runs contrary to that. Because civil marriage came after and flowed out of religious marriage — that is to say marriage was invented as a religious concept — you cannot in good faith (no pun intended) say that forcing someone to participate in a civil (non-religious) marriage doesn’t violate someone’s religious beliefs.
It’s particularly troubling because governments at root don’t like religion… they don’t want any other institution or party having a voice in what is deemed moral or immoral. As examples of proof, we have only to look at two of the most evil regimes in history — the Nazi war against Jews, gays, gypsies, etc, and communist Stalin government’s pogroms.
If you look back in history, both the Roman and British empires started falling apart when they became so liberal that ‘anything goes,’ and you have to wonder if the US is at that point in its history. Take Bradley Manning — here we have someone who betrayed our country and should have been put up against a wall and shot… instead we’re told that we need to excuse him because he wanted to be a girl, and that furthermore, if he thinks he is a girl, we need to treat him as such.
5/17/2015 10:35 am
Ed Helms of The Office and the Hangover fame (dont laugh! Or do! Sometimes it takes a comedic actor to frame the real story ) nailed it for UVa graduation commencement speech the other day. Youtube it. He went after Rolling Stone and raised the bar on the harm of everyday labels, stereotyping and b.s., WELL DONE and BRAVO Ed Helms!
5/17/2015 10:40 am
And yeah I think jackie ought to fess up and put forth everything, all the motives and reasons and etc. Truth sets ya free kid and if luck is on your side your life is ultimately better for it. At some point hope the circles wagon like that, the attorney and parents and whatever friends remaining encourage Jackie to go for it, come clean and find some freedom in this by shoring up the reputations of those hurt, friends survivors groups the frats etc. She could really benefit from this, show some courage and restore some of the integrity that has been so diluted as to be imperceptible, yet somehow must still be there just waiting for a chance to set the record straight to help all the people and causes she cares about.
5/18/2015 2:08 pm
JMil,
Helms was quite funny as one would expect, but what aside from his general admonition to be more thoughtful was so splendid, challenging or insightful? His vague celebration of UVA for taking the lead against sexual violence on campus? He mentioned the frats and the excesses of social justice jihads as often as did Erdely in her apology.
What does it mean to “raise the bar on… b.s.” and how did he do it?
5/18/2015 2:13 pm
An off-topic heads up here. Sorry if it has been posted before.
Paul (of mattress girl fame or infamy) has sued Columbia. This was a number of weeks ago. I just read the filing today. Some new things in there.
1) A text conversation where Emma says to him “f*** me in the butt”. (Remember, anal rape is what she alleged and she said she never discussed anal sex with him before.)
2) She messaged Paul that she had tested positive for an STD after having had sex at a party “with both John Doe and his best friend Joe.”
3) Emma further communicated to Paul stories and allegations of sexual abuse that she had experienced from other sexual partners.
There is a Daily Caller article that discusses it and has a link to the filing.
5/19/2015 8:29 pm
Mattress Girl made the top stories section on the Google news page for carrying her mattress during the graduation ceremonies. Sigh…
5/19/2015 9:00 pm
For the attorneys/legal experts that read this blog, I would love to know whether Paul Nungesser’s case against Columbia is strengthened by Emma Sulkowicz (aka, “mattress girl”) being permitted to carry her mattress at Columbia’s honor graduation today? My understanding is that Columbia sent a campus-wide email earlier warning that “large objects” were prohibited from all graduation ceremonies, so I’m curious how/why Sulkowicz was able to get away with this
5/19/2015 9:45 pm
Anyone else notice that the facebook messages revealed in the Daily Beast Article have been edited out of the “carry that weight” wikipedia entry, and that the page has been locked down?
Wikipedia standards on feminist related topics are absolutely abysmal. I haven’t it this bad since the very first days of wikipedia.
7/2/2024 8:36 pm
T. Rees Shapiro & more re: Rolling Stone. See 7/2/2024 “Our Worst Nightmare”, regarding Erderly’s email to Rolling Stone saying the magazine needed to submit a retraction. Not sure if you’ve followed the legal case. Thanks.