Has anyone else read the Rolling Stone piece on the UVA rape?

[+ FreshFluff]

It appears that the writer asked Jackie the right questions but she and her editors were too quick to let her off the hook as her deadline approached. The head of the fact-checking department also failed big time.

 

The magazine apologized to rape victims, to whom they have done a grave disservice. They did not apologize to the men who were investigated as a result of the story, such as the fraternity or the lifeguard who suffered through a police investigation and was cleared. While it's impossible to prove that Jackie was not assailed without knowing exactly where and with whom she at every moment, the police found no evidence that Jackie had been assaulted at the fraternity she mentioned.

 

My question: After Jackie failed to get Ryan's attention with the rape story, what motivated her to make that vague report to the school--let alone join a rape survivor group?

 

Possible answer from the summary of the Charlottesville Police's summary of their investigation:

[O]ur investigation revealed that Dean Nicole Eramo first learned from “Jackie” of an allegation of sexual assault on May 20, 2013. This disclosure came after “Jackie” was referred to the Dean because of poor grades. The disclosure was specifically that she went to a party at an unknown fraternity on Madison Lane and was sexually assaulted.

[+ quoththeraven]

Women are so often vilified as motivated by ill will in such matters that I'm extremely uncomfortable with pointing the finger. Actually, people are so unaccountable that I'm uncomfortable with it in other contexts, too, where we don't have all the facts, just assumptions, like the Germanwings crash. That's what differentiates those cases from, say, Bill Cosby, about whom accusations have been made for decades that were not listened to. Until recently, I was as guilty of that as anyone else.

 

Here's an article from the Washington Post -- the newspaper that broke the story on inconsistencies in Rolling Stone's reporting -- on how to deal with false rape allegations, noting that they are rare and often the signal of another kind of trauma or mental illness, not malicious intent:

 

http://tablet.washingtonpost.com/commentary/how-to-deal-with-false-rape-allegations/2015/04/07/3c3a679233e8ebc604185ffe5333dddb_story.html?tid=kindle-app

 

LA Times article noting that the Columbia report is careful not to blame Jackie for Rolling Stone's journalistic failures:

 

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-virgina-rape-20150406-story.html

 

As far as I'm concerned, Rolling Stone should have pulled back or found a different focal point for the story when Jackie withdrew her consent to it instead of talking her into continuing despite her misgivings. That in itself was a consent violation.

[+ FreshFluff]

I saw the CJR press conference. I agree with the authors of the Columbia report that Jackie is not responsible for RS's decision to use Jackie's story (rather than one that had already been adjudicated), the decision not to investigate "Drew's" identity, the poor fact-checking process, and the decision to publish the story.

 

However, I also believe that Jackie, an adult, is responsible for her own statements to RS and for her report to UVA. The fact that actual rape victims's accounts have been doubted in the past does not diminish that responsibility.

[+ quoththeraven]

Some evidence the author of the Rolling Stone article had an agenda to highlight the most horrific rape she could find:

 

Law student: Rolling Stone passed up 'normal rape stories' at Yale (WaPo)

[+ FreshFluff]

Some evidence the author of the Rolling Stone article had an agenda to highlight the most horrific rape she could find: Law student: Rolling Stone passed up 'normal rape stories' at Yale (WaPo)

 

The Columbia report mentioned this, too. "Erdely’s reporting led her to other, adjudicated cases of rape at the university that could have illustrated her narrative, although none was as shocking and dramatic as Jackie’s." During the press conference, the authors of the Columbia report said that they considered writing about the problems inherent in using a single extreme example to describe a larger problem. Ultimately, they decided against including that passage int the report.

 

Again, I completely agree that the story is a result of Rolling Stone's and Erdely's failures. But again, that does not absolve Jackie from responsibility for her own statements.