UVA and the alleged frat rape - Rolling Stone backpedals

Nothin' from nothin' leaves nothin'.

 

'Sote's lyric was Dylan-esque
Cran's was a German death-metal band with a name like 'Viking Fist' that played one half-full show at Whiskey A Go Go before disbanding over "creative differences"

 

Charlottesville PD detailed its own investigation today. No corroboration of any of the details. Jackie was inconsistent between her accounts, and her accounts weren't corroborated by friends or other records in most respects. She did not participate in the investigation, which remains open but inactive.

 

CNN says the Columbia piece on the RS story will be out April.

That, I think, will be some interesting reading.

 

Releasing it online tonight at 8 PM.
CNN reporting no disciplinary action against RS editors and fact checkers.

 

As none were apparently involved in this story, would be rather hard to scare up someone to discipline.

 

Sabrina Erdely will continue to write for Rilling Stone.

Webber said RS was taken in by an "expert fabulist."

 

Ok.. I guess.
She's obviously discredited as writer.
I suspect - as others noted previously - a lot of her previous work merits scrutiny.

 

Just finished the report. No big surprises; just a general journalistic failure. Rape is a difficult subject on which to report, and this fiasco makes it even more so.

I did note that the report pointed out that RS, unlike most newspapers and broadcast outlets, was sufficiently staffed. None of the failures can be blamed on not having enough people available to do the work.

 

Still can't believe Erdley said that shit about "I wish someone had pushed me harder." I mean, ok, yes, that's true on some level. Investigative work requires really great editors to be safe guards and to make sure the reporter checks every box. But to push a lot of the blame on what happened on Woods and Dana, from her, strikes me as being so tone deaf. The really unspoken part of the whole piece was how badly she wanted this story — this particular rape story — to be published because she knew the awful details would explode and made her a media star. You could see from the way she was peacocking around social media after it ran. "Look! The Washington Post wrote a story about me!" That's why I think it's so distasteful to put this on Woods and Dana (even though they deserve a lot of the blame). Ultimately, the accuracy of every story comes down to the writer. They're the only one who can truly know all the material. She's not some kid who pitched this story to RS and needed every safety net. She's a seasoned reporter who has been a finalist for National Magazine awards multiple times. The fact that she's going to continue to write for RS is stunning, but if I were Woods and Dana, I'd be livid she was like "I sure wish you'd made me work harder. This whole thing could have been avoided if you'd just told me I needed to do more reporting."

 

If she's going to keep writing for them, I guess I just don't know what the term "firable offense" means.

I know, I know. She's a freelancer. But still.

 

Only a freelancer in the sense RS doesn't want to pay her benefits. When someone writes pretty much exclusively for you, and they're paid around $200,000 doing it and not by the story but on contract, they're a fricken staffer.