Even The Wolf likely can't clean up Harvey Weinstein's pending troubles

I will confess that I had not heard of babe.net before this story came out. I don't know anything about them.

I will say that if this story was written by a novice reporter, and didn't receive editorial guidance from someone with experience, and then went out into the world and got this kind of play... That's a fairly terrifying prospect to me.

EDIT: It should also be terrifying for the novice reporters out there. Because if you blow a story like this one—look at what's happened to Erderly, who was far from a novice—you are fucking cooked.

 

That's just your age-ism speaking. Don't you realize how fogey-ish that makes you sound?

 

It was better reported than the Louis C.K. piece. The reporters of the Louis C.K. piece did not ask the lede accusers whether they had consented. They said they "laughed" when he asked. Whoever interviewed them did not ask whether they consented, though. That's unacceptable. The Babe.net reporter pressed for and got every gory detail. Are those details reliable? I don't know. Like you said, we are limited by the recall of an eyewitness, although I'm not sure who else she was supposed to talk to. There were two people in the room.

I think she showed really good instincts. Better instincts than the NYT reporters, as pertains to this particular aspect of reporting the story.

 

This is one thing that the young don't really seem interested in (and it's not new ... I certainly would have been just like this in my early 20s). A lot of time it's in the newbies' best interest to keep them doing the safe, get-your-feet-wet stuff ...

 

Maybe this is just Long Con Dick making a return visit?

 

For the record, I wouldn't have run either this story or the Louis C.K. story, as written.

 

Do we know this (that they didn't ask)?

 

No, but it would be a weird detail not to include, had they done so. It was a really awkwardly reported story.

 

Based on the URL, I assumed it was a porn site not a site doing reporting on skeezy behavior by male celebrities.

 

Long Con Dick? A new entrant in the guard game show?

 

I posted the link last night -- Taking the Tab: news site founder on how he got $4m from Rupert Murdoch -- but here are bits ...

* * *

Murdoch’s News Corp is the main investor behind $6m (£4.6m) of new funding raised by Tab Media. In return for its investment it has taken a minority stake in the venture, which runs the Tab and sister website babe – and Emma Tucker, the deputy editor of the Times, will sit on its board of directors.

The Tab was founded in 2009 in Cambridge and now has 80 local editions targeted at universities in the US and UK. Its content is mixture of humour and original news stories.

< snip >

Tab Media employs 42 people at offices in London and New York and the average age of its editorial staff is just 23. Rivlin said its content – including videos on social media – is seen by 50 million people a month.

The money from the investment will be used to fund more original reporting and training for young journalists, including through events with well-known journalists.

Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of News UK, said: “The Tab and babe have the youngest editorial staff we’ve ever seen, and they have built an incredible connection with the new generation of young people in the US and UK.

 

Just my $0.02, but it seems that comparing the reporting of the Louis CK story and this story is a fool's errand ... we have this story and we have that story, and that's about it.