UVA and the alleged frat rape - Rolling Stone backpedals

Re: Rolling Stone on rape at UVA

Because I can't imagine Rolling Stone did any kind of fact-checking on them because they're reader comments.

If they did, well, I don't have the highest faith in Rolling Stone's fact-checking procedures and personnel at the moment.

That could all change if the magazine addresses it better and more directly than they have so far.

 

Re: Rolling Stone on rape at UVA

Some of the facts being embellished or outright wrong does not necessarily prove she was not victimized.

 

Re: Rolling Stone on rape at UVA

No, it doesn't. And if I were the University of Virginia or the Charlottesville PD, I would feel compelled to investigate it thoroughly. However, as a layman reading it, feeling that every last word feels embellished, I don't understand why the correct and proper thing to do was to give it credence. The evidence available to me was the Rolling Stone piece. I read it. I thought it was bullshit. End of story.

 

Re: Rolling Stone on rape at UVA

I think we're drawing different conclusions from the same facts. My point is just that they aren't any less likely to be true even if this article is false. They're (possibly) less likely to be true because they're just one person's anonymous word on the Internet.

 

Re: Rolling Stone on rape at UVA

I hear ya. Like I said, where there's smoke, there's probably fire. Enough people have come forward with the same stories that it's clear UVA has a rape problem.

Whether those people's stories override one apparently false or embellished one remains to be seen. In a normal world, they probably would. Here and now? I'm not sure.

 

Re: Rolling Stone on rape at UVA

Sabrina appears to be from the Caleb Hannan School Of Crisis Tweeting.

 

Re: Rolling Stone on rape at UVA

I'm really curious about the friends POV here, because the story portrays them as monsters and sadists, almost on par with the frat guys. One friend saying some shit about status and not wanting to ruin her rep? Yeah, I could see that. There is a d-bag in every friend group. THREE? And ALL advise her against going to the cops AND the hospital? What? It just too conveniently plays into the theory that Erdely seems to have set out to "prove": That Virginia has a terrible rape culture, and EVERYONE is forgiving of it. To the extend that even friends are turned into evil movie characters.

Does UVA have a sexual assault problem? Yes, I bet it does. Did administrators not do enough to investigate Jackie's claims? Yes, I bet that's true too. But again, what's ultimately going to happen here is all the invented dialog (not just from the frat guys but from the henchmen friends, twisting their mustaches) is going to sabotage an otherwise important issue.

I think it's pretty crummy for journalists to say "well, some of this may be embellished, but let's not get sidetracked here. Rape is a real problem, so ultimately, the story is important."

 

Re: Rolling Stone on rape at UVA

There is a Facebook post out there somewhere in response to something with this story from someone officially connected to UVA that indicated that the friends are pretty pissed about that characteriziation. Supposedly, if I recall, they said they tried to tell her to go to the hospital after she said she was raped, and she refused. I know that's vague. I'll try to find it.

 

Re: Rolling Stone on rape at UVA

I'm pretty sure this is what you're referencing...

This is what Claire Kaplin, a faculty member at the Women’s Center whose title is Program Director of Gender Violence and Social Change, had to say on a Facebook thread:

I’ve learned from some of the students involved or interviewed that the reporter actually made some of that up. The scene about whether or not to go to the hospital never happened, and that when they wanted to take her to the police, she didn’t want to go. That jibes with what I heard from administrators.

Then, in a second post, responding to another person in the thread, she wrote:

Cora what I understand is that she [Jackie, the alleged victim] had much more support than the reporter stated. That some of the comments by friends were not said at all (the whole conversation telling her not to report). Both survivors were devastated when she called them to clear quotes. They learned that their “off the record” comments were not off the record. Also she really got the students riled up when she characterized them as passive, conservative, and not “radical” enough. You and I both recall some pretty creative protests from years past.

 

Re: Rolling Stone on rape at UVA

That's the one.

 

Re: Rolling Stone on rape at UVA

That would appear to lend credence to the idea that a rape occurred. A date rape? A gang rape? A frat rape? That's unclear.

But the working idea would be then that the event happened even if the article is B.S.

 

Re: Rolling Stone on rape at UVA

How so? Because she lied to other people about it, too?