UVA and the alleged frat rape - Rolling Stone backpedals

They should have had Taibbi write this. He would have identified them and called them cocksuckers and motherfuckers.

 

Wonder how many editors that have run Erdely's work are going to fact-check her previous articles?

 

Sally Kohn a couple of days ago:

I guess this is what she considers an apology, as she tweeted a link to this tweet to Goldberg:

I guess i shouldn't be surprised. It's how some treated PW2's skepticism.

 

Wait, Kohn thinks that murders aren't independently corroborated? What? Who would write a story implying someone was a murderer, telling us where they work and live and that they were part of a long, annual tradition of serial murderers, without checking any of it out?

 

Gawker dude: The letter by the "frat-bro lawyer" is "bullshit":

http://gawker.com/that-uva-frat-letter-denying-rape-is-bullshit-and-heres-1667421511/all

 

It's Gawker. Everything is bullshit.

 

"Guys, there is still a chance to save this story. What if all these counter claims are a lie? Maybe Rolling Stone actually did a great job, if you think about it."

 

I suppose, considering a lot of Hollywood films are pretty far removed from factual.

 

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/12/06/us/rolling-stone-re-examines-its-account-of-virginia-rape.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=1&referrer=

When he first read the article, written by Sabrina Rubin Erdely, Dana said, “I thought ‘are you sure?’ We talked about it a lot, and between the editors here, the fact-checkers and Sabrina, we thought that the account was credible.” Rolling Stone’s lawyers had no difficulties with the piece, as long as those accused were not identified, he said.

 

Tawana Brawley, Crystal Mangum now Jackie.

 

Re: Rolling Stone on rape at UVA

JayFarrar in the LA Times:

In his recent column questioning allegations of brutal rape at a University of Virginia fraternity, Jonah Goldberg made clear -- though he didn't say explicitly -- that he has never been in a fraternity. In fact, some quick research shows that his alma mater has not had any Greek presence on its campus for decades.

So it's interesting to me, a recent college grad and alumna of a co-ed fraternity, that Goldberg feels he has such authority to discuss the veracity of Rolling Stone's widely read account of a female student who tells of her systematic and brutal gang rape by seven men at the university's Phi Kappa Psi chapter.

Goldberg raises questions about the rape survivor's account that range from offhand (how did she know there were seven if the room was pitch black?) to naive: "The nicknames she hears -- 'Armpit' and 'Blanket' -- sound bizarre, even by fraternity standards.”

Goldberg's dumbfoundedness is understandable. I thought it was pretty strange when I was given the pledge name "Sebastian" and placed on the mustache branch of the Galilean family in my fraternity. Other members of my organization had names like "Glenn Cocoa" and "Huff." I can see why someone who knows nothing about the naming ceremonies of Greek organizations would find these whimsical handles odd.

Goldberg further shows his lack of familiarity with the problem of college rape when he calls the victim's friends the "worst ... imaginable" for not immediately reporting her brutal assault. Here, Goldberg fails to appreciate the very real fear of being chastised for reporting a rape. I'm not saying that the friends were right in not reporting it, and I'm not making a judgment on whether or not the assault happened. But it's clear that Goldberg's cultural distance from modern campus life and disregard of the social consequences of reporting an assault render him inadequate to judge the veracity of a rape allegation.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-uva-fraternity-rape-rolling-stone-blowback-20141203-story.html

 

"Andy," one of the villainous friends in the story, speaks to the Post. He says that Jackie said that night she was forced to give oral sex, did not ID the fraternity, and did not appear to be injured: