UVA and the alleged frat rape - Rolling Stone backpedals

OK.

So, let's draw up sides.

We have shottie and Ragu on team, "I'm not going to ring my hands over this".

And DD, PW2, and da man on team, "Righteously justified".

Declare your allegiance!

 

It's "wring." (Everyone needs fact-checking.)

But carry on.

And understand, YF, I'm not necessarily on the side of NOT wringing my hands over this. I'm supremely disappointed about this. I'm disappointed that this has detracted from the issue itself. I'm disappointed that this has become a "gotcha" moment. There's a difference.

 

I think that was only like a 24-48 hour period leading into the Bowl game, where he figured it was better off than the hysteria that would engulf him if he fessed up.

 

How do we know who's "believable"?

Prior to the internet, and social media, it was much more difficult for criticism to coalesce around a story like this.

Many of the stories that were debunked originated from bloggers, and others who would have never had a voice previously.

The Dan Rather story about George W. Bush going AWOL from his Guard unit was shot down minutes after it aired by a participant on the FreeRepublic.com forum.

Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs was the first to call bullshit on Adnan Hajj's manipulated photos that Reuters was publishing.

In prior days, would anyone have questioned the integrity, truthfulness, or accuracy of CBS News or Reuters.

Even Janet Cooke's fabricated story didn't fall apart until after it was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing, and received additional scrutiny as a result (and some people who were previously suspicious -- and jealous -- came forward).

 

And you can understand how old-school journalists struggle with that fact, which is absolutely correct. But I am understanding it and hopefully growing enough to accept it.

No, my biggest problems here are twofold. One, you do seem to indict anyone involved with journalism by the misactions of a few. And then there are those who think what has transpired here is some sort of vindication for FRATS in general. And the jury is most definitely still out on them.

 

Are any journalists skipping around with a hard on, singing celebratory songs out loud to themselves in this GOTCHA!!! moment? I mean, it's the industry policing itself. That's a good thing, I thought. Doesn't sound like any of these journalists are happy about this entire thing. Mainly because it makes their industry look terrible.

 

You HAVE read all 14 pages here, right? The breathlessness with which each new revelation is presented?

 

There is way more attention on the issue itself than there was two or three weeks ago, including a sober assessment about the true extent of the issue itself.

 

what do you mean?

 

Did you see the lengthy Slate article? I know it would have been easy to miss among all these developments. But they did an amazing story that really dug into the issue. It's hard to believe the writer pulled it together as quickly as she did.

What we're going to come out of this with is more people aware of "the issue," and also more people accurately apprised of its scope.

 

That's how you interpret it.

And, it's what makes you reflexively defend shit, because you think every criticism is someone dancing on a grave. It's not.

In fact, people reiterate their points in stronger terms specifically because folks like you downgrade every problem, so as not to give a "victory" to some perceived "other side".