UVA and the alleged frat rape - Rolling Stone backpedals

I actually did not as of yesterday believe something happened at Phi Psi. Early on, I did -- as most people did. Take another victory lap if you aren't too tired, but I'm not really one of your main combatants in this fight.

 

No, I get it. You apologize to Phi Psi yesterday morning, you're still open to the 1 percent chance that she was raped at that house. Even at 1 percent, that's a tough play to go all-in on at that point.

 

Didn't mean to accuse you of feeling this way.

But you do appear to be cynical about the whole discussion of the story which surprises me.

 

While you may not believe they deserve any patience, I legitimately think the future of Rolling Stone might be at stake here. I've heard through the grapevine the magazine isn't exactly kicking ass, financially. So figuring out how big this problem is may have enormous consequences. What if it turns out Erdley fabricated parts of that story about the alter boy who was raped? Or the military rape story? We're talking about lawsuits that could bankrupt the company. Doing anything at this point because people on the Internet DEMAND ANSWERS could easily create a fatal error. Their credibility is probably already completely fucked, but there are a lot of other reporters at the magazine who I believe are livid about this mess. There is certainly some internal pressure to geit it right for the sake of the future before they start retracting everything. The full retraction will likely come. Got to figure out how big the fuck-up is first. Is it just this story? Or is it every Erdley story? Was anyone else (the fact checkers) complicit? Lot to sort through.

 

This is a really measured way to look at it.

I think a lot of us - me included - are cynics at this point about these internal investigations, which are really announcements meant to diffuse rising public heat. (Looking at you, National Football League.)

 

It's not that all fraternity members are terrible. I imagine 95 percent of fraternity members - and keep in mind that my experience was at UVA - are good dudes. I certainly had many friends in frats at UVA and stay in some degree of contact with them to this day. My brother was in a frat, and my brother-in-law was a Phi Psi.

That 5 percent, however, is bringing the rest of them down. I get that like-minded degenerates will find each other and do terrible shit, regardless of whether they have Greek letters attached to their group. But in most cases, those like-minded degenerates won't be emboldened by the power that comes from being a social elite in a system that the administration has shown zero ability (or, until this latest firestorm, desire) to rein in.

 

And this is the reason why the Phi Psi house will be decorated with some really awesome rock memorabilia in the coming years.

Once you put this out there, you can't put it back in the bottle. There will always be some who believe these kids are rapists who got away with (probably because they are rich, white, elites who used their connections to pull some strings).

And, the same thing goes for Barry, the uber Republican at Oberlin, who was smeared by Lena Dunham.

And, while RS may have more work to do in their re-reporting of the story, it should be as clear to them as it is to the rest of us: no one at Phi Psi raped Jackie.

They should come out and say that. And, if they know that, and haven't set the record straight, I hope that comes out in a lawsuit too. They have the ability to at least try to clear the name of this house, and its members, and they are not doing it.

 

I feel really bad about how much this made me laugh.

 

Forever is a long time. I don't think a week or a month is a fatal error here.

 

Look, nobody is as skeptical as I am. As I've said multiple times on this thread, Rolling Stone has stood fast on the unlikely (dare I say completely improbable) contention that Stephen Glass just so happened to have played it straight in stories he wrote for them (even though he was in the middle of one of the most deceitful runs in the history of journalism) so who knows how this will play. But there are too many watchdogs now that didn't exist when Glass pulled his bullshit. You can't just sweep it away on a story this big.

 

When I was a freshman, the sororities would come on Saturday morning to the houses after signing night and serenade the fraternities to congratulate them on their new pledge class. We were supposed to serenade them back. My friend - great student, great guy, married father of two today who posts constantly about his loving relationship with his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ on social media - picks up his guitar and wails "Rape Me" by Nirvana. The girls go wild with laughter.

Can't even imagine that happening today.

 

I understand what you are saying, and basically agree with you. (Though, PW2 is also right. This whole idea that" we can't comment because we are in the middle of a review" is a way of trying to let the story blow over too, and not add to the fire.)

But, I don't think it's the internet that DEMANDS ANSWERS.

I think the members of Phi Psi deserve a retraction, and if I were a member, I would be demanding it.

Justice delayed is justice denied. And every day that goes by without RS retracing the story casts further suspicion on Phi Psi and its members. People do, and will, believe that "something happened" in that house.