Excellent. You can't just make things up for the sake of "starting a conversation". Either you report the truth or you're just a propaganda piece. I'm sure there is hundreds of real rape on campus stories out there (unfortunately). The Rolling Stone was fed with the lies they wanted to ear. They knew it was bullshit, they went ahead and publish that crap just "to start a conversation" ... hurting real rape victims at the same time.
Real world examples tend not to fit narratives perfectly.
Perhaps in many cases they involve non-students, or are off-campus, or don't sound as horrific (even if they are), or they are investigated seriously already (without help from a journalist), or the perpetrator or victim might reinforce a stereotype that the journalist doesn't want to contribute to.
It doesn't mean the stories are less bad, or that there isn't a problem, just that the journalist has nothing to gain by writing about them. And some might actually contradict the politically-correct solutions being proposed.
The ideal narrative for this sort of thing is that it be committed against some respectable person who wasn't involved in any risky behavior, and that it be perpetrated by some wealthy or privileged person who then sees no consequences. Because if that happens (and that's pretty much what the story laid forth as its narrative), then it's an issue we all need to be terrified by and indignant about. If, on the other hand, the person was drunk out of their mind and targeted while walking alone: well that's something I can avoid by not engaging in risky behavior, so I can more easily move on with my life.
There's a similar line of thinking in public vs. private schools, where some proponents of public schools want all private schools banned because, without those escape routes, those with means would put their resources toward fixing the public schools rather than running from the problem.
For what it's worth, UVA isn't exactly great at this stuff (I grew up in the area and my wife is a grad), but the article was more than a bit unfair (even before it was revealed that the entire thing was a fabrication.)
Do you think I didn't answer parent's question? I thought I had, but if you disagree, you should address that more directly. As to the agenda you think I'm pushing: I'm sorry I didn't adequately allude to my sarcasm. I guess I just thought it was too hyperbolic to be taken any other way.
why do the least credible stories gain the most attention
Is this so obviously true that it can be stated as a bare fact like that?
I would think the very least credible stories get essentially zero attention, but then I always trip over it when people use a straightforward categorical statement as a way of emphasizing a weaker point.
To summarize SSC: If Republicans agree with you, it doesn't do anything to prove your SJW bonafides. Your dad probably thought the killing of Eric Garner was awful, yawn. But defending Trayvon, now that's a "fuck you".
Thanks for posting that link, it's one of the more thought out musings on controversy, divisiveness, and stubbornness I have read for a while. A good thoughtful read.
I dunno -- look at eg Penn State football, where other coaches were aware as early as the late 80s that Sandusky was raping kids. Horrific. Sometimes people really are that craven.
I don't think "laziness" is a very good explanation here. The story was so obviously fake that the "journalist" in question actually had to do quite a bit of work to compose this story.
Reporting a real, actual case, completely and honestly, wouldn't have been more work.
But it wouldn't have hit so perfectly the narrative that was the selling point.
I recall seeing somewhere that Erdely received credible reports of sexual harrassment at schools like Yale, and rejected the stories as not being juicy enough.
Calling her a journalist disgraces the entire profession (which hasn't exactly been covering itself in glory lately).
I've not seen any convincing evidence that there is more rape on U.S. campuses than in surrounding society. I suspect this is why Sabrina had a hard time finding a juicy rape to capitalize on.
She began with the conclusion, and fabricated observations to fit it. This means the "conversation" is exactly as ridiculous as the false pretenses guiding it.
The whole idea of "campus rape" seems to be based on (small) surveys conducted with broad definitions of "rape" which most people would not accept. Definitions often include consensual sex which the respondent regretted after the fact, and drunk sex with forgotten/unknown consent.
We don't actually know if they were lies. Certainly they weren't vetted as facts sufficiently for basic journalistic standards. And they probably wouldn't hold up in court. But that doesn't mean they are lies. Lots of truths wouldn't hold up in court, or be printable in a publication of repute.
The female student who was the focus of the article ("Jackie") spun a very specific story that involved specific acts, places, people, and times. We now know that, to a first approximation, everything she said was an outright lie. There were other stories she could have told about different people, places, times, and events that would have been true, and it's possible one of the versions of the story she told other people was true or mostly true. It's entirely possible that Jackie was, in fact, raped. But the specific story Jackie told Erdely was not true, and the specific rape Erdely wrote about did not occur.
We know this due to the excellent investigative reporting of the Washington Post and others, to the damning report made by the CJR, and now to to this jury verdict which determined that the story was untrue, that Rolling Stone knew (or should have known) that it was untrue, and that Rolling Stone acted with reckless disregard for the truth in publishing the story.
> Lots of truths wouldn't hold up in court, or be printable in a publication of repute.
That's true, but not relevant. Merely publishing something you think is true but couldn't prove in a court of law doesn't put you at risk of losing a libel suit.
I've read The Washington Post articles carefully multiple times and they never say the rapes didn't happen. They say things like "Key elements of Rolling Stone’s U-Va. gang rape allegations in doubt". They point out inconsistencies in her story. But they never come to the conclusion you did: that there was no rape and the story was entirely fabricated.
In fact the editor says the opposite:
“We told her we wouldn’t name her, in large part because we thought she was a sex-assault victim at that time and we don’t name victims of sexual assault without their permission,” said Mike Semel, The Post’s Metro editor. “That agreement for anonymity needs to be considered until we are absolutely certain that there was no assault at all.”
In the OP for this thread, the WaPo only says "aspects of Jackie’s account were not true". I have yet to see a single piece of evidence presented by anyone that no rape occurred.
As for the jury verdict this week, they only ruled that Rolling Stone knowingly omitted facts that would've painted the administration in a better light. They did not rule on the facts of the rape at all.
You are doing the same thing the Rolling Stone writers did: presenting something as fact when the evidence is contradictory.
I believe you are being willfully blind here. Your quote from Mike Semel comes from a Washington Post story headlined:
"Jackie’s rape story was false. So why hasn’t the media named her by now?"
You're actually trying to use a story headlined that the "rape story was false" to argue that the same newspaper hasn't actually concluded that the story was false?
A quote from the same story: "Her story has been shown repeatedly to be false, both through news reporting and an extensive police investigation."
> But they never come to the conclusion you did: that there was no rape and the story was entirely fabricated.
Ah, in a lengthier response that I deleted I addressed that headline. That story is basically an opinion piece in the Style section. It's not a piece of investigative journalism. There are no new facts reported in it.
And yes, I am dead serious that there is no evidence that the story was entirely fabricated. There is evidence details were fabricated. You take that as evidence that the story was fabricated in its entirity, but the quoted editor does not and I do not.
I don't understand why you find it so hard to entertain the possibility that a pathological liar might be raped and then exaggerate the details of the story to gain sympathy.
Why do you see that as an impossibility?
I acknowledge it as a possibility, I acknowledge the possibility that she was not raped at all and made up the story from whole cloth, and I acknowledge that we don't know which really happened. Just as the quoted editor did.
How can anyone "prove that no rape occurred"? It's impossible to prove a negative. All we can do is notice that no rape seems to have happened at that fraternity, none of the alleged victim's statements can be backed up with evidence or testimony, and that the claimed rapist does not exist, and make a judgement call from there.
> How can anyone "prove that no rape occurred"? It's impossible to prove a negative.
You find evidence that contradicts the story in its entirity. For example, if she claimed to have been raped on a night that there was evidence she was in a different country, that would be proof.
> No rape seems to have happened
You have no strong evidence that suggests that no rape happened. There's also no strong evidence that a rape did happen. Somehow out of that, you believe a rape didn't happen, which is illogical and cruel.
> You have no strong evidence that suggests that no rape happened.
The alleged rapist not existing isn't strong evidence suggesting that it didn't happen?
> There's also no strong evidence that a rape did happen. Somehow out of that, you believe a rape didn't happen,
Wait, what? Even if there's no strong evidence that a rape did happen I should just believe it happened anyway? That's a fascinating approach. What other things should I believe even if there's no strong evidence for them? For example, what if somebody claimed you committed assault, but there was no evidence?
> which is illogical and cruel.
I suspect you wouldn't be resorting to crude appeals to emotion and playing to the cheap seats with rhetoric if you had a real argument to make here.
> The alleged rapist not existing isn't strong evidence suggesting that it didn't happen?
No, that's evidence that if there was an assailant, she doesn't know him.
> Even if there's no strong evidence that a rape did happen I should just believe it happened anyway?
You misunderstand my position. I am just asserting that we don't know whether a rape happened. I do not believe it happened, nor do I believe that it didn't. I am certain that I cannot know.
>> illogical and cruel
> I suspect you wouldn't be resorting to crude appeals to emotion and playing to the cheap seats with rhetoric if you had a real argument to make here.
What? I am doing nothing of the sort. I am making very specific claims: 1) that based on principles of logic, you can't infer from the evidence that no rape occurred, and 2) to do so is cruel to the alleged victim, who may just be a rape victim who lied about the details.
There's nothing emotional or cheap about that argument. You can disagree with me on the facts or the analysis, but at least engage what I'm saying in good faith. I'm extending you that courtesy.
My understanding is that in the US, it is not really possible to prove that a person doesn't exist. People move from state to state, they change names.
It's different in European welfare states which are big brother societies: you can actually get a reliable census by saying things like "select count(id) from population where alive is true;"
But this is different from proving a certain name didn't appear among the students of a particular university/class, etc; we do know the Rolling Stone story was a hoax.
No, they were lies to the point where named people supposedly involved ("Haven Monahan") don't exist. It was a hoax.
Sabrina Erdeley has herself written that she went out looking for a particular story. This is among the reasons why she is liable. In the US the standard for that is much, much higher than just failing to hold up in court. It takes actual malice.
"Actual malice" is the high bar required for lawsuits made by "public figures" after NYT v. Sullivan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._Sullivan), which the Dean was inexplicitly declared to be by the trial judge. Which make the resulting verdict all the more impressive.
Just because she gave a wrong name, you can't deduce that the entirety of her story is false. That doesn't follow logically. It can be littered with inconsistencies, that doesn't prove the absence of a rape.
She could be (and probably is) a pathological liar. That doesn't mean she is incapable of being raped. It only means her accounts shouldn't be published and she's not a reliable criminal witness.
No, the story is false because it consists of fictional events. Nothing in it adds up: not the people (Haven Monahan, the frat), not the timeline. The events (sex on broken glass) are prima facie unbelievable.
It was torn to pieces by WaPo, CJR, and the Charlottesville police. There is no doubt that it was a hoax. If she has ever been raped, it was a completely different event from the one described by the Rolling Stone.
On the other hand, I don't think that Jackie is a pathological liar. She tried to catfish a guy[1] and get a little sympathy from college admins. She started off like a fairly reasonable liar (for a teenager) and got caught up in the whole thing. She's definitely at fault but much less than the Rolling Stone which went on a rampage defaming people left and right and instigating a mob[2].
