Sabrina Rubin Erdely, the author of the notorious Rolling Stone UVA rape article, has publicly apologized and admitted to making mistakes.

qoppaphi · 2015-04-06T01:09:05+00:00

Typically, an apology is made to the person(s) wronged. So let's see here ...

I want to offer my deepest apologies: to Rolling Stone’s readers,

Well, you mislead your readers, but they're not exactly the primary victims here.

to my Rolling Stone editors and colleagues,

Not even remotely victims. These are your accomplices; the people who should have done some degree of fact-checking and didn't.

to the U.V.A. community,

Broadly, yes, but more specifically ...?

and to any victims of sexual assault who may feel fearful as a result of my article.

... that's it? End of list? I mean, aside from the Stone itself, these are all legitimate apologies, but you're kind of missing the fraternity you baselessly slandered.

But no, her statement makes no mention of this. It makes no mention that the fraternity was vandalized and that all campus fraternities were shut down; all of that, presumably, is included under "the U.V.A. community". She also does not state what "Jackie" really was: a serial liar trying to gain sympathy from a male friend. She still refers to "her account of her traumatic rape" as if it actually happened.

I find Erdely's "apology" to be entirely too little.

Tedesche · 2015-04-06T01:02:19+00:00

For my own part, I'm glad she admitted fault, but felt she didn't acknowledge the impact it had on men and the UVA fraternities it smeared in particular. She apologized to "the UVA community," but that's not nearly specific enough for my tastes.

Frankly though, I think her comments about the lessons she learned are ones that all feminists ought to heed. She fucked up and trusted a very distraught and unstable woman, and abstained from checking her account for fear of re-traumatizing her. This is the take-home lesson: no matter how much we may feel for someone who claims to have been the victim of rape, we cannot convict the person they accuse on their account alone—we must check the facts, check their story. Trauma sucks, but perverting the course of justice doesn't make it suck any less, and just winds up traumatizing others.

Feminists need to get it through their thick skulls: women aren't always the victim, and men aren't always the oppressors. Doing lip service to this concept won't suffice—you need to actually acknowledge that it is the truth and let it inform your judgments when stories like these come out. Skepticism is a virtue.

Title	Sabrina Rubin Erdely, the author of the notorious Rolling Stone UVA rape article, has publicly apologized and admitted to making mistakes.
Author	Tedesche
Upvotes	4
Comments	2
Date	April 6, 2015 12:56 AM UTC (11 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/31ks4c/sabrina_rubin_erdely_the_author_of_the_notorious/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/sabrina-rubin-erdely-the-author-of-the-notorious.983940 https://theredarchive.com/post/983940

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