A Rape on Campus: What Went Wrong

_pluto_ · 2015-04-06T02:12:24+00:00

So did they apologize to the victims? Ie College men?

Tmomp · 2015-04-06T04:03:52+00:00

Sexual assault is a serious problem on college campuses, and it is important that rape victims feel comfortable stepping forward. It saddens us to think that their willingness to do so might be diminished by our failings.

Isn't lying about it a crime too?

It saddens some of us that if perps who lie aren't brought to justice, others may lie more in the future, victimizing more people, mostly men.

Jackie declined to respond to questions for this report. Her lawyer said it "is in her best interest to remain silent at this time."

She supports due process when she needs it. Vigilante justice is for others.

Later that day, the magazine published an editor's note that effectively retracted Rolling Stone's reporting on Jackie's allegations of gang rape at the University of Virginia. "It was the worst day of my professional life," Woods said.

The day you got caught was the worst day? Don't you mean the day you published the lies?

Instead, the magazine's failure may have spread the idea that many women invent rape allegations. ... There has been other collateral damage.

If they do invent such allegations and people believe them anyway, why is it "damage" to spread the idea? It's true. Isn't journalism supposed to spread the truth?

Rolling Stone's account linked UVA's fraternity culture to a horrendous crime and portrayed the administration as neglectful

... connected to a horrendous lie, not a crime, unless you mean Jackie's lies, which sound criminal to me. The administration was worse than neglectful. It blamed the victims, punished them, and punished them again.

"Ultimately, we were too deferential to our rape victim; we honored too many of her requests in our reporting," Woods said. "We should have been much tougher, and in not doing that, we maybe did her a disservice."

What rape victim?? Do they man Jackie? She's the perp! Can we have any empathy for her victims?

Social scientists, psychologists and trauma specialists who support rape survivors have impressed upon journalists the need to respect the autonomy of victims

Victims? What does that have to do with Jackie? She's the perp. This need is creating a shield of invincibility that all you need is to lie about to get. We know vigilantes attack the men lied about. You have to think about more than just the person making the claims. Most are telling the truth but not all and the liars have victims.

"The overarching point of the article," Erdely wrote in response to questions from The Washington Post last December, was not Jackie, but "the culture that greeted her and so many other UVA women I interviewed, who came forward with allegations, only to be met with indifference."

Interview men too and you might find they suffer. Sometimes innocent ones are attacked by administrations.

University officials still hoped that Jackie and the two other victims she had mentioned would file formal charges, the UVA sources said.

Or hope the stories weren't true. Wouldn't you rather someone not be victimized and have no charges to file?

They could not imagine that Jackie would invent such a story.

Yes they could. They can now. They just didn't try.

Rolling Stone is not the first news organization to be sharply criticized for its reporting on rape.

The police say this story has no evidence of a rape in it.

Balancing sensitivity to victims and the demands of verification

What sensitivity to victims? The innocent frat seems the main victim here. No one showed them any sensitivity.

YabuSama2k · 2015-04-06T02:26:02+00:00

They start the piece out by misrepresenting the percentage of false rape accusations. That number (2-8%) is the number that are PROVEN to be false, which does not mean that the other 92-98% are necessarily true. The vast majority are never proven either way.

whinemoreplease · 2015-04-06T02:26:36+00:00

(Social scientists analyzing crime records report that the rate DEMONSTRABLY FALSE of false rape allegations is 2 to 8 percent.)

From the linked scientific article -

The determination that a report of sexual assault is false can be made only if the evidence establishes that no crime was committed or attempted. This determination can be made only after a thorough investigation. This should not be confused with an investigation that fails to prove a sexual assault occurred. In that case the investigation would be labeled unsubstantiated. The determination that a report is false must be supported by evidence that the assault did not happen.

Basically, 2-8 percent of accusations are false beyond doubt. The percentage of the rest of the accusations that maybe false is not discussed. Think about that for a moment, up to 1 in 12 women who accuse men of rape are shown to be deliberately making it up. That's fucking absurd.

Zosimasie · 2015-04-06T01:58:12+00:00

Shouldn't the title be "No Rape on Campus"?

Vandredd · 2015-04-06T12:17:30+00:00

Yet Rolling Stone's senior editors are unanimous in the belief that the story's failure does not require them to change their editorial systems. "It's not like I think we need to overhaul our process, and I don't think we need to necessarily institute a lot of new ways of doing things," Dana said. "We just have to do what we've always done and just make sure we don't make this mistake again." Coco McPherson, the fact-checking chief, said, "I one hundred percent do not think that the policies that we have in place failed. I think decisions were made around those because of the subject matter."

No. Sue them to oblivion.

_-_Dan_-_ · 2015-04-06T09:56:22+00:00

Isn't this something for a donotlink or archive link? Rollingstone already did get a lot of hits for their story, why give it to them again?

yourotherusername · 2015-04-06T01:19:58+00:00

Just finished reading the entire piece. God damned is that some fine analysis.

It is a long piece, but well worth the read. What strikes me, is that they take responsibility without exception. They didn't hide behind Jackie or "conventional wisdom". In fact, they blame their reliance on conventional wisdom (that rape happens all the time and that no one would ever lie about it to this extent) and preconceived ideas. They cover step by step how they failed. They cover step by step what they could have done, what they should have done, what they KNEW they didn't do.

This response is way more that I would have ever hoped for. It calls for a discussion of how to accurately and fairly portray and report on rape. It admits there are problems. It kinda goes into why those problems exist (believe the victim at all costs). That dialog is needed and after an incident like this, might be very fruitful.

I await to see more on this in the future, not just because of the epic failure of RS, but because of this fascinating look at why it happened in the first place.

_-_Dan_-_ · 2015-04-06T10:15:51+00:00

Coco McPherson, the fact-checking chief, said, "I one hundred percent do not think that the policies that we have in place failed. I think decisions were made around those because of the subject matter."

That's akin to saying: "Yeah, our safety procedures work very well, in case of an ordinary fire. But when it comes to the nuclear stuff, all bets are off."

How can anyone make such an assertion? If it wasn't taken out of context, then that's the worst admission of professional incompetence I've ever seen.

exo762 · 2015-04-06T17:04:58+00:00

Amazing part is that Rolling Stone staff actually believed that Jackie's story could happen. Gang rape hazing ritual at state uni? With 7+ perps and hope that next day thing remains a secret? With frat bros? Which actually remains secret?

That's "eyes wide shut"-type story. Pretty obvious fiction.

Juan-man · 2015-04-06T11:49:27+00:00

People on this thread are calling for the reporter's career to be over. Come on, people, it's a human being we're talking about here. It is not necessary for her career to be over. I don't wish that on anyone, especially if acting on (although misguided) good faith. Everyone makes mistakes.

She should most definitely face the consequences of her mistake (which was shown in the report not to be entirely hers within the organization, and somewhat the result of her main source's manipulation). But casting her into professional exile (not that we can) would do nothing beyond sating a need for petty revenge.

What I do hope for is that this episode (which will conclude with the verdicts on the various lawsuits) will heighten journalistic standards. People, newspapers (and courts of law) need to fact check for a reason: we're all imperfectly human. Our memories are very unreliable, even if we do remember something our past will distort our interpretations of the facts, and sometimes we're just assholes.

I think everybody learning a lesson from this is enough. I sincerely doubt the reporter will ever let her guard down as she did with this story. Nor will her editors/factcheckers, nor her readers. This is a good thing.

Title	A Rape on Campus: What Went Wrong
Author	AtticusFrenchToast
Upvotes	65
Comments	45
Date	April 6, 2015 12:03 AM UTC (11 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/31klw1/a_rape_on_campus_what_went_wrong/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/a-rape-on-campus-what-went-wrong.983947 https://theredarchive.com/post/983947

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