Over the Easter Weekend/news hole, Rolling Stone magazine and their writer, Sabrina “Amoral Pig” Erdely, retracted their hatchet job University of Virginia rape story. I’ll add emphasis:
On Sunday, Ms. Erdely, in her first extensive comments since the article was cast into doubt, apologized to Rolling Stone’s readers, her colleagues and “any victims of sexual assault who may feel fearful as a result of my article.”
She apologized to her readers, colleagues, and people who felt triggerwarned?
Well, isn’t that special.
Nothing for the people she falsely accused?
The people she nifonged?
In an interview discussing Columbia’s findings, Jann S. Wenner, the publisher of Rolling Stone, acknowledged the piece’s flaws but said that it represented an isolated and unusual episode and that Ms. Erdely would continue to write for the magazine. The problems with the article started with its source, Mr. Wenner said. He described her as “a really expert fabulist storyteller” who managed to manipulate the magazine’s journalism process. When asked to clarify, he said that he was not trying to blame Jackie, “but obviously there is something here that is untruthful, and something sits at her doorstep.”
So Amoral Pig Erdely ran a story without even the faintest whiff of what used to be considered journalistic due diligence, buuuuuuuuut of course she’ll continue to “write” for Rolling Stone.
It’s been my theory for most of a decade now that the “Society of Professional Journalists'” “Code of Ethics” is nothing but a framework by which media outlets can justify absolutely anything they do, even if only by pleading “we subscribe to the SPJ Code of Ethics”.
It’s very close to becoming a new Berg’s Law.
I’ve read that this lack of apology to the frat and others actually harmed by the story is a legal strategy as apologizing to them could be – to paraphrase Tom Hagen in ‘The Godfather’ – interpreted by a court of law as admitting she did wrong by them. Remember when ‘The Rolling Stone’ was counter-culture, anti-corporate and the opposite of ‘the man’? Yeah, me neither.
How about the President and the Administration of UVa shutting down their “Greek Community” and accusing individuals of crimes on what turned out to be a hoax? When will they be held to account for their actions?
And the reporter describes the on-line criticism she’s received as being “brutal and humiliating.” She’s a victim!
I’m thinking the fraternity so slandered will get their day in court. If the evidence supports what I think it does, I’d vote to impose sanctions on Rolling Stone and the university.
And personally, I think any public figure or journalist who issues a “I’m sorry someone was offended” non-apology ought to be cast out of public life permanently.
The fraternity is suing Rolling Stone and Erdely. They really ought to sue the president of UVa personally as well, considering she imposed sanctions on them and has left the sanctions in place despite the revelations that the story is a lie.
I hope that Rolling Stone gets bankrupted by this?
POD, I was going to argue with you, but it does strike me that a combination of a significant (but probably not crippling) settlement and a reputation for c**p reporting will do the next best thing to bankruptcy for RS; make them irrelevant.
Wenner could be the archetypical boomer success story. He was born and raised in NY, went to a toney private school, attended Berkeley in the 60s, where he joined the staff of radical magazine Ramparts, dropped out of Berkeley to start Rolling Stone, divorced his wife of thirty years in 1995 and shacked with a much younger male model. Apparently he had three kids before he realized he was a homosexual.
Wenner’s publishing empire is supposed to be worth about $500 million.
PM; It is funny how hypocritical Wenner and his ilk are. By ilk, I include Bill Ayers, Bernadine Doorn, Governor Mumbles and any other so called “counter culture” types that railed against the man, but now have no problem with the trappings that their parents earned. But then, I also blame those parents for not figuring out that they raised losers.
Bosshoss, the Boomers are a powerful group but are culturally and intellectually sterile. The parents of the Boomers were born around 1920. They changed the country from post-Victorian to modern. They changed everything, in the sciences and the arts.
The Boomers, by contrast, haven’t changed a thing since they came of age. All the current movements in arts and science began before 1965. They may have moved the counter culture into the mainstream, but it’s the same old counter culture. You can hear the Stones’ “Satisfaction” any old day on a rock station. I Imagine it’s a popular cover song for R&B bar banbs. It was released fifty years ago. Fifty years before “Satisfaction” was released the US was just entering World War One.
Agree…….Rolling Stone used to be a counter-culture rebel publication. Now, if you read their political columns and articles…….well, its like they are taking orders from the federal gov’t on who to attack. If they had started out that way, they would have been given Nixon’s enemies list and told to do a regular column going after his list of bad guys.