"Other than this one key fact that the rape described actually was a fabrication of this woman, the rest of the story was bulletproof."

Said Jann Wenner, quoted in "Jann Wenner Defends His Legacy, and His Generation’s/The co-founder of Rolling Stone magazine on the legacy of boomers and why he chose only white men for his book on rock’s 'masters'" (NYT).

This is the interview that's been in the news — see "Jann Wenner’s Rock Hall Reign Lasted Years. It Ended in 20 Minutes. The day after the Rolling Stone co-founder made remarks widely criticized as racist and sexist in a Times interview, the Hall of Fame called an emergency vote and ousted him" — and that we've talked about already, but I'm calling attention to something I haven't seen discussed yet.

Here's the remark I've quoted in context. The interviewer, David Marchese, is in boldface. The rest is Wenner. I've put the above-quoted remark in red:

"I don't know whether the backlash this piece has inspired is ridiculous or depressing. The truth is..."

"... that anyone who has spent time on a college campus in the last few years knows what this author is talking about. There is an ever-narrowing range of permissible opinion, and any apparent divergence from it risks serious social repercussions. No one really speaks their mind, except those who are most religious in their adherence to the favored ideology. I taught a university seminar recently where students repeatedly thanked me — in private — for putting tough questions to guest speakers. The students were afraid to challenge the speakers themselves — not because they were afraid of them, but because they were afraid of the other students in the room."

From the most-liked comment at "I Came to College Eager to Debate. I Found Self-Censorship Instead" by University of Virginia senior Emma Camp (NYT).

ADDED: Some of that backlash might be envy, as in: Why does this college kid get a NYT op-ed when I could have said the same thing? But the fact is, you have say it! There's real place in the world for people who just plainly state the obvious. If you can do it too, do it too!

"#MeToo depends on the credibility of the journalists who report on it."

This is an excellent WaPo column by Megan McArdle.

McArdle says she was ready to write "It's now clear that Brett Kavanaugh's nomination cannot go forward" if another sexual assault allegation came out, but she changed her mind when she saw that New Yorker article about Deborah Ramirez. McArdle had thought that "a second allegation would be stronger, not weaker, than the first." She's "frankly surprised the New Yorker ran the article."

And so I'm writing a different column than I expected, about something I hadn't fully understood until I watched that seismic shift [toward expediting the process lest after nominee would go down to a string of unverifiable allegations]: the extent to which the success of #MeToo depends on the credibility of the journalists who report on it.

We hear the slogan "believe women" a lot, but even its strongest media proponents can't really mean it literally, because journalists know how often people tell them things that aren't true....

As #MeToo has grown, mainstream media outlets have generally been scrupulous about getting that confirmation before they publish. It's hard to overstate the dangers when that filter fails. When Rolling Stone failed to check allegations about gang rape at the University of Virginia, the magazine both smeared innocent young men and caused other victims to be treated more skeptically. And when a weak story breaks into an already raging political conflagration, it not only creates skepticism under which future abusers can shelter but also threatens to turn #MeToo into yet another divide in the culture wars.

In the #MeToo movement, it has seemed that multiple accusations have been crucial in taking down prominent men. And now here is a prominent man who began as the target of a desired takedown.  The first accusation inspired credulity because of the built-up strength of the believe-all-survivors ethic, but the second one felt so weak that it not only failed to strengthen the attack, it roused suspicion about the first accusation.

If only the authorities would do their work, then we could rely on them, McArdle seems to say. They've been "generally... scrupulous" in the past. Oh? Somehow I rankle at that idealized image. And I resist the complacency about professionalized journalism and its alliance with a political movement. It's up to us, the citizenry, to maintain our vigilance. No shortcuts. You can't "believe all women" or trust the "mainstream" press. Pay attention and sharpen up, or we are lost.

NOTE: This is the fifth in a series of posts about Kavanaugh this morning. Comments on this post should only be about this article. Here's my post warning you that a series of posts is forthcoming. If you want to draw attention to other articles, do so in the comments section for that post, not this one.

"Though we realize that some members of our university community may be inspired by quotes from Jefferson..."

"... we hope to bring to light that many of us are deeply offended by attempts of the administration to guide our moral behavior through their use.... We would like for our administration to understand that although some members of this community may have come to this university because of Thomas Jefferson’s legacy, others of us came here in spite of it.... For many of us, the inclusion of Jefferson quotations in these e-mails undermines the message of unity, equality and civility that you are attempting to convey."

Letter to the University of Virginia President Teresa Sullivan. Signed by 469 faculty members and students.

Sullivan's response is a wan disclaimer:

Quoting Jefferson (or any historical figure) does not imply an endorsement of all the social structures and beliefs of his time, such as slavery and the exclusion of women and people of color from the university.

Good luck fending off the critics with that kind of thing. You could quote Hitler and say that, and Sullivan's parenthetical shows she's perfectly aware of the weakness of her defense, which is no defense at all.

Jury finds Rolling Stone liable in the defamation suit over its false fraternity-gang-rape story about the University of Virginia

The winning plaintiff is Nicole P. Eramo, who was the associate dean of students, the NYT reports.

[I]n videotaped testimony shown during the trial, Jann S. Wenner, Rolling Stone’s founder and editor, said the magazine was wrong to retract the story fully.

“We did everything reasonable, appropriate up to the highest standards of journalism to check on this thing,” Mr. Wenner said. “The one thing we didn’t do was confront Jackie’s accusers — the rapists.”

Referring to Jackie, Mr. Wenner said there was nothing a journalist could do “if someone is really determined to commit a fraud.”

The jury didn't buy that.  And Eramo was deemed a public figure so the verdict represents a finding that the publisher either knew the story was false or had reckless disregard for whether or not it was true.

There's a second lawsuit brought by the fraternity.

"Jackie" — who told the discredited fraternity gang rape story published in Rolling Stone — is forced to testify in the defamation lawsuit.

The federal judge Glen E.Conrad has rejected the argument — made by "Jackie"'s lawyers — that testimony will "re-victimize" her and psychologically damage her.

The judge’s order stems from a lawsuit brought by UVA associate dean of students Nicole Eramo, who alleges that Rolling Stone’s Nov. 2014 article cast her as the callous villain of its tale and falsely asserted that she discouraged a student identified only as “Jackie” from taking her rape allegations to the police. Rolling Stone, which apologized to readers for the story, strongly denies that it defamed the university official and declined to comment on Tuesday’s ruling....

Ms. Eramo, in court papers, alleges that Jackie is “a serial liar” who fabricated her claims and served as “Rolling Stone’s sole source for the false tale of rape that it recklessly published.” That makes Jackie’s testimony “highly relevant” to the defamation claims, her lawyers say.

IN THE COMMENTS: Ignorance is Bliss said...

re-victimize

Assumes facts not in evidence.

That made me think of what Patricia J. Williams wrote in her book "The Alchemy of Race and Rights" about Tawana Brawley: Brawley "has been the victim of some unspeakable crime. No matter how she got there. No matter who did it to her and even if she did it to herself."

"But lives can get ruined when there’s a rush to judgment before all the facts come out. Look what happened at UVA, Duke etc."

"Of course any sane person is against rape and sexual assault but everybody who is commenting is doing so without knowledge or facts. They are getting behind an allegation only — motivated by money. I didn’t rape Kesha and I have never had sex with her. Kesha and I were friends for many years and she was like my little sister."

Said Dr. Luke —  Lukasz Gottwald — the big record producer. (I realize I am familiar with him, because, though I'd forgotten his name, I read the 2013 New Yorker article "The Doctor Is In/A technique for producing No. 1 songs" (2013)).

I'd been ignoring the news story about Kesha trying to get out of her contract, but I happened to read "Dr. Luke, the ‘Beatles of our generation,’ fires back at Kesha" — maybe "Beatles" is a way to get my attention — and I'm realizing for the first time that it's a rape accusation that's the basis of Kesha's effort.

There's also "Taylor Swift donates $250,000 to Kesha to help in lawsuit against allegedly abusive record producer":

Kesha herself also has expressed gratitude for the moral support — from Lady Gaga and Kelly Clarkson, among many others — she’s gotten for her case against Dr. Luke, a.k.a. Lukasz Gottwald. In a civil suit, she accused the producer, whom she has worked with since she was 17, of drugging and raping her as well as slighting her appearance, contributing to her bulimia; Dr. Luke, meanwhile, has filed a countersuit and denies everything. His lawyer said: “As set forth in the complaint that we have filed on behalf of Dr. Luke, Kesha and her mother are engaged in a campaign of publishing outrageous and untrue statements about Dr. Luke to third parties, including scurrilous and false statements of purported physical and mental abuse of Kesha. These are allegations that Kesha and [her mother] Pebe have themselves admitted are false.”

The judge sided with Dr. Luke:

On Friday, New York Supreme Court Justice Shirley Kornreich sided with Dr. Luke and Sony at Kesha's hearing, telling the singer's legal team, "You're asking the court to decimate a contract that was heavily negotiated and typical for the industry." Kesha's lawyer Mark Geragos asked for an injunction because, as he told the judge, the career of a pop star is often brief, and Kesha's career could be "irreparably harmed" if she did not return to recording music.

"There has been no showing of irreparable harm. She's being given opportunity to record," Judge Kornreich said in denying the injunction. Kesha will have to record six more albums under Kemosabe Records, Dr. Luke's Sony imprint, according to the New York Daily News.

This is a lot of bad publicity for both of them. I wonder how things got so bad that it all went public. Assuming Kesha is not going to win in a court of law, can the publicity skew so well in her favor that she wins in the court of public opinion? At the moment, Kesha seems to be acquiring a feminist-hero reputation. Lady Gaga wrote: "I am in awe of your bravery." Lorde wrote: "Standing with Kesha through this traumatic, deeply unfair time." Demi Lovato wrote that she was "Ready for self-proclaimed feminists to start speaking out or taking action for women's rights." And:

"Frustrating to see women come forward with their past only to be shot down, not believed and disrespected for their bravery in taking action. Happens way too often. I'm ready for women to be taken just as seriously as men. Someone tell me why anyone would ever feel brave enough to come forward if they are most likely to be ignored or called a liar?"

It's a sad, grisly business, whoever is telling the truth. 

A University of Virginia associate dean of students sues Rolling Stone for $7.5 million.

From the complaint:



Read Nicole Eramo's complaint here. And here's the WaPo article "U-Va. dean sues Rolling Stone for ‘false’ portrayal in retracted rape story."

Click on the photo to enlarge and see how different they made her. It's not just the color and the background and the way the pen-holding hand looks more like a thumbs up and the outstretched hand is gone. It's those eyes.

Now, I can't imagine that manipulating a photo into an illustration is a tort... or I missed a big payday when I didn't sue Isthmus for this...



... but the complaint only says that the photo manipulation "demonstrates the lengths [Sabrina Rubin] Erdely and Rolling Stone were willing to go to portray Dean Eramo as a villain." The lawsuit is based on defamation, and you can got to paragraph 210 in the complaint for the full text of the quotes alleged to be false and defamatory. Eramo was said to have done "nothing" in response" to rape allegations and to have "brushed off" the complainant and tried to "suppress" the story to protect UVa's reputation.

Paragraph 203 of the complaint collects the worst of the email Eramo received, e.g., "You are a rape apologist & a FATASS. Enormous Eramo the wretched rape apologist. resign you vile worthless creature."

ADDED: Long but very concise: Eugene Volokh applies defamation doctrine to the specific allegations. Because of free-speech rights, the burdens are Eramo are heavy, and if you look at the particular statements one by one, you'll understand Volokh's bottom line: "Eramo could have a case, but it won’t be an easy one."

The court... will probably throw out the claims based on some of the statements, on the grounds that those statements don’t make factual claims about Eramo... And for the remaining statements, Eramo will have to show that they are false, and show by clear and convincing evidence that the defendants knew the statements were likely false.

I think that Eramo’s strongest claim is about the “Because nobody wants to send their daughter to the rape school,” because the allegation is clearly a factual claim about her. But even there, she would have to show she didn’t say it, and show by clear and convincing evidence that Erdely and the Rolling Stone editors knew that she likely didn’t say it, and that Jackie was lying (or misremembering).

Just published: "Rolling Stone and UVA: The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism Report."

"An anatomy of a journalistic failure," by Sheila Coronel, Steve Coll, Derek Kravitz.

[The Rolling Stone writer Sabrina Rubin] Erdely believed firmly that Jackie's account was reliable. So did her editors and the story's fact-checker, who spent more than four hours on the telephone with Jackie, reviewing every detail of her experience. "She wasn't just answering, 'Yes, yes, yes,' she was correcting me," the checker said. "She was describing the scene for me in a very vivid way. … I did not have doubt." (Rolling Stone requested that the checker not be named because she did not have decision-making authority.)...

The problem of confirmation bias – the tendency of people to be trapped by pre-existing assumptions and to select facts that support their own views while overlooking contradictory ones – is a well-established finding of social science. It seems to have been a factor here. Erdely believed the university was obstructing justice. She felt she had been blocked. Like many other universities, UVA had a flawed record of managing sexual assault cases. Jackie's experience seemed to confirm this larger pattern. Her story seemed well established on campus, repeated and accepted.

If the UVa frat sues Rolling Stone, "they are opening up every young man in that fraternity to scrutiny — their drinking habits, and I’m sure some of them are underage..."

"... their sexual habits, and their overall conduct....  It just seems like there’s a whole host of issues that could be there, and it would be unfair and unwise to subject these young men to that," Charles Tobin — who specializes in defamation law — told WaPo's Terrence McCoy.

In addition to that skeletons-in-the-closet problem, McCoy points out the problem of a group claiming defamation:

The Rolling Stone article doesn’t specifically name any student beyond pseudonyms and descriptions that aren’t matched by any member of the frat house....

For any group to have a justifiable claim, wrote Ellyn Tracy Marcus in the California Law Review in 1983, the group needs to be small. "As group size increases, courts become skeptical that the defamation could reasonably be understood to refer to any individual group member. … Reasonable persons do not take literally statements defaming groups of people, and understand such statements only as generalizations or exaggerations."

I'm looking at that law review article, and it's talking about, for example, a case where individual D.C. taxi drivers tried to sue The Washington Post for an article portraying D.C. cab drivers as rude louts. Rolling Stone besmirched the name of a specific frat. Anyway, McCoy also links to Eugene Volokh's analysis (from last December, before the recent news that the police investigation has found absolutely no evidence to support the rape anecdote told by Rolling Stone). Volokh discusses "defamation of a group," but then moves on to the separate topic of "Defamation of the fraternity": "Corporations and unincorporated associations that have recognized legal identities (such as unions, partnerships and the like) can also sue for defamation that causes injury to their organizational reputation, independently of whether any member was defamed."

I'm not a libel law expert, but I see the "group libel" problem as addressing whether individual frat members could successfully claim to have been defamed because their frat was defamed. If the frat sues as an entity, there's no "group libel" problem.

"2 UVA Frats Refuse to Sign Agreement Forged After Rape Story."

"Alpha Tau Omega and Kappa Alpha Order said the university was wrong to suspend all Greek life in the wake of a Nov. 19 article that purported to detail the gang rape of a woman named 'Jackie'..."

“The fact is the university has never acknowledged that they made a mistake in suspending 25 percent of the student body that had nothing to do with an article that proved to be erroneous,” said [Kevin O’Neill, a lawyer for the two frats]. “The university has not apologized and has not explained why they took this action.... Some of the things they are asking students to do, like stand at top of the stairs and monitor rooms, creates a duty the school should be bearing themselves if that’s their concern."

"Doonesbury cartoonist Garry Trudeau today defended a comic strip based on the now-largely-debunked Rolling Stone story about an alleged gang rape at a University of Virginia fraternity."

“We’d hoped it would be obvious that the strip was written before Rolling Stone admitted problems in its reporting,” he emailed. “It’s not the first time I've been overtaken by events, and it won’t be the last—the occupational hazard of a long lead time.”

“Jackie’s story was not the focus, only the setup for commentary on institutional conflict of interest in adjudicating sexual assault, an issue that did not disappear with the credibility of the article,” he emailed. “Not even UVA has claimed otherwise.”

"The larger question of whether victims of rape should remain anonymous is a complicated one."

"The initial rationale for anonymity was to afford victims a measure of protection and prevent them from feeling more shame and self-loathing than they already felt. But as Joan Didion explained in 'Sentimental Journeys,' her essay about the Central Park jogger, this anonymity also had an element of the self-fulfilling, 'guiding the victim to define her assault as her protectors do.' In other words, if rape were defined as more shame-inducing than other crimes, then the victims would continue to experience it as more shameful."

Writes Hanna Rosin in "Trolls Are Outing UVA’s 'Jackie.' That’s Rolling Stone’s Fault Too."

Credulous journalist ponders why journalists are so credulous.

Well, this is rich. I'd never noticed the name Terrence McCoy until yesterday. A tweet of his — featuring a patently defective graph — was embedded at an Atlantic article titled "The Rolling Stone Fiasco Is Terrible News for Rape Survivors." His tweet said "Let's be clear about one thing. Fraudulent accusations of rape are extraordinarily rare. This graph proves it." I used that absurd kicker "This graph proves it" as the title for my post.

Later in the day, I see that the tweet doesn't display, so I go to Twitter, find Terrence McCoy's Twitter feed, and I say:

I'm surprised to see he's a Washington Post Foreign Affairs Reporter. He's got a new tweet that says: "Just read more into the Enliven graph. It was a misleading graph. I've since taken it down." He links to a January 2013 WaPo article about the graph "Patrick Pexton: A flawed image of rape on Wonkblog":

... On Jan. 7, an infographic citing rape statistics appeared on Wonkblog in a post written by Dylan Matthews, who came to The Post last year after graduating from Harvard....

The blog post generated a lot of Web hits for The Post and the Enliven Project. It stirred controversy and discussion of sexual violence. But it damaged Wonkblog’s credibility, and that of The Post, and harmed the legitimate issue of addressing violence against women.

Real reporting takes time, analysis, and inquiry. Post bloggers need to be more careful.

This morning, I look at The Washington Post, notice the latest coverage of the Rolling Stone story ("The epic Rolling Stone gang-rape fallout — and how major publications get it wrong"), and I'm amazed/amused to see the byline: Terrence McCoy!

Among the first to perceive cracks in the facade of Rolling Stone’s piece on campus gang rape was editor Richard Bradley. On Nov. 24, days before The Washington Post reported problems with the piece and Rolling Stone confessed its failings, Bradley said he smelled something fishy. “I’m not convinced that this gang rape actually happened,” he wrote. “Something about this story doesn’t feel right.”

He should know. He once edited Stephen Glass, the notorious fabulist who authored a series of made-up stories for the New Republic and other publications....

Journalists pride themselves on their skepticism. But this one, Bradley said, passed his smell-test because it exploited pre-existing biases...

Just like the way that Enliven graph was the slam-dunk shut-up-already proof that false accusations of rape are extraordinarily rare.

“Stephen wrote what he knew I was inclined to believe,” Bradley wrote on his blog. “And because I was inclined to believe it, I abandoned my critical judgement. I lowered my guard.”....

“One must be most critical about stories that play into existing biases,” he wrote. “And this story nourishes a lot of them: biases against fraternities, against men, against the South; biases about the naivete of young women, especially Southern women; pre-existing beliefs about the prevalence — indeed, the existence — of rape culture; extant suspicions about the hostility of university bureaucracies to sexual assault complaints that can produce unflattering publicity.”...

“The lesson I learned,” wrote the editor Bradley, is that “One must be most critical, in the best sense of that word, about what one is already inclined to believe.”

Not a word about McCoy's own embarrassment over yesterday's tweet.

The expression "fake but accurate" is really all we need to understand the problem, and it's pathetic that journalists at the WaPo level haven't fully internalized the lessons of these old scandals. Tweeting one day and cogitating over the general problem the next — it's so sloppy, so lazy, so stupid.

By the way, the phrase "fake but accurate" only comes up once in a search of the Washington Post archive, and it was not in the context of self-criticism. They were excoriating "This American Life." WaPo has done a fine job leading the way in dismantling the Rolling Stone's big story. But that was making click bait out of their competitor's click bait. I need to see self-criticism to believe I'm witnessing any commitment to journalistic ethics. McCoy's piece today only makes me feel more skeptical, because he's writing about journalism in the abstract and what other people have done wrong, and I saw what he did yesterday.

ADDED: I must stress that when McCoy took down his tweet, he shifted the blame away from himself, saying: "Just read more into the Enliven graph. It was a misleading graph. I've since taken it down." He didn't just take down the graph. He took down his own mistakenly self-assured statement: "Let's be clear about one thing. Fraudulent accusations of rape are extraordinarily rare. This graph proves it." It wasn't just "a misleading graph" by Enliven. It was a misleading assertion by a journalist. If he's done a mea culpa for that, I haven't seen it.

"Rolling Stone Never Gave the Villains of Its Gang Rape Story a Chance to Defend Themselves."

Writes Judith Shulevitz in The New Republic.

[T]he reporter, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, allowed herself to be bound by a vow she made to Jackie not to contact the alleged rapists, especially the pseudonymous Drew, said to have lured her into the room where seven men raped her. Erdely may not even have tried to identify them....

“If I had to guess what happened at UVA—and at this point, we can only guess (which is why we should not be passing judgment),” Wendy Kaminer, a civil libertarian and feminist who has written extensively on both rape and free speech on campus, emailed me, “I’d guess that the story is neither entirely fabricated nor entirely true, and, in any case, compels a real investigation by investigators with no stake in their findings.”

"And so at UVA, where social status is paramount, outing oneself as a rape victim can be a form of social suicide."

"'I don't know many people who are engrossed in the party scene and have spoken out about their sexual assaults,' says third-year student Sara Surface. After all, no one climbs the social ladder only to cast themselves back down.... Frats are often the sole option for an underage drinker looking to party, since bars are off-limits, sororities are dry and first-year students don't get many invites to apartment soirees. Instead, the kids crowd the walkways of the big, anonymous frat houses, vying for entry. 'Hot girls who are drunk always get in – it's a good idea to act drunker than you really are,' says third-year Alexandria Pinkleton, expertly clad in the UVA-after-dark uniform of a midriff-baring sleeveless top and shorts. 'Also? You have to seem very innocent and vulnerable. That's why they love first-year girls.'"

From the Rolling Stone article "A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA," via the NYT article "Rocked by Rape Report, University of Virginia to Hold Special Meeting," which says:

The Rolling Stone article detailed what appeared to be the preplanned gang rape of a student in 2012 in an upstairs room of Phi Kappa Psi house, followed by a botched response by the administration. And it alleged that rape has long been an ugly undercurrent of the social system at the university, treated as an unfortunate byproduct of the school’s party culture, whose eradication was less important than maintaining the university’s well-burnished image.

The University of Wisconsin website links to the Obama campaign website...

... and requires students to provide the campaign with their names, email address, and even phone numbers to gain access to the event, which as I discussed in this earlier post, will take place at the center of our campus and will shut down normal university activities on a Thursday (obviously, a class day).

ADDED: Here's how the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel talks about the event:

The day after Barack Obama's Wednesday night debate with Mitt Romney, he'll seek to show an image of strength by leading a rally on the university campus here - long a bastion of his support.

The event will give the president a chance to either sustain any momentum he has coming out of the debate in Denver or to change the subject if Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, scores points in the forum.

Here's the University of Wisconsin's own "Guidance on Political Campaign Activities at University of Wisconsin System Institutions."

ALSO: Back in August:

The University of Virginia has declined a request to host President Obama for a campaign rally next week, complicating his planned tour of swing-state college campuses to court younger voters...

“The use of either of the desired sites would require closing buildings adjacent to the sites for the entire day,” [university spokesman Carol Wood said]. “The cancellation of 186 classes would occur. … This would result in an extraordinary disruption of the second day of the new semester.”

Wood said the university would also have had to foot the bill for added security measures on campus and along the presidential motorcade route. Because of the school’s nonpartisan status, it would have to offer “the same accommodations and bear the same costs” for Mitt Romney, she said.

Of course, needing to offer Mitt Romney the same accommodations is not an issue here at the University of Wisconsin—Madison, because it's such a strongly left-liberal environment that he'd never ask.

UPDATE: The University itself is now openly calling it a "campaign rally": "President Barack Obama will hold a campaign rally on Bascom Hill this Thursday."