Tag Archives: gang rape

media news

Rolling Stone gets sued … good!

I spent my professional life in journalism. I’m a fierce advocate for publications’ rights to print the truth and more often than not I have looked skeptically at individuals or institutions that have sued publications for libel or defamation.

Not this time.

A University of Virginia administrator has sued Rolling Stone magazine for $7.5 million, contending the magazine defamed her in a bogus story about a gang rape on the campus.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/university-of-virginia-associate-dean-sues-rolling-stone-over-gang-rape-story/ar-BBjG6jp

I hope Nicole Eramo wins.

She is UVa’s top administrator who deals with sexual assaults. The magazine portrayed her as someone more interested in protecting the school’s reputation than in protecting a woman named “Jackie,” who alleged she was raped by students at a frat house party. Well, the party never occurred, “Jackie” wasn’t raped, Rolling Stone retracted the story — and the reporter and her editors responsible for publishing the false account still have their jobs!

“I am filing this defamation lawsuit to set the record straight — and to hold the magazine and the author of the article accountable for their actions in a way they have refused to do themselves,” Eramo said in a statement.

The retraction gives this lawsuit some traction. Publications rarely retract a story, taking back what they published and in effect admitting that it was wrong. Rolling Stone admitted the story was phony, but still haven’t disciplined the principals involved in publishing it.

Nicole Eramo’s lawsuit needs to make a statement that the magazine did something grievously wrong in its so-called “reporting” of a crime that didn’t occur.

 

national news

Big story takes bigger hit

Rolling Stone isn’t known as a publication that makes stories up.

Thus, the magazine editors’ announcement that they were retracting a story about an alleged gang rape at the University of Virginia is a very big deal.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/12/05/rolling-stone-retracts-uva-story/19954293/

It’s the retraction that makes the story so interesting, to me at least.

A woman named “Jackie” reported that she had been raped by several men at a fraternity house party at the UVa campus in Charlottesville. Then her credibility came into question.

Her story didn’t add up. There was no party the night she said one occurred, the magazine found out.

Then came the announcement that the magazine was taking back what it reported.

A retraction is a very big deal in journalism.

Publications issue “corrections” all the time when they get facts wrong. They issue “clarifications” when the facts aren’t printed as clearly as they should be printed. A retraction? Well, that means the publication no longer stands by the story or the reporter who wrote it … or even the line editors who edited the story, looking for holes in it or places that need to be fleshed out.

Meanwhile, a university’s reputation has been tarnished. Students stood before the nation and apologized for what they described as a “culture of rape” at UVa.

Well, it now turns out that one student at the university has exhibited a “culture of lying.”