Excellent comment there:
The Washington Post reporter Paul Farhi in a bizarre statement writes , “ To be sure, Rolling Stone was under no obligation to prove that Jackie’s account was true. “
UM- YES THEY WERE. How would Mr. Farhi like to have been accused of rape in a national magazine without being contacted to see if it was true.
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The article refers to a specific frat, a specific time period, and a specific university. This is an allegation of a serious crime harming the reputation of EVERY member of that fraternity going back years. The implication of the story is that this was standard practice for this frat and all frat pledges to rape girls as part of some sick initiation.
Of course, the liberal kneejerks suspended ALL Greek activities on campus based on the article without beforehand conducting their own investigation as to the veracity of the claims. Not unlike the Duke admins who suspended the Lacrosse team based on lies.
UVA was substantially tarnished as covering up the gang rape. The fraternity. All of the frat members.
Big, big lawsuit heading RS way. Likely should put the rag into bankruptcy, which it deserves.
Hope it’ll be a warning to head by other magazines. Publish lies and you can go down with one false story.
They didn’t have to PROVE it was true, but they needed to VERIFY the truth of it. Maybe what they found wouldn’t stand up in a court, but now it’s blown up in their faces.
Apparently the legal department at the Washington Post is no better than the one at Wenner Media. To call this statement bizarre is enormously charitable: when you accuse a specific person or persons of committing a specific heinous crime at a specific time and place, that is defamation per se, and there is no First Amendment protection against defamation per se. All you've got as a defense in that case is the truth, and you had better have some.
Rolling Stone doesn't. Wenner Media is toast.
“To be sure, Rolling Stone was under no obligation to prove that Jackie’s account was true. “
And this is why journalism majors make less money than your average burger-flipper, and have less respect and upward mobility too boot. Bonus: the burger guy isn’t holding back his 70K of student loan debt from his girlfriend.
Rolling Stone was occasionally capable of some interesting journalism, but that has been going south recently. This should steepen the decline. When the last of the burn-outs take the dirt nap and the wannabe hipsters grow up and get bored with it, the magazine’s finished.