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> the lies they wanted to ear We don't actually know if they were lies. Certainly they weren't vetted as facts sufficiently for basic journalistic standards. A

> the lies they wanted to ear We don't actually know if they were lies. Certainly they weren't vetted as facts sufficiently for basic journalistic standards. And they probably wouldn't hold up in court. But that doesn't mean they are lies. Lots of truths wouldn't hold up in court, or be printable in a publication of repute.

blfr 10y ago
No, they were lies to the point where named people supposedly involved ("Haven Monahan") don't exist. It was a hoax. Sabrina Erdeley has herself written that she went out looking for a particular story. This is among the reasons why she is liable. In the US the standard for that is much, much higher than just failing to hold up in court. It takes actual malice.
- hga 10y ago
  "Actual malice" is the high bar required for lawsuits made by "public figures" after NYT v. Sullivan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._Sullivan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._Sullivan), which the Dean was inexplicitly declared to be by the trial judge. Which make the resulting verdict all the more impressive.
- erikpukinskis 10y ago
  Just because she gave a wrong name, you can't deduce that the entirety of her story is false. That doesn't follow logically. It can be littered with inconsistencies, that doesn't prove the absence of a rape. She could be (and probably is) a pathological liar. That doesn't mean she is incapable of being raped. It only means her accounts shouldn't be published and she's not a reliable criminal witness.
  - blfr 10y ago
    No, the story is false because it consists of fictional events. Nothing in it adds up: not the people (Haven Monahan, the frat), not the timeline. The events (sex on broken glass) are prima facie unbelievable. It was torn to pieces by WaPo, CJR, and the Charlottesville police. There is no doubt that it was a hoax. If she has ever been raped, it was a completely different event from the one described by the Rolling Stone. On the other hand, I don't think that Jackie is a pathological liar. She tried to catfish a guy[1] and get a little sympathy from college admins. She started off like a fairly reasonable liar (for a teenager) and got caught up in the whole thing. She's definitely at fault but much less than the Rolling Stone which went on a rampage defaming people left and right and instigating a mob[2]. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/01/08/catfishing-over-love-interest-might-have-spurred-u-va-gang-rape-debacle/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/01/0... [2] http://www.nbc29.com/story/27439468/uva-fraternity-house-vandalized http://www.nbc29.com/story/27439468/uva-fraternity-house-van...
    - ptaipale 10y ago
      The comments to [2] are quite sad.
    - erikpukinskis 10y ago
      Why does the presence of fictional events mean that there are zero factual events? Couldn't it be a mixture of both?
Lazare 10y ago
The female student who was the focus of the article ("Jackie") spun a very specific story that involved specific acts, places, people, and times. We now know that, to a first approximation, everything she said was an outright lie. There were other stories she could have told about different people, places, times, and events that would have been true, and it's possible one of the versions of the story she told other people was true or mostly true. It's entirely possible that Jackie was, in fact, raped. But the specific story Jackie told Erdely was not true, and the specific rape Erdely wrote about did not occur. We know this due to the excellent investigative reporting of the Washington Post and others, to the damning report made by the CJR, and now to to this jury verdict which determined that the story was untrue, that Rolling Stone knew (or should have known) that it was untrue, and that Rolling Stone acted with reckless disregard for the truth in publishing the story. > Lots of truths wouldn't hold up in court, or be printable in a publication of repute. That's true, but not relevant. Merely publishing something you think is true but couldn't prove in a court of law doesn't put you at risk of losing a libel suit.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- erikpukinskis 10y ago
  I've read The Washington Post articles carefully multiple times and they never say the rapes didn't happen. They say things like "Key elements of Rolling Stone’s U-Va. gang rape allegations in doubt". They point out inconsistencies in her story. But they never come to the conclusion you did: that there was no rape and the story was entirely fabricated. In fact the editor says the opposite: “We told her we wouldn’t name her, in large part because we thought she was a sex-assault victim at that time and we don’t name victims of sexual assault without their permission,” said Mike Semel, The Post’s Metro editor. “That agreement for anonymity needs to be considered until we are absolutely certain that there was no assault at all.” In the OP for this thread, the WaPo only says "aspects of Jackie’s account were not true". I have yet to see a single piece of evidence presented by anyone that no rape occurred. As for the jury verdict this week, they only ruled that Rolling Stone knowingly omitted facts that would've painted the administration in a better light. They did not rule on the facts of the rape at all. You are doing the same thing the Rolling Stone writers did: presenting something as fact when the evidence is contradictory.

blfr 10y ago

No, they were lies to the point where named people supposedly involved ("Haven Monahan") don't exist. It was a hoax. Sabrina Erdeley has herself written that she went out looking for a particular story. This is among the reasons why she is liable. In the US the standard for that is much, much higher than just failing to hold up in court. It takes actual malice.

hga 10y ago
"Actual malice" is the high bar required for lawsuits made by "public figures" after NYT v. Sullivan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._Sullivan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._Sullivan), which the Dean was inexplicitly declared to be by the trial judge. Which make the resulting verdict all the more impressive.
erikpukinskis 10y ago
Just because she gave a wrong name, you can't deduce that the entirety of her story is false. That doesn't follow logically. It can be littered with inconsistencies, that doesn't prove the absence of a rape. She could be (and probably is) a pathological liar. That doesn't mean she is incapable of being raped. It only means her accounts shouldn't be published and she's not a reliable criminal witness.
- blfr 10y ago
  No, the story is false because it consists of fictional events. Nothing in it adds up: not the people (Haven Monahan, the frat), not the timeline. The events (sex on broken glass) are prima facie unbelievable. It was torn to pieces by WaPo, CJR, and the Charlottesville police. There is no doubt that it was a hoax. If she has ever been raped, it was a completely different event from the one described by the Rolling Stone. On the other hand, I don't think that Jackie is a pathological liar. She tried to catfish a guy[1] and get a little sympathy from college admins. She started off like a fairly reasonable liar (for a teenager) and got caught up in the whole thing. She's definitely at fault but much less than the Rolling Stone which went on a rampage defaming people left and right and instigating a mob[2]. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/01/08/catfishing-over-love-interest-might-have-spurred-u-va-gang-rape-debacle/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/01/0... [2] http://www.nbc29.com/story/27439468/uva-fraternity-house-vandalized http://www.nbc29.com/story/27439468/uva-fraternity-house-van...
  - ptaipale 10y ago
    The comments to [2] are quite sad.
  - erikpukinskis 10y ago
    Why does the presence of fictional events mean that there are zero factual events? Couldn't it be a mixture of both?

Lazare 10y ago

The female student who was the focus of the article ("Jackie") spun a very specific story that involved specific acts, places, people, and times. We now know that, to a first approximation, everything she said was an outright lie. There were other stories she could have told about different people, places, times, and events that would have been true, and it's possible one of the versions of the story she told other people was true or mostly true. It's entirely possible that Jackie was, in fact, raped. But the specific story Jackie told Erdely was not true, and the specific rape Erdely wrote about did not occur. We know this due to the excellent investigative reporting of the Washington Post and others, to the damning report made by the CJR, and now to to this jury verdict which determined that the story was untrue, that Rolling Stone knew (or should have known) that it was untrue, and that Rolling Stone acted with reckless disregard for the truth in publishing the story. > Lots of truths wouldn't hold up in court, or be printable in a publication of repute. That's true, but not relevant. Merely publishing something you think is true but couldn't prove in a court of law doesn't put you at risk of losing a libel suit.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
erikpukinskis 10y ago
I've read The Washington Post articles carefully multiple times and they never say the rapes didn't happen. They say things like "Key elements of Rolling Stone’s U-Va. gang rape allegations in doubt". They point out inconsistencies in her story. But they never come to the conclusion you did: that there was no rape and the story was entirely fabricated. In fact the editor says the opposite: “We told her we wouldn’t name her, in large part because we thought she was a sex-assault victim at that time and we don’t name victims of sexual assault without their permission,” said Mike Semel, The Post’s Metro editor. “That agreement for anonymity needs to be considered until we are absolutely certain that there was no assault at all.” In the OP for this thread, the WaPo only says "aspects of Jackie’s account were not true". I have yet to see a single piece of evidence presented by anyone that no rape occurred. As for the jury verdict this week, they only ruled that Rolling Stone knowingly omitted facts that would've painted the administration in a better light. They did not rule on the facts of the rape at all. You are doing the same thing the Rolling Stone writers did: presenting something as fact when the evidence is contradictory.