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Man-haters,
the falsity of rape culture, and the attack on truth
As it becomes increasingly clear that the Rolling Stone reporting on an
alleged gang rape at the University of Virginia was not mere hyperbole
but actually deliberate deception by the reporter, Sabrina Rubin
Erdely, and seemingly the management of the magazine one of the most
disturbing things to come to light is the way the bogus “rape culture”
crisis on college campuses is being used to turn American jurisprudence
on its head.
First off, let’s clear away the undergrowth. There is no “rape culture”
out there. Rape and sexual assault do happen. There is no doubt of
that. But a “rape culture” exists only in the minds of rabidly
misandrist feminists, like, for instance, Amanda Marcotte, who loathe
men ....
Bad
Journalism, Even If It Were True
Rolling Stone’s Sabrina Rubin Erdely, who has written
for
everybody from GQ to Mother Jones, is a practitioner of the Red Queen
school of journalism: execution first, trial after. She went out
looking for a gonzo campus-rape story and, when she could not find a
real one, found a woman willing to supply her with a fake one, an
obviously suspicious tale of a vicious gang rape over several hours at
the hands of UVA fraternity members, complete with dialog right out of
an after-school special — “Don’t you want to be a brother?” “Her
reputation will be shot for the next four years” — and inconsistencies
that require the active suspension of disbelief. Whether Erdely knew
that the story was fake is not entirely beside the point, but ignorance
is not an excuse, either — not for her, and not for her editors. She
had a positive obligation not to publish the story she had, because the
story was insufficient on any responsible journalistic grounds. It was
rubbish, she knew it, and Rolling Stone managing editor Will Dana
damned sure should have known it. This is stuff they teach to freshmen
reporters at college newspapers. ...
This story, while not flying under my radar, just didn't
interest me. After a cursory glance I filed it under "Duke
Lacrosse Rape." But it's become impossible to get away from.
I posted samples above, but I recommend Bad
Journalism, Even If It Were True because it examines the J-School
culture, and names names.
When
I was a student at the University of Texas, I served as managing editor
of our school paper, the (all hail!) Daily Texan, as a consequence of
which I did something that no self-respecting journalist should do: I
took a journalism class, media law and ethics, which was a requirement
for serving as M.E. For my sins, I drew as my professor the daft
left-wing windbag Robert Jensen, whose first lecture consisted of a
screed against the presence of sports sections in newspapers, which
Professor Jensen considered an ethical problem in that they contributed
what he believed to be an unhealthy competitiveness in our society.
Naturally, I never went to Professor Jensen’s class again, and got my
media law and ethics from the superbMike Quinn, who also had some
interesting observations about JFK conspiracy theories. (Quinn had
covered the assassination for the Dallas Morning News.) I learned some
useful and practical things, one of which was how to go about
preventing myself from publishing lies fed to me by others, a useful
skill if you spend time around politicians and political activists. [Full]
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