Author of Discredited Rolling Stone UVA Rape Story Will Apologize Tonight
Columbia's report will be released at 8 p.m.


Sabrina Rubin Erdely, the author of Rolling Stone's much-maligned story about a gang rape at the University of Virginia, plans to formally apologize for her mistakes, according to CNN's Brian Stetler.
Erdely stopped responding to questions and interview requests at the beginning of December, as reporters began to call into question the details of the story. (Richard Bradley and I were the first to do so.) Since then, the story has completely collapsed and was essentially confirmed as false by The Washington Post and the Charlottesville police department.
Erdely plans to break her silence tonight, according to The Daily Caller:
But now, according to CNN's Brian Stelter, Erdely plans to make a public apology nearly four months after Rolling Stone's retraction. Her apology appears to be timed to coincide with the release of a Columbia School of Journalism report on Rolling Stone's journalistic failings.
"Once the story began to unravel… Erdely disappeared. She has been invisible ever since," Stetler said on CNN's "Reliable Sources." "But my sources say that she will break her silence tonight, and she will be issuing a statement and will be formally apologizing for her errors."
As The Daily Caller notes, the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism will also release its report on what went wrong tonight at 8 p.m. EDT. A press conference will be held tomorrow. Stay tuned for Reason's continuing coverage of the issue.
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Why? It's been like 5 months, all this is going to do is keep her failures in the news, and it's so belated as to be meaningless.
This is a 'I hope this saves my career' apology, which means it's an utterly disingenuous attempt to save herself after almost ruining the lives of several innocent people.
If she actually cared about the people she was hurting, she would have done her job the first time, rather than purposefully defaming people with no evidence that they'd done anything wrong. You don't get to aid in mass libeling and then say 'woops, my bad!' and expect it to save your career.
I don't expect it to be much of a true apology. Someone who wrote a piece like that in the first place is usually icapable of admitting error.
It's gonna be more of a "the devil (rape crisis deniers) made me do it" style of apology. She probably never would have written the story in the first place if it wasn't for the callus disregard of the rape crisis in the country.
or maybe a martyr style
If writing this article brought focus on the real issue of the rape crisis I will gladly suffer the accusations of the deniers.
I don't think she's going to go that route, but I do fully suspect Amanda Marcotte and Jessica Valente to declare her some sort of martyr in the next few days.
Valente still seriously believes Jackie may have been raped but 'just got some details wrong.'
You know, some details like the fact that her alleged rapist doesn't exist, no rape took place at the frat she blamed, she invented a person and used fake email addresses to make another boy jealous, no party took place at the frat the day the rape allegedly took place, the dean reacted to Jackie's accusations in a way completely different than how Jackie claimed, etc.
Minor quibbles, surely, which shouldn't call into question her general claim of gang rape.
There are literally no lies someone can tell which would make Valente or Marcotte believe she made the whole thing up. They're too delusional.
I'm not sure that's true. If "Jackie" had a history of protesting outside abortion clinics, and claimed she was raped by a bunch of guys from the local Students for Choice chapter, I think feminists would suddenly rediscover their appreciation for "innocent until proven guilty."
Valente still seriously believes Jackie may have been raped but 'just got some details wrong.'
Yeah...that whole "not being raped" thing.....that was a big one!
Well the alleged victim is some sort of a super hero woman anyway.
According to her she was gang raped on top of broken glass for hours and never suffered so much as a scratch.
"There are literally no lies someone can tell which would make Valente or Marcotte believe she made the whole thing up. They're too delusional."
She is obviously suffering from PTSD and just got a few details mixed up.
/derp
SJWs are uniformly fact-resistant. AP has some fun quotes from "anti-violence activist" and "student wellness commissioner" Savannah Badalich from UCLA on this subject:
Even when her story is proven to be false, including MADE-UP FUCKING PEOPLE WHO DO NOT EVEN EXIST FFS, the rapeless rape victim is still a victim. Sweet tapdancing Christ.
You could almost say, what difference, at this point, does it make...
For Cavaliers, time moves pretty slowly. We're happy to hear this apology, even if it's late. We'll see if it's sincere. I hope it is.
It hasn't affected Nancy Grace's career a bit.
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"You don't get to aid in mass libeling and then say 'woops, my bad!' and expect it to save your career."
In all fairness, isnt that what a retraction is?
I notice this story has but one tag: Rape.
Not Media Narrative, Truthiness, Fucking Axe-Grinding Reporters or Global Warming?
I noticed the same thing. "Bad journalism" or, as that is often redundant, especially with regard to issues of interest to Reason, "Journalism" should be a tag.
Needs also: feminism, social justice.
National Journal runs an article on how utterly screwed Chicago is.
Well, I'm sure Rahm's idea of a $13 minimum wage will stop the decline in demand for low skill jobs.
Brilliant plan.
Perhaps the kindest, most altruistic thing we could do for the poorer, unskilled in Chicago is to send them luggage.
I miss Sam.
When I was a kid, there were all of those telemercials about the starving children in Ethiopia. My father always said, "Those people don't need money and cattle. They need U-Haul trucks."
I repeated that to my fifth grade teacher, once. Ha. What a laugh that was.
Just be careful your kid doesn't repeat it to his fifth-grade teacher. CPS will be looking into his home life to make sure he's not being exposed to any other thought crimes.
Sam Kinison agrees. "MOVE TOWARD THE FOOD!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0q4o58pKwA
Uh yeah, because rather than trying to turn the place they live in into a better place, it's always best to move to an established country, drive down labor prices there, and/or mooch off that government's welfare system
Because moving away from a place where people are dying like flies is such a totally weird suggestion.
THEY LIVE IN A FUCKING DESERT!!!!! NOTHING GROWS OUT THERE!!!
"Uh yeah, because rather than trying to turn the place they live in into a better place, it's always best to move to an established country, drive down labor prices there, and/or mooch off that government's welfare system"
Why do you hate undocumented workers in the US ?
Brown Racist !
And the really sad thing - Rahm is vastly better than his opponent. If Chuy wins (which looks extremely unlikely, thank god), we might as well rename the place South Detroit.
Not going with "the worse, the better" strategy, eh?
In March 2012, a report of the city's main planning group warned that "the demand for low-skilled workers continues to decrease" and that "in the years ahead, the demand for high-skilled employees will increase twice as fast the demand for lower-skilled workers."
Thank god the federal government has stepped in to help! Importing another herd of non-english speaking, minimal skills possessing central Americans should fix things right up!
You heretic! Every true libertarian knows that the laws of supply and demand don't apply to low-end labor, especially in a welfare state!
It doesn't matter who's running shit in Chiraq, they're doomed.
Keep it quiet by funding an aldermen's slush fund, it's the Chicago way.
Well then let's turn them into skilled labor by paying for their community college african studies degrees...
I'll be curious to see if this is an apology-apology or something else:
"I'm sorry your bourgeous demand for cis-patriarchal "truth" has blinded you to your privilege and lets you ignore the epidemic of rape and abuse on college campuses."
I was wondering about that. Like when that cop apologized for his actions in the death of an unarmed victim: I'm sorry I put my fellow officers through this inquiry bullshit.
Goddamnit RC- I was about to say the same exact thing.
R C Dean|4.5.15 @ 1:18PM|#
"I'll be curious to see if this is an apology-apology or something else:"
Maybe this something else:
" This is the 37th time I have spoken to you from this office, where so many decisions have been made that shaped the history of this Nation. Each time I have done so to discuss with you some matter that I believe affected the national interest.
In all the decisions I have made in my public life, I have always tried to do what was best for the Nation."
(link too long; search Nixon resignation speech)
Just about then, I turned off the radio and got back to work.
Damn this living on the left coast. This was my first thought too.
"I'm sorry if my naive trust in people caused any misunderstandings. I've let down my college professors, and my parents, and for that I will always feel regret. What I do, is a very difficult and responsible job, and for a moment I was not at my best. A hard lesson was learned here - by everyone - and we can only hope that we all go forward, made a little better people by it."
i'm looking forward to a lot of "mistakes were made" passive voice.
what is this fixation on apologies as if they are some magic elixir for bad acts?
I'll accept them if they're sincere and fully confessional. It's nice to have consequences at the end somewhere, but in this day and age of othering, trigger warnings and safe spaces all as a result of an entire generation who were bathed in Baby Mozart and played t-ball and didn't keep score, I think it's the best we're going to get.
If she sincerely apologizes and then leaves journalism forever to go work in a mail room somewhere in penance for her actions, I'll believe it's serious and that she should be allowed to get on with her life.
If she says she's totally sorry but hopes you read her next article in Rolling Stone which she's working on right now, I'll be slightly less forgiving.
leaves journalism forever to go work in a mail room somewhere in penance
I find that offensive. I work in a mailroom.
It wasn't meant to be offensive, I picked a random job.
Sorry if you felt like I was demeaning you. That's an actual apology, unlike what we can expect from Erdely.
Oh, I was ripping on Erdely. It's just a part-time university job.
I was thinking an appropriate job for her would be cleaning the shit and vomit off the street of fraternity row at UVA for the rest of her life.
And Dweebston, I preemptively apologize if you also do that part time.
Not yet, but if I'm ever caught having fabricated a story or reporting one based on flimsy, inexistent evidence, I'm recommend it.
"Sorry if you felt like I was demeaning you. "
Nope. That's not a real apology Hun Killer. That apology still throws the fault back to the one being apologized to. It's your fault you feel that way.
I'm sorry that "my actions made you feel" like I was demeaning you would be more apologetic.
Sorry " if you felt" lays the action back on the other.
And even not so bad acts.
It would be refreshing, and interesting to see the reaction, to hear someone like Memories Pizza say, "Yes, I said it, I meant it, it's my 1A right, all you fucking Nazis fuck off and die in a fire."
I'd pay a dollar to see it.
In Erdely's case, however, Seppuku is more appropriate.
Allowing someone to commit Seppuku was a great honor. I think in her case, she would have a newly forged sword tested on her.
"I'm sorry I'm not sorry."
Where do the UVA fraternity members go to get their reputations back?
to the Raymond Donovan School of Transportation?
The same store the Duke Lacross Team shops at.
I don't accept this apology because she actively went out searching for this story and was the one who pushed the 'victim' here to participate. She was unethical across the board. She is nothing more than a crusading SJW who deserves to reap what she has sewn.
When the hell does their kind show forgiveness to people who merely express thought crimes?
Question: If Robby Soave/Steve Sailer/Richard Bradley had turned out to be wrong with their questions and concerns about the story and a rape actually HAD occurred, would Jezebel, Valente, or Sabrina Erdely have forgiven those heretics for daring to question inconsistencies in the story?
Nope - they would have been evil patriarchs fighting against rape victims, even though they wouldn't have actually done anything wrong.
So as far as I'm concerned, Erdely, Jezebel, et al. can go fuck themselves because they shouldn't expect any sympathy from me when they'd never extend it to others.
Can you imagine discourse if Jezebel was the standard?
Also, the rugby chant story suggests they may be beginning to learn from the examples of others and from their own mistakes and step back a little from hysterical, mindless rhetoric.
Some of those comments are incredible. The story itself surprised me in that it wasn't batshit leftist unlike everything else I've ever read there.
Reading the comments, nearly every person who questioned the accusation against the Rugby team had to qualify it in some way, though. Pretty funny to watch. Then you had people going back and forth over whether the Rugby players approaching the delicate feminist in a public dining hall asking to talk about the situation was threatening.
They are being parody at this point.
*beyond
Regardless of whether the rugby team did anything wrong or not, is not the question. They clearly, as members of the patriarchy, do nothing all day but think of rape. Even if they aren't rapists, they are clearly rapey.
Or how about this comment, when someone tried to say this doesn't imply any of the rugby players were rapists:
"Yes, but it also doesn't preclude the fact that organised sports on campus can and often are hotbeds of rape culture."
"When the hell does their kind show forgiveness to people who merely express thought crimes?"
I remember cringing while watching Paula Dean cry true tears while literally begging for forgiveness for using the dreaded "N WORD" 20 years earlier.
I felt so sorry for her and talked back to the TV saying, "Don't do it Paula because it;s exactly what they want and their is no way they will forgive you even if you don't need forgiveness.
Their whole motivation was to see this old white woman crying and sobbing and begging for forgiveness and then the heartless unforgiving intolerent SJWs cut her throat and watched her bleed out like the sadistic SOBs they truely are.
You know what though? Even an apology of questionable sincerity will put her ahead of John Feinstein and all the other scumbags in the JournoList who pronounced the Duke lacrosse players guilty. Not a single one of then has ever apologized to this day for that travesty.
Disagree - as bad as the Duke witch burners were, they weren't the originating source of the travesty. Erdely is this case's Nifong. And as with Nifong, an apology can't possibly be sincere when it's coming from the actor who deliberately railroaded others for personal gain.
Even if you believe that Erdely was not deliberately malicious but rather just grossly negligent, her negligence was so outrageous as to be unforgivable. It's like leaving a bear trap on a grade school playground - no one should be willing to accept your apology after a kid gets his leg snapped off, even if you genuinely regret it.
Oh great, so now my hobby of leaving bear traps on playgrounds is being demonized? Don't other me!
When you go back to Erdley's interview with Slate, it seems pretty obvious that she already knows there's a problem with the "factuality" of the story well before she got called out on it.
She straight up ducks answering direct "yes/no" questions about the identity of the Perpetrators like, 'do you know who they are' and 'have you talked to them'....and then even when the interviewer finally demands, "well, I mean, you know they exist?" ...she gives this, "Oh, yeah sure, but of course... I mean... its clear people know who they are...." again ducking having personal knowledge and pretending the question is whether *her sources* know the identities of the perpetrators.
This self-aware, lawyerly type of fact-avoidance goes on... and leaves you the impression that she's trying to repeatedly signal to her interviewer to stop "dwelling on these details" and "lets all just focus on the themes we agree on"
This was never about a journalist who "made mistakes". This was about a narrative that was more important than "facts"
She keeps deflecting whether she knows the guys, or interviewed the guys, by talking about the fraternity and the fact that these people go on to work in 'Wall Street, and are sons of politicians'. Are they guilty, did you talk to them? "They will go on to work in Wall Street", was the answer. She may as well have said "I don't have to talk to them I know they are scumbags because of where they might get a job in the future."
But then who's going to protect children from grizzly bears?
So, what's the over-under on it being a complete 'non-apology apology' where she pleas to being duped in the name of a 'good cause' and how she's sorry that anyone misread her intentions?
I cannot improve on my original thoughts =
""The Columbia Graduate School of Journalism will hold a press conference on Monday, April 6, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time announcing the results of its investigation into narrative they've come up with to replace Rolling Stone's now debunked University of Virginia gang rape story with something that allows liberals to pretend they retain a shred of integrity""
Its all about pretending that they weren't caught *lying*
"...mistakes were made, we all learned a great deal, and let us not forget *RAPE RAPE RAPE RAPE RAPE*...and not dwell on things like our dishonesty, cowardice, and willingness to engage in professional misconduct for the sake of political narrative... because its time to move on...."
It wasn't fraud fraud!
GLOBAL WARMING SOLVES MURDER
We should make a T.V. show where global warming, along with his sassy female sidekick, solves crimes by drying up various aquifers and reservoirs. I smell a hit.
Do they ever hook up?
Only to save the friendship
Author of Discredited Rolling Stone UVA Rape Story Will Apologize Tonight
Geez. Just apologize. Or don't. This feels like a bad cross between kabuki theater and communist show trials where it's all a big look-at-me production and everything is planned down to the "if anyone was offended by my shitty work" wording.
The apology will be something like one sentence about 'Well, I was wrong this time, but..' and the rest will be a lecture about how rape culture is still the most serious and well even more serious than we thought problem today, well, in all of history! And now it's been proved that not 4 or 5 women are raped, but all women! Because the patriarchy!
Do you really expect anything else out of one of these loons?
I guarantee you there will be some line roughly equating to the following...
""....and while I regret the mistakes i made, my greatest regret is that this event will be used as an excuse to belittle or understate the significance of our National Rape Crisis, and distract our attention from real victims...who i really really really give a shit about, I swear.... even though I passed up a dozen real ones and latched onto some crazy liar instead...because it involved white frat boys...."
ok ,maybe not the last part. But there is no doubt that in the course of her "apology" that she'll find a way to rhetorically pat herself on the back for her "bravery" in dealing with this issue, and the "risks she took as a *believer*, because VICTIMS!!! ALWAYS BELIEVE!!""....
... basically, pretend to be a fucking martyr rather than a crook who got caught.
At least she'll always have Checkers.
Serious question: Athleta or Title Nine?
catalogs that is...
catalogs that is...
The Gap or smug?
Will she apologize for her other stories? Most (all?) of her histrionic 'non-fiction' pieces have been thoroughly discredited. Particularly egregious was the Philadelphia piece, of course, again larded with hysterical claims of a sexual nature since disproven. Her web page yet trumpets her awards for this malfeasance and provides links to her other discredited work. Read up Soave. Do some research. She's a fraud and this is just the latest crime against journalism. Reason has done some great work on this...Matt, please reassign this case to the original writer.
And she would have gotten away with it without those pesky old rapey libertarians.
File under = Groan-Inducing Headlines
Another Rape Story Has Major Holes
"the factual discrepancies in Jackie's story are dwarfed by the factual discrepancies in Billy's story that was published in the September 15, 2011 issue of Rolling Stone. I know, because I'm a former reporter for the Los Angeles Times and Philadelphia Inquirer who's been documenting Billy's astonishing lack of credibility for the past two years on bigtrial.net.
The holes in Jackie's story began with the frat house not having any event scheduled the night of the alleged attack. Then, Jackie claimed the alleged ringleader of the attack was a frat member who worked as a lifeguard at the campus pool. But when the fraternity checked the employee roster at the campus pool, no member of the frat worked there. In addition, another alleged attacker accused by Jackie turned out to belong to a different frat.
Billy Doe can rack up three factual discrepancies on his way to the bathroom."
Really? Holes? Bathroom?.... was it always this way?
Poor cop has memory problems.
How about some sympathy for this hero in blue.
I hope he gets cancer.
Poor cancer.
It's an Easter Miracle!
WTF? Who apologizes for making up rape stories on Easter? Show some tact, you stupid dumb cunt.
It's her cross to bear.
Her day of atonement.
Why, she's practically rising from the dead.
As a refresher I hopped over the Jezebel to reread the original "Robbie is an Idiot" story, and holy crap I had forgotten how terrible that site and its commenters are. And since their commenting system makes H&R's look competent I can't even look to see if anyone had commented recently since the retraction by RS.
You must be a hardcore masochist. I can just barely make myself read the comments at the New York Times to make it hurt just good enough; Jezebel though is like twisting your nipples clean off.
Now, revleft, that's just pure entertainment.
For the complete story of the now infamous Rolling Stone article on the alleged U-VA gang rape, its fallout, the media firestorm of criticism, the apology, the final police investigation report, and the demagoguery of those radical feminists who refuse to apologize for propagating the myth of "rape culture" and the meme of "victim culture", see: Yellow Journalism and the Meme of "Rape Culture" - Rolling Stone and U-VA Gang Rape
For the backstory on Sabrina Rubin Erdely's entire journalism career built on fictions and half-truths, see: Journalistic Fabulism and Ideological Agendas ? the Sabrina Rubin Erdely Story
Pimping aint easy
But it's necessary
This pretty much demolishes Erdeley's earlier story about military rape.
I see GILMORE already posted about her questionable priest abuse story, and there are questions about her "gangster princess of Beverly Hills" story as well.
content aside....
the "series of tweets"-as-critical-essay format?
i fear for the future.
Yeah, I know, but it works, for that at least. I couldn't find a better debunking.
Erdley, as well as fact-checkers and editors involved in commissioning and publishing the story, will apparently not be disciplined at all.
According to the source, Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner considers the shame of being at the center of a national scandal over the story to be punishment enough.
(Links ain't working, it's in the Daily Mail).
Nixon must rolling in his grave: 'Why did I resign? I could have just said the shame was punishment enough."
Sounds like a brilliant standard to be applied to all criminal cases. "Sure I stabbed him 77 times, but someone unfriended me on Facebook about it, so I am properly punished. Bye now."
BTW, the "report" is here (at least Rolling Stone will get moar clicks from this debacle)
I only read the "summary and conclusions" bit at the end... but from what i can tell? its a bunch of horseshit hand-washing, basically giving Rolling Stone a pass, and coating the whole thing in a layer of "how can we do better?" rather than any serious questions about publishing *serious criminal allegations* without actually verifying any facts.
They seem to want to make it seem like there was so much 'buck-passing' that 'no one was really individually responsible'. "I thought someone else checked on that?!" And apparently that makes it "less awful" than, say, jayson blair just making shit up.
That's the genius of the bureaucratically orchestrated atrocity. Because in the end, it's really nobody's fault, right?
There's the discussion of Campus Rape Being an Important Issue, how investigating a woman's ("survivor's") claims is helpful to the woman herself, etc. There's also some acknowledgement of "confirmation bias" when the RS people thought UVa was covering up a rape.
Of course they acknowledge the obvious - that RS really, really messed up.
They also seem to say that the media can't figure out whether a rape actually happened, so it should limit itself to investigating how the university responds to the allegations.
Wait, let me get the specific quote...
Here we go:
"*Holding institutions to account.* Given the difficulties, journalists are rarely in a position to prove guilt or innocence in rape. "The real value of what we do as journalists is analyzing the response of the institutions to the accusation," Bogdanich said. This approach can also make it easier to persuade both victims and perpetrators to talk. Lombardi said the women she interviewed were willing to help because the story was about how the system worked or didn't work. The accused, on the other hand, was often open to talking about perceived failings of the adjudication process."
"This rape may or may not have happened. In either case, you'll be shocked to learn how the university covered it up!"
Is this Reason, or am I reading The Onion ?
I can't believe Erdely has not been cut loose by RS. Seriously. What little journalistic credibility they have should now be completely gone. Erdely gets fired, as does the editor who approved her story. If they don't do that they're saying 'hey we wrote a lie, we got lots of hits off it, not bad'.
Why all the outrage over this story? These kinds of false and unsubstantiated allegations occur on a daily basis in acrimonious custody battles. It is a standard weapon, allegations of abuse, used by parents in their efforts to get sole custody of their children.
The shame is that not only does it do enormous harm to the children caught in the middle, but devalues the experience of individuals who have actually experienced abuse.
Shame on all systems that should be looking for the truth!