Allow me to offer some unsolicited advice to Rolling Stone and the journalistic community at large
begs
Benny Huang regarding the utterly debunked “Rape on Campus” article that failed to meet the most basic standards of journalism and for which no one will actually lose their job. (Thanks for the link,
Instapundit.)
This abominable piece might never have
been published if Rolling Stone had made some room on their staff for a
conservative voice.
The problem with [Sabrina Rubin] Erdely’s article is that it appealed to her
confirmation bias. “Jackie,” the anonymous “victim” of a fraternity
house gang rape that never happened,
told Erdely a story which Erdely
was inclined to believe because it reinforced her notions about typical
rape scenarios. Erdely admitted that she had gone in search of a campus
rape story, asking around for anyone who had been victimized and would
consent to being the subject of an article. It was Erdely’s intention,
in her own words, to demonstrate the “pervasive culture of sexual
harassment/rape culture” on college campuses. Lo and behold, she found
what she was looking for.
Unfortunately for the brothers of Phi Kappa Psi, a story about a rape
on campus was not, in and of itself, enough to satisfy Erdely’s hunger.
According to Alex Pinkleton, a friend of “Jackie’s” and a victim
advocate at the University of Virginia (UVA), “I just didn’t like that
it seems like she [Erdely] was looking for a story that had to be in a
fraternity.”
Had to be in a fraternity? Why? Would it have been any less
horrific if it had happened, say, at a conference of College Democrats?
No, but Rolling Stone would not have covered it if it had.
It should be noted here that Erdely had done at least two rape
stories prior to “Jackie’s”—one concerning the US Navy and the other a
Catholic parish in Philadelphia. No one at Rolling Stone apparently
found it curious that Erdely stumbled upon festering rape scandals at
the three institutions that together comprise the trifecta of left-wing
hate objects—organized religion, the US military, and that bastion of
male privilege, fraternities.
[In all three stories,] Healthy skepticism was put on hold.
Erdely had so much faith in “Jackie’s” story that she even agreed not to
contact the accused for their side of the story. She apparently didn’t
think anything was fishy about a source who demanded anonymity and
didn’t want anyone to take the most basic measures to corroborate her
story. Erdely then submitted a gut-wrenching article to her editor who
didn’t ask too many probing questions.
Neither did the fact-checking department, for Pete’s sake.
The negligent party here is Coco McPherson, Rolling Stone’s chief
fact-checker. From Columbia’s report: “McPherson read the final draft.
This was a provocative, complex story heavily reliant on a single
source. She said later that she had faith in everyone involved and
didn’t see the need to raise any issues with the editors.”
She had faith in everyone involved. That’s code for “the
story felt right.” It felt right because McPherson shared Erdely’s
prejudices that fraternities are hives of sexual violence and Women
Don’t Lie™.
Couldn’t they have gotten someone else to fact-check the piece? Someone who might, I don’t know, have checked some of the facts?
I think a conservative might have done a better job of it, though not
because conservatives don’t also suffer from confirmation bias. Everyone
does. That being said, it doesn’t require a person with no blind spots
at all to point out the holes in this story; it merely requires someone
who doesn’t share the author’s.
Yet no one fitting that description could be found at Rolling Stone
or most other publications for that matter—the Atlantic, the New Yorker,
the New York Times, etc. And that’s the way they like it. The people
who run big name media outlets, with few exceptions, have the same
ideological bent. Holding all the most fashionable opinions is the price
of admission to this hermetically sealed world. It actively resists
change to the extent that even the embarrassing “Rape on Campus” debacle
won’t precipitate a shakeup at Rolling Stone or even a reevaluation of
policies and practices.
