The horrifying truth seems to be that Jackie fabricated her attack in order to garner sympathy from a guy she had a crush on. And then Sabrina Rubin Erdely was so thrilled to have such a perfect story that she agreed not to do any serious research as a journalist.

It will be a good thing if, out of this mess, can come more of an embracing of critical thinking over emotional response. I think a lot of people, including Anna Merlan, responded with emotion rather than actual thinking when this piece was first questioned. “But, but, but, it’s about WOMEN and RAPE and THE CAUSE,…

You know, I think it’s bad because someone reported something that wasn’t true. That’s a problem whether or not it gives ammunition to my adversaries or harms my allies, or whatever.

I was originally confused as to why you said “blaming the victims of sexual assault.” To be clear, “she” and “her” in my comment refer to Erdely, not “Jackie,” which I would have thought was obvious as Jackie is not, to the best of anyone’s knowledge, employed by anyone.

You know what is also lazy journalism? Calling people “idiots” for critically reading an article with glaringly obvious flaws.

I understand that you don’t agree with me. I simply don’t see why.

The story stunk to high heaven. There was—on the face of the article—no attempt to contact the alleged perpetrator. (Good journalistic practice is to say, “I attempted to reach X, and he declined,” or whatever the facts are.) That Jezebel jumped to a conclusion despite obvious and glaring journalistic flaws in the…

There are some important people missing from Erdley’s apology:

I don’t know. There seems to have been too many experienced, adult professionals involved this whole process—from writing to editing to printing—to have let such shoddy reporting be published. They appear to be overtaken by the needs of the narrative, not truth.

Shockingly (or not), Wenner SPECIFICALLY noted that Erdely WOULD indeed be writing for RS again. “Nothing wrong here, folks!” Unfuckingbelievable.

Erdely has never had a job at Rolling Stone — she is a freelancer, and this was a commissioned piece. But Wenner noted that she would continue to write for the magazine. We’ll see if this is actually a true statement, but it’s amazing to me (while also not being truly surprising) that they would ever pay a dime for a…

If you believe that a victim was a victim, you are automatically believing that the person they’ve accused is guilty. They are the same thing.

Jackie’s a pure fabricator and a malignant liar. Nothing happened to her. These are the facts of the case, based on follow-up by the Washington Post: She liked a boy who didn’t like her back. So she made up a boyfriend—using the photo of an old classmate and the name of another—and bought a burner phone, and texted…

What you’re advancing here is a pretty plain “guilty until proven innocent” standard for cases of rape. If that’s what you believe, fine, but don’t be surprised when other people disagree. And it doesn’t make them “rape apologist assholes.” It just puts them in line with one of the key tenets of our justice system.

True crime is rarely “interesting.”

Interesting. I assumed the “(everywhere)“ meant college campuses everywhere, not everywhere in general. This is why basic grammatical accuracy is actually relevant — it helps alleviate ambiguity and facilitate discussion. Nevertheless I will humbly accept your advice and continue to work on my reading comprehension of…

She’s on record for saying this is *exactly* the type of story she wanted to publish.

Yeah, but she wanted it to be shocking and feed into every preconceived notion that people believe.

Um, mine is pretty fucking dark.

A person holding a microphone in this way always, immediately, strongly reminds me of a blow job, and it will never not be funny to me. That’s all I came here to say.