I see your point, though Judith Miller is a bad example of what you mean. Miller spent 3 months in jail. That was for the Valerie Plame episode rather than the cooked-up WMD intel — but I'd say Miller has "done her time," so to speak, in a more significant sense than Erdely ever will.

"Is Erdely a personal friend of yours?"

It seems like Merlan is willing to go down with the Erdely ship. I don't know why. It's easier to fight sexual assault from the vantage of a floating ship, not a sinking one.

I'm not seeing what difference any of this makes. The UVa administration sensed that Erdely was was a predatory reporter whose tendency was to damage all she touched in her quest for the most sensational story possible. They were right. What difference does it make whether the fact-checking happened by email or by…

"obviously the bigger issue is how the institution treats these crimes"

Exactly. Merlan seems to be suggesting here that the university was "bad" for not giving Erdely personal access to private information about sexual assault cases on campus. Other Jezebel editors seem to believe this as well, which is why the lead graphic for this article is "We Can't Say More" with the UVa lawn…

No dissenting views are published as blog posts (or "articles" if we're calling them that), though. I think it's strange that Jezebel doesn't employ a single writer capable of voicing a more moderate interpretation of the UVa/Erdely fracas, now that Anna Merlan and Sam Biddle's interpretations have proven to be…

The whole premise of SmugHarbor's comment, and other comments here, that only "Fedora-wearing mansplainers" are capable of seeing that this has been a terrible fiasco which is entirely the fault of Erdely, Rolling Stone, and the media environment which gave them oxygen, is offensive.

Anna Merlan's posts about UVa have been cross-posted by its parent site Gawker throughout the entirety of this story. In other words, it's by design (of Merlan's employers, and probably of Merlan herself), that "guys like me" (whatever that's supposed to mean) are following her blog these days.

I'm not sure what point Merlan is trying to make here. Given that Erdely has made a mess of the lives of every UVA student she talked to, isn't UVA quite vindicated in not wanting to talk with her?

"Fedora Avengers" is an amazing phrase. I don't quite understand what it means. Are people who think the university acted pretty responsibly and Erdely acted very irresponsibly and damaged an important cause "Fedora Avengers"?

Fedora Avenger!! Your words make MAD >:(

It would be good to know which country or countries' version of academia this study pertains to. I assume the study was conducted only among US universities, but clicking on the links I'm having trouble finding this out for sure. A comparison of different national contexts (and policies) would be very useful.