There are two separate controversies this week over rape stories that have been challenged by critics. Both stories involve leading U.S. universities. Unlike the Duke Lacrosse controversy, neither school is accused of wrongdoing. Rolling Stone magazine has apologized for shocking failures in reporting a sensational rape story where a woman named Jackie alleged that she was gang raped at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house, but the Washington Post reported on discrepancies in the account, including the fact that no party was held at the fraternity on the day in question. In the meantime, Lena Dunham’s story of being raped in college has been challenged as containing discrepancies and the man who has faced the most accusations is now considering a libel lawsuit against the author and director.
The Rolling Stone Controversy
Rolling Stone magazine ran the story containing detailed accounts of the rape of Jackie, but it agreed to a demand by the alleged victim not to interview with accused man. It was an astonishing lapse of journalistic principles and the magazine also failed to fully investigate the details of the alleged rape. Notably, however, the magazine issued an apology but then removed this line: “In the face of new information, there now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie’s account, and we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced.” That line was replaced with this line “These mistakes are on Rolling Stone, not on Jackie.”
The story “A Rape on Campus” by Sabrina Rubin Erdely, discussed how Jackie was a freshman in 2012 when she was forced to perform oral sex by seven men at the prestigious Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house. Various people raised questions over the reporting, including the fact that some of Jackie’s closest friends questioned her account despite Erdely’s insistence that her friends’ accounts were “consistent” with her story. These inconsistencies include Jackie’s initial claim, according to friends and the Washington Post, that she had been raped by 5 men and then later claiming it was 7. Other friends said that there was an absence of any physical injury despite the claim of the magazine that she emerged bloodied and battered. The fraternity also said that there was no party on the day identified by Jackie and that her identification of “Drew” did not match anyone at the house and that in conflict with her claims, no one at the house worked as lifeguards at the pool. One of the named attackers was from a different house and no one by his name is a member at the Phi Kappa Psi. The man named said that he never met Jackie.
The fact that the magazine agreed not to interview the accused was widely condemned. The magazine stated that “[b]ecause of the sensitive nature of Jackie’s story, we decided to honor her request not to contact the man who she claimed orchestrated the attack on her nor any of the men who she claimed participated in the attack for fear of retaliation against her.” A Rolling Stone editor claimed that it could not reach some of the men, though others including the Post were able to do so.
The Post details clearly identified individuals who were never contacted by the magazine. The Post reported that the person identified in the Rolling Stone story as “Cindy” told it that Erdely’s version of events was “completely false.”
The story of the brutal rape is still available on the Internet with the addition of the apology.
The Lena Dunham Controversy
A man named “Barry” is reportedly considering a libel lawsuit against Lena Dunham for her account of being raped at Oberlin College. She supplied details of the rape by a “mustachioed campus Republican” named Barry. Dunham’s widely acclaimed memoir, Not That Kind of Girl, included an identification of Barry as the rapist and describes him as a 19-year-old student who was known as a “poor loser” at poker with a flamboyant mustache who worked at the campus library and hosted a radio talk show. She also stated that Barry was the “campus’s resident conservative.”
The seemed to reduce the suspects to one man named Barry who was on the campus at the time and named Barry who claims that he has been hounded by the allegation that he is a rapist and that Dunham has refused to speak with him or clear his name.
Dunham’s high visibility has made the rape allegation international news and that has magnified the alleged injury to Barry. She received a $3.7 million advance for the memoir and is a leading producer, writer, and director, including her celebrated work on on the HBO series Girls.
Dunham not only claims that Barry raped her but gives highly graphic details of the encounter. She also quotes a friend who said that after she “once her friend Julia woke up the morning after sex with Barry, and the wall was spattered with blood. Spattered, she said, “like a crime scene.” But he was nice and took her for the morning-after pill and named the baby they weren’t having.”
The conservative website Breitbart has investigated the claims and identified what it says are clear discrepancies. The Washington Post blog has said that those discrepancies offer a solid basis for a libel action.
It is difficult to judge the merits of the claim. However, a libel lawsuit could force a response from Dunham and discovery into her account. Such an action could be based on not just libel but false light. The latter tort is defined
in Restatement (Second) of Torts, Sec. 652E as:
(1) the portrayal must be found to be “highly offensive to a reasonable person” and
(2) the actor had knowledge of or acted in reckless disregard as to the falsity of the publicized matter and the false light in which the other would be placed.
The risk for Dunham is that there may be enough details — and alleged discrepancies — to get such a case to discovery and possibly trial. Discovery could result in depositions of an array of acquaintances and Dunham herself under oath. “Barry” has reportedly set up a donation site to pay for “costs and related fees associated with defending Barry’s reputation including, but not limited to, potentially pursuing Lena Dunham and Penguin Random House for harm caused to Barry’s reputation from the publication and sale of Ms. Dunham’s memoir.”
Heck, yes, let’s let some young men hang in the wind while lefties twiddle over exculpatory information. Sure, let’s not rush things, heck, they probably did some other bad things, so this just makes things even.
What a joke the left has become. Once upon a time they battled for swift justice for the accused. That was so long ago. Back when they presumed innocence of the accused, and demanded facts.
“once they battled for swift justice for the accused” but now because we have said let’s not rush to judgment but the “conservatives here have, we are vilified for sayin, hey how about waiting for proof rather then media information which you have already said (you meaning many here not you in particular) is untrustworthy. So if someone says maybe the women have legitimate complaints the person is a leftie but if we say the men are innocent without facts we are a conservative and correct. Really????
The first curious thought and hint, to any reporter or intelligent person, should have been when Dunham purposely put in the word “conservative.” She was and is a phony trying to get attention and the emotionally charged liberals are buying into her ploy.
Regardless of the negligence of the newspapers, there is one of two crimes committed here. If a someone rapes another person, they should be imprisoned for a minimum of ten years. If someone falsely accuses another of raping them the sentence should be the same. If newspapers or any part of the media contribute by negligently supporting the false accuser, they should be open to massive financial penalties through the law. Most of the rest of all this is bs.
issac – I think that if reporters misreport crimes like this they should be culpuble to the full extent of the law. Whatever the penalty for rape is in Virginia, the reporter should spend that amount of time in prison, in this case, a men’s prisonn.
@zedalis: Have you actually read the WaPo articles?
Michael haz :The “Jackie” story about gang rape at UVA is made up. It is a fiction.”
It is amusing to see such unsubstantiated certainty even as this might possibly exclude you from jury duty.
Ms texas: So your saying it is relevant because it’s opinion?
No. I’m not saying that. I’m saying it should be weighed as heavily as anyone elses opinion (or not) in a matter where none of us have been conclusively presented with the facts.
The rush to discredit this woman, “Jackie” has been worth noting. We don’t know the full story, yet the frat boys are given more sympathy and consideration by commenters on righty blogs. That is also worth noting. Why also are police shooting victims torn apart before even an indictment? I’ve seen more sympathy for frat boys than for the 12 year old kid who was shot down in less than two seconds by police?
Inga – good way to twist the narrative away from the real story. Let’s get back to women who lie about being raped.
The “Jackie” story about gang rape at UVA is made up. It is a fiction. The fraternity in the story had no event on the evening of the alleged rape. It had no class of pledges that semester. The individual who was suggested to be the ring leader was never a member of that fraternity, nor ever present at the fraternity house. “Jackie’s” support group is now backing away from her story. All the previous information was verified by the Washington Post, hardly a bastion of pro-male thinking.
That young man, and the others who were painted with the foul paint of that story should sue Rolling Stone for every penny they can get.
The UVA faculty members who immediately jumped onto the story and condemned the alleged rapists should lose their jobs.
But it’s still okay to lie about men, right? It’s still okay to subject them to humiliation, to legal threat, to the possibility of spending a part of their lives in prison for things they did not do, just to promote a hateful narrative from a few women on the far left fringes of feminism.
How utterly horrible.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but I beleive Dunhams book was released on September 30th, 2014 and her HBO show ‘GIRLS’ had finished broadcasting it’s third season at that point. However, if she ends up making money from her book and if her rapists identity is factually identified and her account is proven spurious, she will have, at that point, committed career suicide and should pay dearly.
Zadalis ~ So your saying it is relevant because it’s opinion? It’s still not factual, it’s hearsay either way! So what it the opinion of the writer trying to accomplish? If it doesn’t mean anything in the courts . . . yet, then why is she saying it? T convince an audience? For what purpose? To back up a so called rape claim that cannot be proven and only spoken by a women who may or may not be a real person. It’s blatant defamation of character. If I were that fraternity or university, I’d sue this Emily Clark too. Think she’ll put her money where her mouth is? I doubt it. When the lawsuits are filed, Emily so called Clark will disappear.
Steve H – best post!
Who is making too big a deal out of this? What is an appropriate level of commentary?
A woman made millions of dollars off a memoir and interviewed with an internationally known magazine that falsely accused a man of orchestrating a brutal rape that looked like a blood spattered crime scene. We’re all commenting that the media has been frequently remiss lately on getting crucial facts correct. And we suspect this man Barry was targeted because he was a prominent conservative.
Shall we just let it go without comment?
Again, you would think this would be a great unifier. And yet there are those who still want to argue about what everyone should agree on – lying about rape and making a boatload of cash off those lies is wrong. The injuries to his personal and professional life should be redressed.
Period.
@Karen S ~ “This is making me really distrust the media. Are they getting lazy or just complacent?”
The media is an accomplice. . . .
That would be true if the young man had been charged, a jury impaneled, the trial begun and this was a courtroom rather than an opinion blog. Until that point, incidental third party testimony is every bit as valid as any observer may choose to believe.
@Karen S ~ and Lena Dunham did exploit her rape story for benefit, it got her a show called ‘Girls’, because her book was a best seller, even though it was full of incestuous molestation of her much younger sister. Hollywood is a sick sick place to glorify a molester like Dunham and self induced rape victim, who conveniently pinned it on a ‘conservative’.
Some people just do not think, but for the pity poor me, made up victim. Yes, it’s stunts like this that make it hard for the real victims of rape.
This reminds me of that recent viral video of the apparently drunk woman who was approached by all sorts of guys on the street trying to get her to go home with them. It was all over the internet that these guys were wannabe rapists. Well, it turns out it was all staged with actors. The actress came forward outraged because she had no idea the producers were going to release the video as supposedly real. She said the guys were all really nice actors who are now unjustly vilified as rapists when they were just reading lines and playing a role.
This is making me really distrust the media. Are they getting lazy or just complacent?
And Msjettexas, you are right. The media portrays men badly unless they rob a store, assault a police officer, and get shot, and then somehow they become folk heroes.
Dust Bunny Queen >>> Hear, hear, agree with you. The only caveat in my agreement is that I believe the ‘agenda’ IS selling papers and getting webpage clicks.
Journalists are supposed to question everything, regardless of the gender of the accuser or the nature of the crime.
This makes me sick. Rape is a very serious crime, and women who make up these stories for their own sick reasons cast doubt on real victims of rape. For shame.
What did she think, why not blame an innocent Conservative because they’re all evil anyway?
I hope he sues her for every penny she made for that libelous memoir, plus punitive damages. Being hounded by a savage rape story, which appears to be completely fabricated, can have life long consequences for Barry. It can have personal and professional ramifications. What if the girl of his dreams, his soul mate, won’t go out with him because he has this infamous story? Does he not deserve a life partner because he is a conservative? Or what about jobs for which he was overlooked, sponsors for his show?
This was an evil thing to do.
Elaine, how quickly they demonized the potential victim. We don’t have the full story, yet the destruction of the potential victim is in full force. Just like the smearing of police shooting victims, that always comes first it seems.
How does this help women who have been raped feel more secure about reporting their rape?
Inga – considering that there was no party at the fraternity house the night that she claims, I think we have to start doubting everything she says.