Last night, the Washington Post placed on their website an AP story that made me laugh. Not in the "haha, that's funny" sort of way, but in that "You've got to be f—ing kidding me" sort of way. Here's the headline:
Ah. So it's going to be that kind of story, is it? Well, maybe I'm being hasty. Let's read Geoff Mulvihill's lede and see—
The retracted Rolling Stone article about an apparently fictional gang rape at the University of Virginia is a blemish on an otherwise illustrious career for the journalist who wrote it.
Jesus Christ.
The piece is a remarkable work, managing to more or less gloss over the numerous failures in Erdely's most famous piece of reporting (Richard Bradley covers them, at length, here, if you're interested) while also torching some rather odd straw men:
The Columbia report did not support what some critics have speculated — that Erdely made it up.
Well, okay. Someone somewhere probably speculated that at some time. But I don't think any of the more serious critics of her work did. At least, I don't remember any such accusations; a more careful/thorough reporter might've, you know, actually cited some such allegations, as Ace suggested on Twitter. No time for that, though! There are testimonials to give!
Stephen Fried, a magazine writer and author who hired Erdely, said he supports her. He usually has her speak to a magazine-writing class he teaches at Columbia, but with the investigation of her work being conducted there, this year’s appearance was scrapped. He still wants to have her in next year, though.
"I have nothing but admiration for Sabrina’s work," Fried said Monday. "I have nothing but admiration for how she has handled all of this."
Said Larry Platt, who was the top editor at Philadelphia Magazine when Erdely worked there, in an interview with the AP in December: "As an editor, if I had to pick a reporter to nail a story based on their reporting chops, Sabrina would have been right up there. She’s just dogged."
It's good to know that Erdely will not only still be writing for Rolling Stone going forward, she'll also still be lecturing journalism students about how to be great at #journalisming. Hooray!
The most shocking omission from Mulvihill's piece, however, is the complete and utter failure to even mention that previous pieces by Erdely about rape have fallen under suspicion. Here's Ralph Cipriano, in Newsweek, writing about another Erdely creation that has long raised red flags:
But 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 credibilityfor 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.
Over at Red State, Leon Wolf notes the myriad holes in a story Erdely wrote about the supposed rape of a Naval NCO:
RedState has now spoken with multiple members of Navy command who were either personally involved in the investigation of Ms. Blumer’s allegations or who had firsthand knowledge of the facts of this case. For obvious reasons, their names have been withheld to protect their identities. However, it seems clear that, if Ms. Erdely’s story concerning Petty Officer Blumer were subjected to the same scrutiny as the UVA story, it might well come unraveled just as quickly.
The key fact from these conversations is this: Everyone I spoke to in connection with this investigation was crystal clear that at no point did Sabrina Erdely or Rolling Stone ever contact them whatsoever, even to ask for background information. This is exactly the same lapse in journalistic standards that doomed the UVA story and ultimately led to its retraction. The fact that it occurred in this story is indication of a systemic problem with Rolling Stone and Sabrina Erdely’s reporting, not of a single lapse in judgment.
The revelations in these two pieces prompted the Washington Examiner's Ashe Schow to ask, "Has the Rolling Stone gang-rape author EVER corroborated a story?"
It's a good question! Maybe one of the kids in Stephen Fried's class can ask it of her when she shows up to teach them about how to be journalists.