Richard Bradley, who originally challenged the now retracted Rolling Stone “campus rape culture” story, has penned a damning response to the Columbia Journalism School’s review of the article. In his lengthy analysis, Bradley concludes that Rolling Stone and Sabrina Rubin Erderly are not just guilty of “terrible” journalism, but of deliberately lying.
Throughout his response, Bradley details the ways in which Erderly and the Rolling Stone editors failed to follow the most basic practices of sound journalism, but he also notes a number of times that faulty journalism is not the only thing at work here. Deliberate dishonesty also played a heavy role. A couple of excerpts:
On Erderly’s claim that she started to get suspicious only after publication of the article when she asked “Jackie” to give her “Drew’s” last name and she fudged on the spelling:
It’s incomprehensible to me that there could be red flags like this and only now, post-publication, when Jackie misspells Drew’s last name, does her spider sense start to tingle. […] I think Erdely told this story to try to look like she was being responsible and thorough, even if only after the fact. My bet is that she was probably reacting to something—post-publication phone calls from skeptics? my blog post? the reporting of T. Rees Shapiro or Hanna Rosin?—that rattled her, and she was starting to panic, and trying to confirm what she should have confirmed (or not) before the article was published.
Which is another way of saying that I don’t think Jackie is the only liar in this matter.
On Erderly’s “deeply dishonest” portrayal of university officials:
According to the Coll report, two sources in the story publicly claimed that they did not say that Erdely attributes to them.
Allen W. Groves, the University dean of students, and Nicole Eramo, an assistant dean of students, separately wrote to the authors of this report that the story’s account of their actions was inaccurate. […]
Those were enormously damning quotes when they were published, essential to Erdely’s argument, and at the time, they struck me as remarkable. A university employee would say these things? That didn’t feel right. I believe Eramo; at the least, Erdely misquoted her; at the worst, Erdely made up quotes.
On the “significant discrepancies” between Erderly’s version of the editing process and editor Sean Woods’:
There are significant discrepancies between Erdely’s recollection of the editing process and those of her editor, Sean Woods; these are not easily explained by differing interpretations or foggy memories. At least one of these people is lying.
Bradley argues that the “one true thing” in Jackie’s story is that it “disproves Sabrina Rubin Erderly’s story” that UVA was heartlessly indifferent to sexual assault allegations. The response from the university to the allegations, its offer of counseling, multiple attempts from the dean to reach out to Jackie, the initial support from the rape victim group, and the offering of legal action via university channels reveals anything but a university that turns its back on rape victims.
As to the falsely accused fraternity’s lawsuit against Rolling Stone, Bradley said that while he’s not a lawyer, Erdely’s admission that she went out to find a story that confirmed her “campus rape culture” narrative might actually be evidence against her:
I am not a lawyer, so I don’t know if Phi Psi has a strong case against Erdely and Rolling Stone. But if the famed “actual malice” test—you are intending to defame someone—is relevant, it seems to me that Erdely has just given the fraternity some explicit evidence of such malice. Even if her “victim” was a liar, Erdely has no doubt: Frat boys are rapists.
Read Bradley’s full post here.
