Given the anti-violence, anti-rape climate we are in, it is. [65] The Columbia Journalism Review called the apology "a grudging act of contrition". Rolling Stone falsely accused some University of Virginia students of heinous, criminal acts, and falsely depicted others as indifferent to the suffering of their classmate. [160] However, on April 2, 2016, the judge denied the motions and ordered Jackie to appear for a deposition on April 6, to be held at a secret location. "[119], Jann Wenner added that "Will Dana, the magazine's managing editor, and the editor of the article, Sean Woods, would keep their jobs." The Washington Times determined "Drew"'s "telephone" and "Blackberry" numbers were in fact "Internet phone numbers that enable the user to make calls or send SMS text messages to telephones from a computer or iPad while creating the appearance that they are coming from a real phone". He also faulted Erdely for not interviewing Jackie's alleged assailants or the three friends who tried to dissuade her from going to the police. [134] Erdely furthermore reported that Office for Civil Rights Assistant Secretary Catherine E. Lhamon called Grove's statements at the meeting "deliberate and irresponsible". [60][117], The Columbia report also found a failure in journalistic standards by either not making contact with the people they were publishing derogatory information about, or when they did, by not providing enough context for people to be able to offer a meaningful response. [47], In Erdely's story, Jackie sank into depression after the alleged rape and was holed up in her dorm room for a while. UVA President Teresa Sullivan acknowledged that the story was discredited. president admits rape story was false; keeps restrictions on fraternities", "U.Va. The Post did report, however, that Jackie appeared distraught after the rape allegedly took place. A return to sanity is called for before more wreckage occurs. "[113] Assistant editor Elisabeth Garber-Paul provided fact-checking. [142] Froma Harrop issued a call for media outlets to begin to publicly name rape accusers, explaining that "reporters and editors should expand their sensitivities to include the reputations of those accused, not always justly". CL15-479 (Charlottesville, Va. [117] The report also states that the article misled readers with quotes where attribution was unclear and used pseudonyms inappropriately as a way to address these shortcomings. Some students "actually had to leave the room while they were reading [the article] because they were so upset." [81], Journalist Caitlin Flanagan, who wrote an expos in The Atlantic titled "The Dark Power of Fraternities: A yearlong investigation of Greek houses", told On the Media that she was concerned that Erdely's article could inhibit reforms of the Greek system. We must, apparently, not give out the names of accusers. [27] A student quoted in The Daily Progress said that men at a nearby bar were "quick to yell 'insults and slurs' at the protesters as they walked by". Erdely wrote that Randall was no longer friends with Jackie and, "citing his loyalty to his own frat, declined to be interviewed". Their toppling bodies crash through a glass table unaccountably left out in the middle of the rape room. [95], On December 10, 2014, The Washington Post published an updated account of its inquiry into the Rolling Stone article. Disgraced former Rolling Stone reporter Sabrina Erdely admitted in the company's defamation trial that she failed to speak to critical figures in her story about a gang rape at the University of Virginia (UVA), who could have exposed key source Jackie Coakley as a fantastic liar, according to reports. "[88], Emily Renda, the university's project coordinator for sexual misconduct, policy and prevention declared that "Rolling Stone played adjudicator, investigator and advocate and did a slipshod job at that. [30][31] After an interview Erdely gave to Slate, in which she was questioned about the way she investigated the piece, some commentators escalated their questioning of the veracity of the article. It was absurd. The police were also unable to corroborate Jackie's allegations that two other sexual assaults had taken place at the fraternity house or that she had been assaulted and struck to the face with a bottle in a separate incident. UVA associate dean Nicole Eramo, the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, and several fraternity members later filed lawsuits against Erdely and Rolling Stone. [32][33] Erdely defended her decision not to interview the accused by saying that the contact page on the fraternity's website "was pretty outdated". The accuser told the Post that she had felt "manipulated" by Erdely, and claimed she asked Erdely not to quote her in the article, a request the journalist denied. REPORT: According to Got News, Jackie Coakley has misled several students at her high school and college about her sexual history, suggesting she may have completely fabricated rape stories and sexual abuse within her past relationships with men. [34] The Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple rejected Erdely's statement, saying that the severity of the accusations she was reporting required "every possible step to reach out and interview them, including e-mails, phone calls, certified letters, FedEx letters, UPS letters and, if all of that fails, a knock on the door. ONLY FOR REPUBLICANS. [8][9], On January 12, 2015, Charlottesville Police officials told UVA that an investigation had failed to find any evidence confirming the events in the Rolling Stone article. "[80] An editorial in the Boston Herald declared: "a fifth-grader would've done some basic fact-checking before potentially ruining men's lives" before repeating the call for the firing of Rolling Stone staff involved in the story. Wemple posited that the claims presented by the magazine were so incredible that editors should have called for further inquiry before publication. Prior to the alleged event, Jackie provided evidence of her relationship with "Drew" to her friends by supplying a phone number for "Drew", with whom Jackie's friends subsequently exchanged messages. The UVA student, identified only as "Jackie" by the magazine, had been taken to a party by a fellow student, hosted at UVA's Phi Kappa Psi fraternity during 2012. [96][97] Emily Renda, who was a University of Virginia student at the time of the alleged attack and in whom Jackie also confided, said that she had become suspicious as to the veracity of Jackie's story prior to the Rolling Stone report, commenting to a The Washington Post editor: "I don't even know what I believe. [24] . Where, we ask, are the Federal cops? Jackie Coakley bears no responsibility whatsoever for this hoax and the blame lies entirely with Rolling Stone Managazine even though she lied about nearly every single detail of her account and this may not even be the first time she's done it! Oh, the earth spun a little slower, or faster metaphors fail me when it comes to stuff like this. [1][5] The article claimed that a UVA student Jackie Coakley had been taken to a party hosted by UVA's Phi Kappa Psi fraternity by a fellow student. [18], Inquirer media columnist Michael Smerconish recounted that when he interviewed Erdely about the story on Sirius XM radio, she told him: "I talked to all of her friends, all the people that she confided in along the way." [95] "[43] Jackie forwarded messages from "Monahan", and "Monahan" exchanged messages with Jackie's friends, including sending a picture of "himself" directly to Ryan Duffin. [13][14] The UVA student, identified only as "Jackie" by the magazine, had been taken to a party by a fellow student, hosted at UVA's Phi Kappa Psi fraternity during 2012. 1) That's what "Haven Monahan" would've gotten if he had raped her and he was real. But I have a pretty good notion that she violated some serious criminal statutes; after all, participating in a fraud involving the mails (a magazine) or wire (somewhere along the line) is a Federal issue. "[40] In the aftermath, Jackie was characterized as "a really expert fabulist storyteller" by Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner in an April 5, 2015 interview. Wenner, who was reportedly "furious" at Erdely's story, declined to accept the resignation. [23][24] A few days later, President Sullivan suspended all Greek organizations until January 9, 2015. . Jackie's friends Cindy, Andy, and Randall had become suspicious as to whether Jackie's date to the fraternity party where she was allegedly raped was a real person. She is immediately tackled by one of the eight men waiting in the pitch darkness. "[108], Over the course of 4 months, the Charlottesville Police spoke to 70 people, including Jackie's friends, Phi Kappa Psi fraternity brothers, and employees at the UVA Aquatic Center, where Jackie worked. The published story glossed over the gaps in the magazine's reporting by using pseudonyms and by failing to state where important information had come from. Are you. "Drew" gives "instruction and encouragement" to the seven rapists. [117], The report concluded, "Rolling Stone's repudiation of the main narrative in "A Rape on Campus" is a story of journalistic failure that was avoidable. Someone else kneels on her hair. [128] Phi Kappa Psi's national president Scott Noble stated that they were "now pursuing serious legal action toward Rolling Stone, the author and editor, and even Jackie". As a result, our fraternity was vandalized, our members ostracized based on false information. Obviously, they're older now and we are doing an . The collateral damage included a UVa dean, as well as the entire Greek system there and, well, no one thinks a lot of Teresa Sullivan anymore either. The collateral damage included a UVa dean, as well as the entire Greek system there and, well, no one thinks a lot of Teresa Sullivan anymore either. Sullivan said: "I was plainly not prepared for what the story looked like. They came to the conclusion that they were comfortable" with not making it clear to readers that they had never contacted Ryan. After leaving the party around 3 a.m., allegedly with bruises and blood stained clothes, Jackie called her three best friends, "Andy", "Randall" and "Cindy", for support. [155], In the Columbia Journalism Review, Bill Grueskin called the story "a messthinly sourced, full of erroneous assumptions, and plagued by gaping holes in the reporting". "[29], Richard Bradley, editor-in-chief of Worth magazine, was among the first mainstream journalists to question the Rolling Stone article, in a blog entry written on November 24, 2014. Jackie's friends in the story have provided evidence since then that the man Rolling Stone calls "Drew" was electronically introduced to them as "Haven Monahan. [117], Rolling Stone fully retracted "A Rape on Campus" and removed the article from its website. [49][50] After initially refusing to answer whether Jackie had access to or created the Haven Monahan email account, on May 31, 2016, Jackie's law firm filed court papers acknowledging they had recently accessed "Haven Monahan's" e-mail account for the purpose "of confirming that documents Eramo requested for the lawsuit were no longer in Jackie's possession. In the post, he asked: "Is Vanderbilt just not as sexy a story as UVA? [60][117] However, Coco McPherson, who is in charge of Rolling Stone's fact-checking operation, said, "I one-hundred percent do not think that the policies that we have in place failed. The revelations comes in a court filing made Friday by by attorneys representing UVA dean Nicole Eramo. "Drew" eventually sent a photo of "himself" to Jackie's friends, but "the man depicted in that photograph never attended U. Va" and was a high-school classmate of Jackie. "[91], Within days following the unraveling of the Rolling Stone story, the North American Interfraternity Conference, the National Panhellenic Council, and the Fraternity and Sorority Political Action Committee demanded that the University of Virginia "immediately reinstate operations for all fraternity and sorority organizations on campus" and issue an apology to Greek students. The bride is the daughter of the late Norman and Elsie Miles Armstrong of Pickens and stepmother, the late Nell Bennett Armstrong. . We all remember the tumult at the University of Virginia five years back. [17][20], Within hours of the article's publication, UVA president Teresa Sullivan had called the governor's chief of staff and the Charlottesville police chief to start preparing a response. The Charlottesville Police Department investigation confirms that far from being callous, our staff members are diligent and devoted in supporting and caring for students. Sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu. Erdely wanted to tell the story of a campus body and university administration behaving indifferently to an unspeakable crime. [61] In the aftermath of the collapse of the story, Dana noted: "Right now, we're picking up the pieces. Attorneys for the dean, Nicole Eramo, allege that NOW, the largest feminist group in the U.S., and the lawyers for the false rape accuser, Jackie Coakley ("Jackie"), engaged in a "publicity stunt" by jointly crafting a Jan. 6, 2016 open letter criticizing Eramo for "re-victimiz[ing]" the fabulist. "[35], Fraternity officials, who rejected the published allegations, noted a number of discrepancies in the story: there was no party held on the night that Jackie was allegedly raped, no fraternity member matched the description in the story of the "ringleader" of the rape, and details about the layout of the fraternity house provided by the accuser were wrong. You all know where she is. I'm starting to expect more and more people are just simply lying about this stuff now. "[51], "Haven Monahan", as reported by T. Rees Shapiro, "ultimately appeared to be a combination of names belonging to people Jackie interacted with while in high school in Northern Virginia. [18] In Rolling Stone's version, Jackie's friends discouraged her from going to the hospital to protect her reputation and because Andy and Randall planned to rush fraternities and worried their association with Jackie might hurt their chances if she reported it. Sabrina Erdely would also continue to write for Rolling Stone. It's been over a year since Rolling Stone's big story on an alleged gang rape at the University of Virginia was exposed as a hoax, but the public has long lacked specific details about how UVA student Jackie Coakley concocted her wildly false story. NPR's Scott Simon talks to Lydia Teasley of the Negro Leagues Family Alliance about honoring baseball's past and her father Ron "Schoolboy" Teasley about his own history in the Negro Leagues. There's some reporting on the university's culture, which shouldn't be taken seriously in light of the fraud exposed by the police; there's some reporting on the university leadership's approach to the issue, which shouldn't be taken seriously in light of the fraud exposed by the police. Jackie Coakley gained infamy as the accuser at the center of a Rolling Stone story about rape at the University of Virginia that turned out to be fake, and now Coakley is under pressure from a Virginia court to reveal what she said to a reporter about the allegations. accuser an 'expert fabulist storyteller', "Rolling Stone Can't Even Apologize Right", "Will Dana, Rolling Stone's Managing Editor, to Depart", "Editor who oversaw Rolling Stone's rape story departs magazine, four months too late", "Rolling Stone Appoints a New Managing Editor", "UVA's Phi Psi Responds to Cleared Rape Allegations", "UVA Fraternity Considers Legal Action Over Rolling Stone Article", "UVA Fraternity Exploring Legal Options to Address 'Extensive Damage Caused by Rolling Stone', "Police unable to verify 'Rolling Stone' rape story", "President Teresa A. Sullivan Statement Regarding Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism Report", "U-Va. Phi Psi members speak about impact of discredited gang rape allegations", "Rolling Stone apologises for Virginia rape story", "U-Va. board leader denounces 'drive-by journalism' of Rolling Stone's rape article", "Dean Coll and Dean Coronel Ltr from AW Groves March 6, 2015-2.pdf", "Here Are Some Big Things The Rolling Stone Story About Rape At UVA Got Right", "Prepared Remarks for Presidential Address on the University", "U.Va. A hand covers her mouth. [16], According to Los Angeles Times columnist Jonah Goldberg's summary of the story, on September 28, 2012, Jackie, a freshman at UVA, had a date with a Phi Kappa Psi member "Drew", a junior at UVA. Jill Geisler in the Columbia Journalism Review reacted to Dana's statement by saying, "At a time when humility should guide a leader's comments, that quote carries the aroma of arrogance. [15] For anonymity, Erdely only used Jackie's first name and gave pseudonyms to other students discussed in the story. [114][115], The fact-checker concluded that Ryan "Randall" under pseudonym had not been interviewed, but that the article had pretended he had been. [53][54][55], Initially, Erdely stood by her story, stating: "I am convinced that it could not have been done any other way, or any better. She began by elaborately concocting electronic evidence for a dream date suitor she called Haven Monahan to entrap a freshman boy named Ryan in a unwanted romantic relationship. At the party, Jackie alleged in the article, her date led her to a bedroom where she was gang raped by several fraternity members as part of a fraternity initiation ritual. On March 23, 2015, police noted that Jackie refused to cooperate with law enforcement during the investigation. appears willing to take her to task, either in a civil suit (Rolling Stone might want to think about that) or in a criminal case, given that she perpetrated a massive fraud with some pretty serious consequences and material damages. The media commentators noted that the claims of a rape culture's existence on campuses was not supported by U.S. government statistics or other measures. New evidence submitted in an ongoing lawsuit against Rolling Stone suggest that the legal team of Jackie Coakley, the University of Virginia (UVA) student responsible for a massive gang rape hoax, has been withholding evidence from an ongoing lawsuit. "[94], On December 8, 2014, ABC News reported that the person quoted by Erdely as alleging a rape at Phi Kappa Psi had retained an attorney. [143], Several commentators hypothesized that allegations of rape against Bill Cosby, which surfaced at the same time as the publication of "A Rape on Campus", would be less damaging to the comedian as a result of the seeming collapse of the Rolling Stone story. "[116] When asked if Dana's departure was influenced by the debacle surrounding Erdely's article, the magazine's publisher responded that "many factors go into a decision like this". "[52] According to news articles covering lawsuits resulting from the Rolling Stone article, Jackie concocted the Haven Monahan persona in a catfishing scheme directed at Duffin, who had not responded to romantic overtures that Jackie had directed at him. We all remember the tumult at the University of Virginia five years back. [16] The university would not take further action unless Jackie disclosed the names of the individuals or the fraternity involved. [147][148][149] Harvey A. Silverglate in The Boston Globe referenced the Rolling Stone article in opining that the college sexual assault "scare" follows a long tradition of runaway, exaggerated social epidemics that "have ruined innocent lives and corrupted justice. In her remarks, she said, "Before the Rolling Stone story was discredited, it seemed to resonate with some people simply because it confirmed their darkest suspicions about universitiesthat administrations are corrupt; that today's students are reckless and irresponsible; that fraternities are hot-beds of deviant behavior. The march ended outside of the Phi Kappa Psi house where protesters challenged a perceived "culture of sexual assault at the University". "[105], On January 12, 2015, the University of Virginia reinstated the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity after the police investigation concluded that no incident had occurred at the fraternity.
