We were treated at the end of this week with Rolling Stone basically throwing itself on the sword and apologizing over its story of a rape by fraternity men at the University of Virginia.
The problem was not just that it may have been a false allegation. That would be bad enough. The problem was with the reason Rolling Stone gave for not doing adequate investigation of the claim.
In their apology, Rolling Stone said the following:
“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,” Will Dana, the magazine’s managing editor, wrote on its website.
“We were trying to be sensitive to the unfair shame and humiliation many women feel after a sexual assault and now regret the decision to not contact the alleged assaulters to get their account,” the post said. “We are taking this seriously and apologize to anyone who was affected by the story.”
Think of that. Not “we made a mistake as we investigated” but “we didn’t investigate or interview others possibly concerned because we did not want to offend someone making such an allegation”. So what the facts may have been are irrelevant to the ‘journalists’ involved, what was most important was hueing to this media narrative of “all rape allegations are true”, and “evil patriarchy that isn’t sensitive enough or covers it up”.
In the wake of Rolling Stone’s admission and the blowback from that, several media chains tried to reinforce this narrative, including the WaPo. Their original story actually said “No Matter What Jackie Said, We Should Automatically Believe Rape Claims”, as we showed in our picture above. They later adjusted the headline to “generally” instead of “automatically”. But the intent was still clear. Damn the facts, whatever they may be.
As Jim Geraghty of National Review notes, this concern for women only applies when it doesn’t conflict with their greater liberal narrative or their own interests:
Rolling Stone has always objected to those who glamorize the mix of sex and violence. pic.twitter.com/i4nepleF5U
— jimgeraghty (@jimgeraghty) December 5, 2014
Zerlina Maxwell, the person who wrote the WaPo story to which we referred, also made clear how her politics influence her view of rape allegations.
Zerlina Maxwell's concerns about rape end at her political ideology. pic.twitter.com/9EfUOiicgi
— S.M (@redsteeze) December 6, 2014
This desire to ‘fit the narrative’ and not question is not restricted to rape claims. We’ve seen this in other cases, most recently in the Ferguson case, where there was a failure not only to investigate, but not to even report readily available facts that went counter to the false narrative “unarmed black teenager” just walking down the street, shot in the back with his hands up.
Multiple stories on the case introduced it with the “unarmed black teenager killed by the white cop’, automatically setting that dynamic, no mention of Michael Brown allegedly attacking Darren Wilson, no mention that there was no indication that race played any part in the case whatever. Facts once again were incidental.
As media, old, new or whatever we call ourselves, we have an obligation to search for the facts and the truth. Everyone has an opinion and that opinion may inform your story. But if that opinion not only ignores facts, but ceases to even look for them or consciously covers them up, then it ceases to be news and becomes fantasy, or perhaps worse, propaganda.
We are living in an age of propaganda. Hopefully, we see our way clear to the other side.
HT: Popehat for WaPo pic