(Commentary) So, dear Rolling Stone managing editor Will Dana , a month has passed since you published the dramatic, and now questioned, tale of gang rape at a fraternity at the University of Virginia. You have told us you are now reporting out the story to find out what really happened, and that you will tell us what you have found as soon as possible. And so you should. The brutal account that landed with such force deserves a thorough vetting. Unfortunately, as you now undoubtedly know, the time to do that was before you published, not afterward .
The blinding bias and bumbling sensationalism that drew the media swarm on Grounds a month ago succeeded later in pointing to truths accidentally. Perhaps most salient among these regards universities’ uncertainty about getting to the facts of the matter in cases of alleged sexual violence. Advocacy groups emphasize neutrality in presenting options to victims, who frequently opt against turning to authorities over fear of reliving the trauma as they are compelled to recount it. We recognize this and sympathize. But there are vivid dangers when universities are tugged into the process by ...
(Commentary) The University of Virginia finds itself in a position of potential leadership on the important issues of campus rape and student safety through the serendipity of suffering the slings of atrociously bad journalism.
The University of Virginia has finally done what it should have done at the beginning: Last week, the rector of the school’s governing board announced that the independent counsel’s report into how the university handles allegations of sexual assault will be made public. This sets up a potentially clarifying moment, not just for that school, but others, too — one that tuition-paying parents, students and the public in general ought to be asking. How often do college administrators hear about alleged sexual assault on campus and not report it to police?
Over the weary course of the past month, the University of Virginia has been subject to withering criticism from all corners, including this one. Some judgment was rushed based on misconceptions and outright untruths. But much of the backlash was deserved, and much of it rightly flowed to the highest reaches of university hierarchy, including Rector George Keith Martin and President Teresa A. Sullivan. Those two were sluggish to respond amid the firestorm over the school’s handling of sexual assault claims and the explosive and now-discredited allegations published by Rolling Stone.
In the weeks before the University of Virginia was made the subject of a scathing magazine piece about campus rape, the school’s public-relations team raised issues about an alleged incident this year that, they said, didn’t happen, according to documents released today.
In a 44-minute recorded interview Oct. 2 with University of Virginia President Teresa A. Sullivan, the author of Rolling Stone’s shattered UVa expose cited “gang rape” allegations but disclosed none of the details of the account that sparked a national uproar. The Daily Progress on Friday obtained an audio recording of the interview along with more than 250 pages of emails. The material sheds further light on Rolling Stone’s reporting, what university officials knew and when and their response as the story spread.
A Rolling Stone reporter and a fact checker for the magazine never sought a reaction from officials at the University of Virginia about an alleged gang rape at a campus fraternity in 2012, according to an extensive exchange of e-mails between the journalists and the university. The e-mails, obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request, give no indication that writer Sabrina Rubin Erdely told the university that she was pursuing a story about Jackie, a U-Va. freshman who said she was raped by seven other students at a Phi Kappa Psi party two years ago.
Newly released emails show University of Virginia officials telling a Rolling Stone journalist that a sexual assault incident she was reporting on was “objectively false.” The pushback was part of a largely collegial set of interactions in the months leading up to publication of the magazine’s highly flawed Nov. 19 story “A Rape on Campus.”
While saying they remain determined to combat sexual assault, leaders of the University of Virginia on Friday publicly pushed back against the damage done to its reputation by a discredited account of a gang rape at a fraternity house. On Friday, the university’s rector, George Keith Martin, opened a meeting of its governing Board of Visitors with a broadside at the news media.
Over the weary course of the past month, the University of Virginia has been subject to withering criticism from all corners, including this one.Some judgment was rushed based on misconceptions and outright untruths. But much of the backlash was deserved, and much of it rightly flowed to the highest reaches of university hierarchy, including Rector George Keith Martin and President Teresa A. Sullivan. Those two were sluggish to respond amid the firestorm over the school’s handling of sexual assault claims and the explosive and now-discredited allegations published by Rolling Stone.
In a 44-minute recorded interview Oct. 2 with University of Virginia President Teresa A. Sullivan, the author of Rolling Stone’s shattered UVa expose cited “gang rape” allegations but disclosed none of the details of the account that sparked a national uproar. Asked by reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely about “three separate allegations of gang rapes” at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, Sullivan replied that “we do have a fraternity under investigation and … we have spoken with a national chapter of that fraternity.” The Daily Progress on Friday obtaine...
In the weeks before the University of Virginia was made the subject of a scathing magazine piece about campus rape, the school’s public-relations team raised issues about an alleged incident this year that, they said, didn’t happen, according to documents released today. What was not discussed, though, was the shocking 2012 fraternity-house gang rape that Rolling Stone magazine focused on in a now-discredited November piece. U.Va. officials declined to discuss the documents, emailed to ABC News today in response to a public-records request. And Rolling Stone also had no comment. At...
A Rolling Stone fact-checker didn't ask University of Virginia officials via email about an alleged 2012 gang rape described in an explosive and now unraveling article published last month.Under a Freedom of Information Act request, The Huffington Post obtained 104 pages of email correspondence between UVA officials and Rolling Stone contributing editor Sabrina Rubin Erdely, who wrote the story, and assistant editor Elisabeth Garber-Paul, who fact-checked it. Much of the correspondence involves scheduling of interviews with university President Teresa Sullivan and other officials. But the ...
Perhaps the most glaring part of the 104 pages of emails sent between Rolling Stone magazine and University of Virginia administrators and staffers is what is not discussed in the documents, which were released Friday in response to a Freedom of Information Act request submitted by The Daily Caller and other outlets. The emails, sent between various UVA employees and Rolling Stone reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely and fact-checker Elisabeth Garber-Paul, contain no indication that the article’s central story — a claim made by a student named Jackie that she had been gang-raped in 2012 b...
The University of Virginia released 104 pages of correspondence related to Rolling Stone’s article about rape at the University of Virginia. Almost all of the correspondence is an attempt to hash out interview times or to clarify particulars related to the process of handling claims about sexual assault. Even so, here are the five most surprising things revealed by the emails between Rolling Stone reporter Sabrina R. Erdely, fact checker Elisabeth Garber-Paul and staff at the University of Virginia.
The critical role that vast tropical forests like Brazil’s Amazon play in suppressing climate change is well-known: They store huge quantities of carbon, acting as “carbon sinks.” “Deforestation is about much more than carbon dioxide. Forests regulate the climate in many ways and storing CO2 is just one of them,” said its author, Deborah Lawrence, a professor of environmental science at the University of Virginia. “What this study shows is that there are additional, independent effects of deforestation on climate.”
It’s over. Serial released the 12th and final broadcast of its first series yesterday, and unsurprisingly, reporter Sarah Koenig offered no bombshells. If you wanted to know for sure whether Adnan Syed really killed Hae Min Lee in 1999, you were disappointed. Serial has ended, but Syed’s case has not; an appeal is scheduled to be considered in early 2015, and The Innocence Project at the University of Virginia has taken on his case and is attempting to have DNA found on Lee’s body tested now, something that wasn’t done 15 years ago.
We’re told to wash our hands, get plenty of rest, and avoid public coughers and sneezers in order to keep the common cold at bay, but new research suggests another line of defense: hugs. A team of researchers, including the University of Virginia Health Sciences Center’s Ronald B. Turner, tested whether hugs act as a form of social support, protecting stressed people from getting sick. They found that greater social support and more frequent hugs protected people from the increased susceptibility to infection associated with being stressed and resulted in less severe illness sympto...
The University of Virginia a capella group, The Virginia Gentlemen, recently helped spread holiday cheer to Cavalier alumni in a special virtual Christmas card emailed by President Teresa Sullivan.