Rolling Stone responded to critics by having
an outside review of its journalistic practices on the UVa rape
story, while USAToday revealed its blindspot by not recognizing it
and the entire media committed the very same mistakes in the Penn State cover
up story.
By
Ray Blehar
An independent
report published by the Columbia University Graduate School of
Journalism made it clear that Rolling Stone writer Sabrina
Rubin Erdely and her editors ignored basic journalism rules in
publishing a story that alleged a gang rape of a co-ed by University of
Virginia fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi. The summary of Columbia's report
stated:
“Rolling Stone’s
repudiation of the main narrative in “A Rape on Campus” is a story of
journalistic failure that was avoidable. The failure encompassed reporting,
editing, editorial supervision and fact-checking. The magazine set aside or
rationalized as unnecessary essential practices of reporting that, if pursued,
would likely have led the magazine’s editors to reconsider publishing Jackie’s
narrative so prominently, if at all. 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.
In late March, after a
four-month investigation, the Charlottesville, Va., police department said
that it had “exhausted all investigative leads” and had concluded, “There is no
substantive basis to support the account alleged in the Rolling
Stone article.”
The story’s blowup
comes as another shock to journalism’s credibility amid head-swiveling change
in the media industry. The particulars of Rolling Stone’s failure make
clear the need for a revitalized consensus in newsrooms old and new about what
best journalistic practices entail, at an operating-manual-level of detail.”
Give Rolling Stone credit for
taking the initiative to have the Columbia school review what happened and
admitting its mistakes. However, some of Rolling Stone's critics,
most notably USAToday, similarly didn't let facts stand in the way
of drawing an incorrect parallel between the UVa and Duke cases.
Apparently, the word "rape" seems to cloud the judgment of journalists
across the country.
USAToday Wrongly Compares Duke and UVa
USAToday, who criticized the
Rolling Stone's journalistic failings, deserves criticism for its own
journalistic failings in stating the cause of the Duke lacrosse scandal to the UVa rape
case were the same. While there were many commonalities between the two cases,
including a false allegation of rape and rushes to judgment by those involved,
its conclusion that pre-conceived notions were involved in the two cases
was indeed wrong.
"If there is an
overriding lesson to be learned from this debacle, and a similar case several
years ago involving members of the Duke lacrosse team, it is that everyone —
from journalists to advocates to administrators — should avoid a rush to judgment
based on preconceived notions."
Anyone who knows the facts of the Duke case also knows that it wasn't a case of pre-conceived
notions that drove the rush to judgment and media frenzy. A reporter
didn't show up on the Duke campus with an agenda to report about privileged
white males raping poor African-American strippers.
No, the Duke media feeding frenzy was caused by a false rape allegation
and its backing by an overzealous prosecutor (Mike Nifong) with an
ulterior motive. And those who actually know the facts of
the PSU scandal, know that the Duke and Penn State cases are almost
carbon copies -- except that the media malpractice in the PSU case is
far worse.
The differences in the media’s response to the PSU case versus the
Duke case were dramatically different. In the Duke case, when accuser Crystal Mangum's story
kept changing and when the specter of evidence suppression was raised, the
media changed course.
When similar events occurred in the PSU case, USAToday (and
others in the media) did minimal fact checking and selectively used facts to
keep the Penn State cover-up narrative alive. In other words, they used
the Rolling Stone's methods from the UVa story.
From the Columbia report:
Erdely’s reporting
records and interviews with participants make clear that the magazine did not
pursue important reporting paths...
The editors made
judgments about attribution, fact-checking and verification that greatly
increased their risks of error...
The reference to "pursing important
reporting paths" translates to Rolling Stone accepting
the accuser's story without any corroboration by her friends or by the accused (Phi
Psi members).
Similarly, the media accepted Crystal Mangum report
against Duke and the grand jury report's version of McQueary rape
allegation without any corroborating evidence.
That brings us back to the beginning of USAToday's Op-Ed....
"Journalists know
that a juicy tip often falls apart once they begin digging into the facts. That
possibility has given rise to a cynical saying about a story that's "too
good to check."
The point is that the
more sensational the allegation, the more scrupulously it needs to be
investigated. And if the original tip doesn't survive scrutiny, so be it."
The statement shows just how oblivious USAToday is
to its own lack of scrutiny and failure to scrupulously investigate the
allegations of a Penn State cover-up.
Sandusky Grand Jury Report Too Good To Check
In the PSU cover-up hoax, the original
"tip" - which was the "rape" allegation in the Sandusky grand
jury presentment - certainly fit the description of a
"sensational allegation." And the media's coverage of it
reflected the sentiment that the "story" in the grand jury presentment
was "too good to check."
From the presentment (pages 6 and 7):
"He saw a naked
boy, Victim 2, whose age he estimated to be ten years old, with his hands up
against the wall, being subjected to anal intercourse by a naked Sandusky."
The image of Sandusky (forcibly) anally
raping a little boy became anchored in the public's minds by
continuous repeating of the allegation by the media. There was no
ambiguity at all about what the word "rape" meant in
the Sandusky case in November 2011. But by June 2012, that
would all change to ensure the Penn State cover-up story remained.
Between November 2011 and June 2012, there were
ample opportunities for the media to poke holes in law enforcement's version of
events -- as they did in the UVa and Duke cases -- but they didn't.
To pull that off, the media selectively believed the parts of narrative
that fit and threw away the parts that didn't.
First, it was completely out of character - and a
sensational story -- for a forthright person like Joe Paterno to turn
a blind eye to a report of rape. However, it was not
just Paterno who was alleged to have done so. At the time of
the presentment, six different people were named who were told of the incident
by McQueary -- and none of them called the police.
Apparently, the collective judgment of six people
was trumped by a grand jury presentment that stated that a 28 year old
eyewitness to a rape, who didn't report the crime, was "extremely
credible." Yes, the media believed that story.
But it gets better.
On November 16th, McQueary added new
information that he contacted the police about the incident and stated he
broke up the "rape" before leaving the locker room. The media
didn't embrace the part of McQueary's story about contacting police,
which would have blown away the cover up story. They quickly cross
checked to see if a police report existed. It didn't.
Sara Ganim, the lead reporter on the case,
then somehow "surfaced" McQueary's original handwritten
statement to the police, which made no mention of contacting police about the
incident or that he had intervened to stop the alleged incident in the shower.
Under normal circumstances, the credibility
of McQueary's rape allegation would have been questioned, given that
none of his new statements could be corroborated. But the "too good
to be checked" story drove reporters to abandon journalistic ethics and do
what it took to keep the cover-up story alive.
Just weeks later bigger news would come (and be ignored).
At the December
16th preliminary hearing for Tim Curley and Gary
Schultz, McQueary admitted he did not provide specific details nor
use the words "anal sex," "anal intercourse," or
"sodomy" when making his brief report to Paterno or
other PSU officials.
McQueary at 72:
"I never used the word anal or rape in this -- since day one."
It was as if McQueary's testimony didn't
happen. The story of Paterno and PSU officials not
responding to a report of a "rape” persisted up to and even after the not
guilty verdict at the trial.
A "Cover-Up" Story That Was Too Good To Check
From the outset, the preposterous
story of a PSU cover-up was kept alive by the media's flat out refusal
to logically evaluate evidence that was present in the grand
jury report.
Again, in a commonality among the three cases,
emotion, not facts and logic, ruled the day.
First, why didn't McQueary - a 28 year
old graduate assistant at the time of the incident - not immediately report the
rape of the child to the police himself? Why should a 28 year old man
need the advice and counsel of a then septuagenarian football coach in order to
know what to do?
McQueary got a pass from the media because
they fell for the emotional ruses used by the Attorney General throughout the
case.
The Attorney General softened the backlash that
would normally have come down upon McQueary by emphasizing the story
that he was distraught and shaken by what he saw. While many in the
public didn't fall for the ruse, and labeled McQueary as a coward, the
media went soft on him.
Not so ironically, the same sympathy would be
shown to an elderly janitor who also allegedly saw Sandusky molesting
a child -- and became distraught -- but didn't report the incident. The icing on
the cake was that the elderly janitor eventually became stricken by
Alzheimer's, providing the media with even more reason to be sympathetic toward
the man.
Deflections Missed
It was truly pathetic that the media didn't see
the deflection pattern at play in the presentment, in which no blame was placed on those who truly could have stepped in and protected a child, but instead
the focus was put on those who had absolutely no legal means or authority to
protect the children from Sandusky.
One of the deflections involved the OAG's emphasis
that Penn State's response to the scandal, which was to
ban Sandusky from using its facilities with children from The Second
Mile, was ineffective. Former AG Kelly's narrative was very convincing,
however, making the case that Sandusky's access to the campus as a
retired coach contributed to his crimes.
"Sandusky's 'emeritus' position,
alleged negotiated as part of his 1999 retirement, provided him with an office
in the Lasch Football Building; unlimited access to all football
facilities, including the locker room; access to all recreational facilities; a
parking pass; a university Internet account; listing in the faculty directory
and numerous other privileges – he had remained a regular presence on campus."
All that was missing from Kelly's narrative was
evidence that his access to campus had anything to do with his crimes after the "ban" was put in place. The
media apparently was too lazy to simply do a chronological review of
the crimes in the grand jury report and fell for Kelly's story about Sandusky's access to campus. Had the media done a simple timeline of the crimes, they would have
realized PSU's banned stopped future crimes on campus.
The worst case of deflection, however, had to be
the OAG's statement putting the onus on PSU officials to
learn the identity of the child involved in the 2001 shower incident.
"Although Schultz oversaw the University
Police as part of his position, he never... attempted to learn the identity of
the child in the shower in 2002."
Apparently, the media didn't question the fact
that the police were also unable to ascertain the identity of that victim after
attempting to do so for approximately three years. The OAG assertion
that Schultz -- as an administrator -- should have been actively involved in
police matters and outperformed trained investigators was quite unreasonable.
That fact that was completely lost on the media.
Putting all that logic aside, shouldn't the
journalists following the "reporting path" on
the Sandusky case, at least asked the question
how PSU officials (or anyone else) could have identified the unknown
victim?
Asking that question provides an obvious answer -- that would have been a dead
end for any investigator.
The only person who could have identified the
victim was the alleged perpetrator, Sandusky. And,
if Sandusky had just raped this child, as the media believed, then
what were the chances that he would provide the name of the actual victim?
Those closely following the case know
that Sandusky evenutally provided a name and encouraged the alleged shower
victim from 2001 to come forward.
As expected, the
person Sandusky identified was deemed not credible, as evidenced by
his absence on the potential
witness lists for the prosecution and defense, as well as him not being presented as a witness at the trial. Moreover, he was
not embraced by the defense team for Gary Schultz. The latter point is particularly
important, considering that Schultz's legal team had a considerable incentive
to believe a victim who refuted the story of that a crime occurring in the McQueary incident.
Ironically, a credible victim never came forward
claiming to be the individual seen by McQueary. In fact, McQueary also testified that he had looked this individual in the eye as he exited the shower with Sandusky. Clearly, if this person saw McQueary - who is physically unmistakable - in the shower room, undoubtedly, he would have recalled that and came forward. It strains credulity that the most
sensational and widely publicized crime in the Sandusky case didn't
surface a credible victim.
So much for USAToday (and
others) scrupulously investigating sensational stories.
The Rape That Didn't Happen Didn't Matter
Seven months later, a jury didn't
find McQueary's testimony of an alleged rape to be credible.
The verdict was not guilty, but the USAToday downplayed
the significance of that outcome.
USAToday's trial
coverage buried the fact that the jury voted not guilty
on McQueary's rape allegation deep into its column. However, to
keep the sensational story of a PSU cover up, it cited the four other
sex abuse convictions related to McQueary's allegations.
From the article:
In its verdict Friday,
the Sandusky jury found the former coach not guilty of sodomy, but
convicted him on four other sex abuse charges involving the victim, based
on McQueary's testimony.
Let's be clear on this fact.
The Sandusky case became
a PSU scandal because of the mental image
of Sandusky (forcibly) anally raping a little boy and
the false narrative Paterno and
other PSU officials watered down McQueary's "extremely
credible" report (in order to avoid reporting it to authorities).
In April 2012, the Pulitzer committee awarded
its 2012
prize for local reporting to the Patriot
News, partly based on that story. That was before a jury concluded what
six men concluded in 2001 -- Mike McQueary didn't witness a rape.
Had the Pulitzer Committee done any fact checking at all, it would have found the reporting that established the "Penn State sex scandal" was neither adept nor courageous.
Conclusion
The Rolling Stone story marks a high point, not a low
point, for American journalism. While the mistakes of Rolling Stone were egregious, the fact that other
media outlets served as a policing mechanism to assess the credibility of
"A Rape On Campus" is, in my opinion, one of the high points of
journalism in my lifetime.
While USAToday and others piled on to Rolling Stone,
they failed to realize that too often they join in the media pack when a
sensational story appears and don't review the details with a critical eye.
Take it to the bank that a host of "Media Culpas"
will occur when the truth about the Sandusky cover up is revealed.
Updated April 9, 2015 at 6:08AM,
