Rolling Stone: Verleumderin wurde durch Beraterin Barack Obamas vermittelt

The Obama administration disclosed Tuesday it first learned about Rolling Stone’s ill-fated story on campus rape in Sept. 2014, about two months before it was published, when reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely called seeking information on the government’s investigation of the University of Virginia’s handling of sexual assaults.

The revelation from the Department of Education came the same day that a media watchdog group asked congressional oversight committees to start an investigation into what the administration may have known about the story before and after it was published and what it did to address the concerns raised in the article.

"The larger question we raise regards the role of public officials: Was this contrived, indeed fabricated story, part of an orchestrated power grab over U.S. universities by administration officials intent on using a major publication as a political weapon?" the Institute on Government and Media Integrity wrote in a letter to Rep. John Kline, Minnesota Republican and House Education and the Workforce Committee chairman.

Hier geht es weiter. Kritisch äußert sich das liberale Magazin Reason zu dieser Enthüllung. Jetzt die Frau zu beschuldigen, die den Kontakt zu der Verleumderin hergestellt habe, entlaste die verantwortliche Journalistin des Rolling-Stone Magazins, Sabrina Erdely, allzusehr:

It wasn’t Renda’s job to fact-check Jackie’s story, it was Erdely’s. Even the most cursory verification effort would have exposed the lie; all Rolling Stone had to do was press Jackie harder for the names of her assailants. (Erdely eventually did this — after the story was already published — and indeed produced a name that revealed Jackie as a fabulist.)

Perhaps Renda can be accused of gullibility — for listening to such an incredible story, and believing it — but that’s all. And even that accusation is weak, since Jackie is known to have changed the details in subsequent retellings. The version she told Renda might have been more plausible than the one she eventually told Erdely.

Rolling Stone has every right to lay some of the blame for this debacle on Jackie. The rest belongs to the magazine’s writers and editors — not Renda.

Vielleicht besteht der eigentliche Knackpunkt bei diesem Fall darin, dass bei dem Motto "Wir müssen Frauen vor den bösen Männern schützen" Politiker UND Journalisten beängstigend leichtgläubig sind und auch wildeste Lügengeschichten ungeprüft veröffentlichen.