I Was Sexually Assaulted At UVA. I Don't Accept the Reporter's Apology.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/theslice/i-was-sexually-assaulted-at-uva-i-dont-accept-erdely-apology
It's very good, read the whole thing. Excerpt:
On my first day of training to work on the rape crisis hotline, I was taught to accept confusing stories as fact. They told me to ask for clarification if I struggled to reconcile details, but I had to learn to let the person on the other end of the line fill in their own blanks. My job was and is to listen to people re-live trauma and believe them unquestioningly and unflinchingly. It’s a job I’ve done for countless friends, family members and strangers over the last decade, and I keep a well-worn folder of resources, phone numbers and pamphlets in the top drawer of my desk. You’d be surprised how often I use it.
The brain often protects you from horrific experiences, sometimes excising the worst parts from your memory with surgical precision. This defense mechanism means many survivors’ stories are replete with long gaps and meandering timelines (though it bears repeating that you one can substantiate their stories at least 92 percent of the time). An advocate is often the only person a survivor knows who can set aside reservations and listen without judgment. A survivor’s right to that kind of unconditional support is sacrosanct.
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But Erdely is not an advocate. She’s a journalist—one who is advocating for social change, but a journalist nonetheless. Her job, and the job of her editors, is to wade through all the irrelevant asides and tell a concise story. To do that means that you have to double-check every cruel detail, even when that makes you unpopular with your subject, and even when that means scrapping a major investigation for a national magazine. You have to be prepared for turbulence when you’re reporting on sex crimes in a world that thinks vindictive women lie about rape when they don’t get a second date and assault only happens in dark alley when you’re walking alone. To behave in any other fashion furthers those lies and does a grave disservice to the millions of men and women who have survived sexual violence.
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When a someone agrees to tell his or her story, you must tell them you’re going to ask questions they don’t like. Let them walk away from the story if they aren’t prepared for how ugly and thorough the reporting can be. They need to know that you can’t shield them from the painful necessity of verification on account of the living hell they’ve walked through. It doesn’t feel good to cast aspersion on a trauma victim, but it’s not the survivor’s job to be able to craft a perfect, linear plot—it’s yours. As a journalist, you are not their friend, and you are not their advocate. That is someone else’s job, and you can’t lose sight of that for a minute.
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I do not accept Erdely’s apology and neither should you. Erdely says she allowed her “concern for Jackie’s well-being...fear of re-traumatizing her, and...confidence in her credibility to take the place of more questioning and more facts” and that she won’t make these mistakes again, but it’s too late for a nicely worded mea culpa. When Rolling Stone decided to “go ahead without knowing the lifeguard’s name or verifying his existence,” they contributed to the environment that allowed my assailant to walk up to me in a crowded public space and joke about trying to rape me. Erdely’s self-serving actions, and those of her editors, let college administrators, fraternities and police departments go back to pretending that sexual violence isn’t a problem. I’m sorry, but “sorry” isn’t good enough.
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