Monday, April 06, 2015

The UVA Rape Hoax: Matt Taibbi’s Defense of Rolling Stone Does Not Hold Water

By Nicholas Stix

Following Rolling Stone’s exposure for having foisted the UVA Rape Hoax on the world, its writer Matt Taibbi, who is supposedly a big-deal journalist, defended his magazine’s fact-checking operation.

I even have colleagues who praise Taibbi. I have no personal experience with the mook, er, guy, and only recall reading three things from him:

1. An article I’ve since forgotten, but recall thinking was pretty good;
2. A blog item, in which he said he wouldn’t be writing on immigration again, because it was too dangerous professionally; and
3. His claim, below, that Rolling Stone’s fact-checking operation was beyond reproach.

Pretty good, cowardly, and a defense of the indefensible. That’s like a pitcher winning one game, 6-5, in which he pitched six innings and gave up five earned runs; getting a five-inning no-decision in a second game, in which he ended by giving three straight hitters intentional-unintentional walks, and getting a .200 hitter to hit into an inning-ending force out; and in a third game, losing after giving up eight runs in the first inning, without recording a single out.

The best thing Taibbi could have said in defense of Rolling Stone was nothing. Its conduct in the hoax was indefensible. Anything you say in its defense will only reflect badly on you.

Taibbi says below that Managing Editor Will Dana is a wonderful person, “mentor,” and “friend,” without realizing that that’s no defense at all. The issue is what Dana did in handling the UVA Rape Hoax. ‘He’s always been great to me’ is comically irrelevant.
* People also need to understand that the mistake here did not involve the fact-checking department.

Wrong. The “fact-checking department” checked no facts.

At VDARE, for which I’ve written for just shy of 11 years, there are at least three levels of fact-checking. I’m the first level. I do my own links, in order to support statements of fact and statements of opinion based on those facts, and sometimes I’ll learn through the expected supporting material that my memory failed me, or that I relied on a since-debunked source, and have to re-write a passage or an entire manuscript.

The next two levels (I’m not sure which comes first) are my editors James Fulford and Peter Brimelow. Any questions that remain will be raised during a telephone conference or in an e-mail by Peter.

There may potentially be a fourth and even a fifth level. Over the years, Peter has accumulated a small number of additional, brilliant editors.

One has to keep in mind that VDARE’s editors are all walking encyclopedias, which is clearly not the case at Rolling Stone.
* I was so surprised because Coco McPherson’s fact-checking operation is so intense that it’s nearly caused me nervous breakdowns in the past

* It usually takes longer to fact-check a Rolling Stone feature than it does to write it….

* At RS, they don’t accept notes as backup. You must have everything on tape or video, or sources must speak directly with fact-checkers

As a journalist who has been writing a lot longer (since 1980) than Taibbi, the notion that more time would go into fact-checking than writing is ludicrous hyperbole. Then again, I’m a very slow writer, in part because I do so much fact-checking as I go.

Not only was the UVA Rape Hoax not Sabrina Rubin Erdelely’s first Rolling Stone piece—she’d been writing for the rag for years—but she was a veritable hoax machine. If Rolling Stone had ever exercised any editorial oversight, or engaged in any fact-checking, it probably never would have published anything by her.

I’m going to have to tally up her hoaxes elsewhere. I thought I had a handle on them, and then I saw a reference to two more. Besides, there’s no hurry. I’ll be writing more on her. She’s due for another journalism award!

There are two possible explanations for Taibbi’s cover story. The simplest is blind loyalty—he’s a company man, and therefore said whatever would make the company look good. The other explanation is that he really believed what he said, based on his experience, because he really was held to an excruciating standard.

What Taibbi may not know, and probably doesn’t want to know, is that females are held to much lower standards—often no standards at all—in school, college, professional and graduate school, and in the news room.
 

Matt Taibbi: Don’t blame Rolling Stone’s ‘intense’ fact-checking operation

Rolling Stone veteran Matt Taibbi’s tweets about the magazine’s rape-story fiasco:

By Jim Romenesko
jimromenesko.com

* A few words about this UVA business, since people are asking…
* First, like everyone else at the magazine, I’m both mortified and sorry — for the public, for anyone affected, and for the source herself.

Matt Taibbi

* Managing Editor Will Dana is a mentor and friend who has always had my back and is one of the few true good people in this business.
* I’m broken up for him.
* People also need to understand that the mistake here did not involve the fact-checking department.
* I was so surprised because Coco McPherson’s fact-checking operation is so intense that it’s nearly caused me nervous breakdowns in the past
* It usually takes longer to fact-check a Rolling Stone feature than it does to write it. Each review is like an IRS audit. It’s miserable.
* At RS, they don’t accept notes as backup. You must have everything on tape or video, or sources must speak directly with fact-checkers
* I’m just explaining to people what my experience with this magazine has been. I’m sure other RS contributors will say exactly the same.

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