Follows from the poster girl principle. If poster girls suck then every other girl sucks as badly or worse. For example for example Marie Curie was a second rate scientist, therefore there are no great female scientists. Emmett Till was not lynched, nor killed for whistling at a white woman, therefore there are no examples of blacks being lynched in an obviously unjust fashion, or with reckless disregard for justice.

Earlier I posted this argument, but the early version neglects to mention the internal evidence from the Rolling Stone editors that they knew their rape story was unlikely to be true, went looking for something better, could not find it.

In 2015 Rolling Stone issued an apology for their “Rape on Campus” story. Their investigating reporter saw lots of red flags, that would have convinced any reasonable person that the rape accusation was false, and that going ahead with the story was likely to blow up in their faces, but they decided to go ahead with the story anyway. Deep within the apology there is a guilty line that I missed the first time around, and everyone seemingly missed. After encountering lots of horrid red flags that made it glaringly obvious that it was a really bad idea to pursue this story, that the complainant was lying through her teeth

That summer, Erdely began interviewing multiple UVA assault survivors.

In other words, there was a whole big pile of University of Virginia “Assault Survivors”, but all their stories sucked even worse than Jackie Coakley’s story, so they wound up going with Jackie Coakley’s story for lack of anything better. They were determined to do a rape on campus story about evil white males. They knew, consciously or subconsciously, that the story they had was false, but despite looking around, despite having lots of other “Assault Survivors”, could not find anything better.

In the “Rape on Campus” story Jackie Coakley, the supposed rape victim, lied to the reporter Erdeley, and it rapidly became obvious that she was lying. Erdeley lied to her editors, and her editors lied to the readers. The editors falsely led the reader to believe that Ryan Duffin, the love interest that Jackie Coakley was catfishing with her rape story, had been interviewed, thereby making the story seem as if it had not come from a single source, that Jackie Coakley’s story had supposedly been checked with the other people supposedly involved in that story. That the editors lied indicates mens rea, that they knew this was a mighty weak story and needed some creativity to make it seemingly credible.

In the original story Rolling Stone tells us:

a “shitshow” predicted by her now-former friend Randall, who, citing his loyalty to his own frat, declined to be interviewed.

Implying that they sought out witnesses and encountered the male wall of solidarity protecting rapists and penalizing rape victims. In actual fact, the editors knew full well that “Randal” (real name Ryan Duffin, the man that Jackie Coakley was catfishing in an unsuccessful campaign to get him to sleep with her) had not declined to be interviewed, because they had not attempted to interview him. Had they attempted to interview him, would have learned much that was inconsistent with Jackie Coakley’s story.

The magazine knew from the beginning that Jackie Coakley’s story was not credible, went looking for someone with a more credible story, decided to stick with Jackie Coakley. Therefore, rape complainants with a more credible story than Jackie Coakley are rare or nonexistent.

This is the same argument I made previously, but this time with internal evidence from the magazine that they knew their story was weak and went looking for something better.

At the time of the article, the University of Virginia had not expelled a single student for sexual assault, therefore if any of these “Assault Survivors” were credible, they would be telling pretty much the same story as Jackie Coakley. Therefore, every single one of them was even less credible than Jackie Coakley, and we can see the mens rea that the editors knew that Jackie Coakley was not credible.

Scott Alexander argues against the poster girl principle that maybe there are lots of real rapes, and the person gets convicted, so, no big deal, that the reason that fictitious campus rapes gets reported is because some people doubt their reality, therefore no prosecution, therefore controversy. So, because of controversy, we hear false rape allegations widely reported and fail to hear real rape allegations, because they get dealt with efficiently. But, until the story, no expulsions for sexual assault from the University of Virginia, and yet lots of “Sexual Assault survivors”. So either the university was letting people get away with rape, or else all the “sexual assault survivors” are lying. And, since Jackie Coakley was what the Rolling Stone ultimately ran with despite knowing their story was weak and looking for something better, all the “sexual assault survivors” at Virginia were lying even more blatantly than Jackie Coakley. Rolling Stone was looking for a more credible story, looked at all the other “sexual assault survivors”, did not find what it was looking for.

Rolling Stone tells us that in the previous year at Virginia University, their had been 38 complaints of sexual assault.

of those 38, only nine resulted in “complaints”; the other 29 students evaporated. Of those nine complaints, four resulted in Sexual Misconduct Board hearings.

None of these four resulted in anyone being expelled for assault.

So, either the University is blowing off real sexual assaults, or thirty eight of thirty eight complaints of sexual assault were flagrantly bogus.

And if any of those thirty eight complaints were not flagrantly bogus, Rolling stone would surely have gone with that one instead of, or as well as, the one they did go with.