I am glad Jesse Singal gave credit to the two Cougar Chronicle reporters who debunked the story but why no bylines of the reporters who published the lies? Yes the names of the news outlets were mentioned but the names of the liars need to be repeated juxtaposed with appropriate condemnation.
Great reporting. All too common these days. Attention seeking people invent fake stories of racism. Many women, seeking ulterior motives, invent stories of sexual harassment to destroy the reputation of a particular man.
Let’s not forget the 2020 fake racism story at NASCAR.  Bubba Wallace, black racecar driver, invented a fake racism story involving a noose. He said A noose had been placed in his garage on purpose. None of the journalists did any investigation and just believed it face value. All the major papers and channels covered the story.  Eventually It was found that the rope had always been there in that garage, for years, before Bubba Wallace was even in NASCAR.
But we need a follow up….what happens with the player and the Duke program? Did the the team just go back to Duke and that is that? Did anyone interview the team staff and players after all this?
Thank you for this piece. I agree. The media is to blame for perpetuating the lie. The athlete was being a basic run-of-the-mill sore loser who fabricated the story to explain her losing performance and the outcome of the game. Had Duke won, there would have been no reason for the lie, instead they would have been celebrating.
When I heard the investigation had turned up nothing, my first thought was of my brilliant, athletic cousin. Schizophrenia with auditory hallucinations often manifests itself at about the age of this young woman, about the same age as my cousin when she developed schizophrenia. Richardson was sure she'd heard nasty words. Indeed she may have, but they did not come from the crowd.
I hope I'm wrong. Life did not end well for my cousin.
I am not at all surprised but I am still very disappointed in our leftist progressive agenda driving me a life long democrat right into the GOP’s arms.
When the black community rallies behind unverified allegations like this, which turn out to be false (as they usually do), it reduces their credibility overall. It's easy to discount a single lier, but when you have a whole town that cries wolf, many honest people lose their credibility as a result. The division in our society is such that we can't resort to reason as a unifying language anymore. It's going to take the "black community" standing up to these abuses to stop them and begin to restore the honor of black people in America. This same logic applies to the plethora of other rampant lies being circulated by the PC police: honest people from within the offending "groups" will have to stand up for the truth.
I worked in advertising at a tribune newspaper for twenty years. In the lobby of one of our plants, was a quote from Robert McCormick regarding the mission of a newspaper. One of it’s purposes, according to him, was to “LEAD public opinion”. I was stunned when I read it. Our thoughts direct our words, our words direct our actions.
The old-school journalism whose return this author pines for is dead and buried. Sorry but it's true. Replaced by a new generation of journ-activists who see their role as effecting "social justice." Seasoned editors are now terrified of their young reporters, and news industry consolidation by woke corporations is fast weeding out what remains of a dying breed. Those BYU student reporters are unlikely to graduate and get a job at any major news outlet unless maybe it's Fox or another conservative outfit.
I went to journalism school in the 1990s, when news outlets were merely liberal in their bias. We were still taught that we must take a skeptical approach to everything and make a sincere effort to get all sides of a story. (The old adage goes, "If your mother says she loves you, check it out.") The ideal (maybe if not the full practice) was still that journalism should be objective.
Those seem like the good old days now. I would never go to J-school today.
Two things trouble me even more than the lack of consequences.
One is the willingness with which we, as media consumers, seem to be willing to lap up accusations against unidentified (or unidentifiable) perpetrators. Falsely accusing identifiable perpetrators is messy and leads to all sorts of unpleasantness like pushback and defamation lawsuits. Nobodies can't defend themselves, and they can't sue. We should always be a bit more cautious here than we are.
The other is our newfound acceptance of collective punishment. We know it is wrong in elementary school when the teacher keeps the whole class after school because someone wrote a dirty word on the board. We know it is wrong when it happens in prison and in labor camps, and when it is perpetrated on minority populations (Uyghurs, Rohingya, Tutsis, just to name a few in my own lifetime). Yet here we are, and people who should know better - say, academics and political figures with big microphones - argue unashamedly in favor of it.
It would be helpful if those who falsely accuse others, real or imaginary, would face punishment. It would be more helpful if we stop pointing fingers and hold this behavior to account when we see it.
Those of us with Common Sense are not surprised. We’ve seen this sort of thing played out with transparent “variations on a theme.” I wonder how many thousands (probably millions) of people got the first report of grotesque racism, filed that away in their minds, decided that Utah is full of MAGA Trump terrorists. I wonder if there are millions of dollars flowing into “Go Fund Me” accounts for the black player, her family, the team, etc. Because, how many of the folks who got the now debunked news report, will ever learn that it was a hoax?
6 days ago the NYT did a fluff piece on Rolling Stones Mag founder titled "Jann Wenner Wants to Reveal It All" as an promotion to Jann Wenner new book
Not once in this article did they talk about The Duke Lacrosse story where Rolling Stone Mag totally got the story wrong and this is the reason Wenner Left
Point of my rant is ,,,,,,,,,,,,the real history does not matter any more and i see more and more history being re written
I am glad Jesse Singal gave credit to the two Cougar Chronicle reporters who debunked the story but why no bylines of the reporters who published the lies? Yes the names of the news outlets were mentioned but the names of the liars need to be repeated juxtaposed with appropriate condemnation.
Thank god someone bothers to check facts. Thank you to all the honest journalists. The NYTimes is good as fishwrap.
And to be clear, they didn’t “fall for this”.
It fits the prevailing narrative and so they therefore latched onto it and fed it on purpose.
Because that is what they understand their job currently is.
Great reporting. All too common these days. Attention seeking people invent fake stories of racism. Many women, seeking ulterior motives, invent stories of sexual harassment to destroy the reputation of a particular man.
Let’s not forget the 2020 fake racism story at NASCAR.  Bubba Wallace, black racecar driver, invented a fake racism story involving a noose. He said A noose had been placed in his garage on purpose. None of the journalists did any investigation and just believed it face value. All the major papers and channels covered the story.  Eventually It was found that the rope had always been there in that garage, for years, before Bubba Wallace was even in NASCAR.
But we need a follow up….what happens with the player and the Duke program? Did the the team just go back to Duke and that is that? Did anyone interview the team staff and players after all this?
Thank you for this piece. I agree. The media is to blame for perpetuating the lie. The athlete was being a basic run-of-the-mill sore loser who fabricated the story to explain her losing performance and the outcome of the game. Had Duke won, there would have been no reason for the lie, instead they would have been celebrating.
When I heard the investigation had turned up nothing, my first thought was of my brilliant, athletic cousin. Schizophrenia with auditory hallucinations often manifests itself at about the age of this young woman, about the same age as my cousin when she developed schizophrenia. Richardson was sure she'd heard nasty words. Indeed she may have, but they did not come from the crowd.
I hope I'm wrong. Life did not end well for my cousin.
Then there is this ironic story: https://www.oregonlive.com/ducks/2022/09/interim-university-of-oregon-president-condemns-anti-mormon-chant-from-student-section-it-angers-me-it-disgusts-me.html
I am not at all surprised but I am still very disappointed in our leftist progressive agenda driving me a life long democrat right into the GOP’s arms.
When the black community rallies behind unverified allegations like this, which turn out to be false (as they usually do), it reduces their credibility overall. It's easy to discount a single lier, but when you have a whole town that cries wolf, many honest people lose their credibility as a result. The division in our society is such that we can't resort to reason as a unifying language anymore. It's going to take the "black community" standing up to these abuses to stop them and begin to restore the honor of black people in America. This same logic applies to the plethora of other rampant lies being circulated by the PC police: honest people from within the offending "groups" will have to stand up for the truth.
I worked in advertising at a tribune newspaper for twenty years. In the lobby of one of our plants, was a quote from Robert McCormick regarding the mission of a newspaper. One of it’s purposes, according to him, was to “LEAD public opinion”. I was stunned when I read it. Our thoughts direct our words, our words direct our actions.
This is why I’m here at Common Sense. Truth matters.
The old-school journalism whose return this author pines for is dead and buried. Sorry but it's true. Replaced by a new generation of journ-activists who see their role as effecting "social justice." Seasoned editors are now terrified of their young reporters, and news industry consolidation by woke corporations is fast weeding out what remains of a dying breed. Those BYU student reporters are unlikely to graduate and get a job at any major news outlet unless maybe it's Fox or another conservative outfit.
I went to journalism school in the 1990s, when news outlets were merely liberal in their bias. We were still taught that we must take a skeptical approach to everything and make a sincere effort to get all sides of a story. (The old adage goes, "If your mother says she loves you, check it out.") The ideal (maybe if not the full practice) was still that journalism should be objective.
Those seem like the good old days now. I would never go to J-school today.
Two things trouble me even more than the lack of consequences.
One is the willingness with which we, as media consumers, seem to be willing to lap up accusations against unidentified (or unidentifiable) perpetrators. Falsely accusing identifiable perpetrators is messy and leads to all sorts of unpleasantness like pushback and defamation lawsuits. Nobodies can't defend themselves, and they can't sue. We should always be a bit more cautious here than we are.
The other is our newfound acceptance of collective punishment. We know it is wrong in elementary school when the teacher keeps the whole class after school because someone wrote a dirty word on the board. We know it is wrong when it happens in prison and in labor camps, and when it is perpetrated on minority populations (Uyghurs, Rohingya, Tutsis, just to name a few in my own lifetime). Yet here we are, and people who should know better - say, academics and political figures with big microphones - argue unashamedly in favor of it.
It would be helpful if those who falsely accuse others, real or imaginary, would face punishment. It would be more helpful if we stop pointing fingers and hold this behavior to account when we see it.
Those of us with Common Sense are not surprised. We’ve seen this sort of thing played out with transparent “variations on a theme.” I wonder how many thousands (probably millions) of people got the first report of grotesque racism, filed that away in their minds, decided that Utah is full of MAGA Trump terrorists. I wonder if there are millions of dollars flowing into “Go Fund Me” accounts for the black player, her family, the team, etc. Because, how many of the folks who got the now debunked news report, will ever learn that it was a hoax?
6 days ago the NYT did a fluff piece on Rolling Stones Mag founder titled "Jann Wenner Wants to Reveal It All" as an promotion to Jann Wenner new book
Not once in this article did they talk about The Duke Lacrosse story where Rolling Stone Mag totally got the story wrong and this is the reason Wenner Left
Point of my rant is ,,,,,,,,,,,,the real history does not matter any more and i see more and more history being re written