'Why progressives don't want to question the story', and the excuses

they make.
With a committed group of rape denialists active in our culture, typically made up of "men's rights activists" and conservative anti-feminists, the danger of this type of scandal lies in the potential for a false accusation to crowd out attention to rape writ large. "Rape stories," The Atlantic's Olga Khazan recently wrote, "are a genre that's uniquely unforgiving of inaccuracies."
Here's part of the damn problem: say that an actual investigation is a good idea before you start tying nooses, and you're a 'rape denialist' and/or 'conservative anti-feminist'.  Yeah, there's a few nuts out there who say most rape accusations are false; being lumped in with them for saying "Lets get all the facts here" is bullshit.

I guess we could call the nutcases on the other side the Rape Presumption crowd: they assume all men are or want to be rapists and that EVERY accusation is true.  They either deny any false accusations, or insist it's a 'proven very small number', or- in the case of the real idiots- that even false accusations, when proven, should be treated as real.  Or else the 'apologist' and 'denier bullshit comes out.


On to the excuses:
From both supporters of the original reporting and doubters alike, a central question has emerged: Why did Sabrina Erdely, the story's author, fail to interview any of the accused?
...
More generally, why did Erdely not do more to vet Jackie's story, which could have potentially saved Erdely, Rolling Stone, and Jackie a great deal of embarrassment and trouble?
Ooh, ooh, can I answer that?  But first I'll throw this in too:
Those who are willing to question individual accusations, like Cathy Young, are subject to repeated and vociferous criticism. In such an environment, it's no wonder Erdely felt little urge to interview the alleged assailants. To do so in our media culture was to invite risk and little reward.
Part the First: she didn't do that because doing so might have/would have threatened the Preferred Narrative™; she wanted The Story, and finding out that some of the accusations didn't pan out, well, can't have THAT interfering, now can we?

Either she thought nobody would really dig into this(which was stupid), or that somehow she could get away with it if somebody did(which was insane).

Part the Second: deBoer is forgetting something: Erdley could have/should have done that investigating before she wrote the story; if she had, she wouldn't have had to worry about the name calling, because she wouldn't have (if she's got any brain at all) written the story she did.

One last thing, from further down:
The ways in which terms like "rush to judgment" and "due process" have gotten lumped into rape denialism does the movement against rape no favors.
Yeah, there's that "Folks, let's get ALL the facts before we make a judgement" equals "RAPE DENIER!   APOLOGIST!!" bullshit again.

If he can find someone outside of, say, muslim nuts like ISIL who are NOT against rape, I'd like to hear about them; everybody I've ever known thinks it's a disgusting crime that deserves suitable punishment.  We're ALL against rape, asshole, stop acting like we're not. 
Oh, we also think that someone who knowingly makes a false accusation should face real punishment as well; that's one that can destroy lives, and should be treated as such.

But I guess that makes us guilty of something, to the 'progressives'.