Another example –there are hundreds–of how well known, ‘respected’ media hyped up the Steubenville rape case and never retracted their errors. Shame on writer Michael Kimmel: 

The two players who are charged with raping the girl, and the several other players who allegedly participated, are surrounded in a protective bubble. Their fathers steadfastly stand by their sons. Their coaches wonder what the girl might have been wearing and why she got so drunk, suggesting it might have been a case of buyers’ remorse–as if she wanted to pass out and be urinated on and have an iron rod shoved inside her, but then perhaps thought better of it in the sober light of day. The police apparently covered up the crime to protect the boys. And, of course, the community rallied behind the boys, fearing that–gasp!–“their” football team might have a dark cloud hanging over it.

Urinated on? Cover-up? Iron rod? None of it happened.

Zero accountability in the media.

Steubenville football coach knew athletes raped girl, 16, and still tried to shield them of prosecution: court evidence is the shocking–shocking, I say!–headline that the New York Daily News ran a few days ago.

Here’s are the opening grads of the story:

Steubenville High School football coach Reno Saccoccia not only knew that two of his players had sexually assaulted a teen-age girl during a booze-fueled night last August, he also tried to shield his athletes from prosecution, evidence presented during last week’s trial of the two players suggests.

Saccoccia, who has won three state championships and has been inducted into the Ohio Coaches Hall of Fame, is just one of the Steubenville coaches, parents and students who could face criminal charges after a grand jury reviews evidence from the case next month.

Wow  – that’s big new. The coach knew they had raped the victim and he shielded them? That’s huge.

So, I read the story. I was curious to see the proof that the coach 1) knew about the rape and 2) that he shielded the players.

I read and read. Nothing. Then finally:

Text messages and other evidence presented in last week’s trial suggested that Trent Mays in particular believed his status as a football star — and the privilege “Big Red” football enjoys in Steubenville — protected him from prosecution.

There it is — Trent Mays thought something. Allegedly.

Not only does The Daily News story by Christian Red and Michael O’Keefe not present a speck of evidence that Coach went along with this but it’s contradicted by the trial.

If there’s evidence that the coach knew they’d raped the victim, I have yet to see it. If there’s evidence of a cover-up, I have yet to see it.

Is there evidence of horrible reporting? Yes. Indeed. I’ve seen plenty of thst.

Embedding the podcast seems to be having trouble so here’s a direct link to the show: Behind The Yellow Tape podcaster Joey Ortega talks about his experience Prinnie aka Alexandria Goddard. Did she supply info to LocalLeaks that was not ready for prime time?

I finally watched the hour-long, full episode 20/20 episode on Steubenville and wow; for something that took months to produce, for something that families in Steubenville apparently trusted a well known, long running show like 20 /20 to get right, they sure got the story wrong in exactly the same ways others did, following the Alexandria Goddard football culture / cover-up narrative.

Simple example of a pure factual error made for no good reason : they showed the Cody Saltsman “I have no sympathy for whores’ tweet several times as though it was in response to the rape or other events of that evening. It was not.

The incident happened in August, the ‘Sympathy’ tweet was sent in May.

It’s not as though Saltsman didn’t say anything questionable that evening in August:

So why post a twee that had zero to do with the rape?  Just because it makes the story juicier? Awful, sloppy journalism.

I believe that the horrific, brutal gang-rape in India that led a woman’s death last year is part of what brought on the media onslaught about Steubenville. In the wake of that, the media wanted to find an American equivalent and the hyped-up, LocaLeaks version of the Steubenville story seemed to fit.

The problem is that the two crimes aren’t the same. The crimes may both rape but I challenge anyone to seriously equate what happened in Ohio what happened in India.

I say this not to trivialize rape in any way. In fact, equating the two cases makes what happened in India trivial. This is part of why I reject the “Rape Culture” meme that comes up in so many Steubenville stories; it’s false equivalence.

Rape is serious and ghastly, which is why it’s so awful that it has been politicized in the past year as part of the 2012 election cycle. The term ‘rape apologist’ has been used so much and so inappropriately that it has lost all meaning; another linguistic victim of politically correct sloganeering.

Here’s a 30 minute documentary on real rape culture in the country of India.

Here’s a truly awful piece where Dr. Caroline Heldman attacks–by name–the two teenage girls who were called to testify in the Steubenville rape trial. It’s another example of the intimidation innocent people (including teenagers) have been subjected to.

Let’s make it clear: Heldman vs. two teenage girls from West Virginia is not a fair fight. Heldman is a well known media fixture. As her bio says she is:

…the chair of the Politics Department at Occidental College. She is also a political commentator for MSNBC, Fox Business News, RT America, and Al Jazeera English.

I have a peripheral connection with Dr. Heldman; she worked closely with my friend Brandon Darby on a rape story involving athletes and a real cover-up: a case that got about 1/1000th of the attention that Steubenville got, likely because it involved the NAACP and so the Left blogosphere didn’t want to jump into it.

Here’s Heldman attacking the witnesses:

Kelsey and Gianna, at the trial this week you testified against your former best friend, reporting that she has a history of drinking and telling lies, as though these facts somehow make her worthy of rape. When did you stop being her best friend? When did you decide that you would side with the alleged perpetrators in attacking her character, as though her actions somehow justified these heinous crimes?

Let’s get this out of the way : nobody said her actions justified the crimes. Heldman just tossed that in.

This is how intimidation on the Steubenville case works: you get attacked for telling the truth. 

Most of the Heldman’s commenters jump on the same hateful, false bandwagon…

Thank you for calling out those two horrible girls for the scum that they are. While reading up on the trial I was disgusted by them. Special place in hell for you two.

and

I wonder what chance these girls will have in life. Employers google candidates. I wouldn’t admit them to college or employ them, even to dig a ditch. Not one of those kids who have had their names associated with this case are innocent, blameless, or in any way redeemable as a human being. Worst case, the girls in the blog post should bear some criminal or civil responsibility for not helping their friend. Best case, they are just vile and amoral.

Except they DID try to help her. They saw that the victim had gotten herself very drunk, wanted to go with Trent and tried to stop her. And the victim fought them, loudly.

Here’s a summary of what they testified to that Heldman objected to:

Earlier on Saturday, the defense called two former friends of the accuser – Kelsey Weaver and Gianna Anile – who testified that the girl had a reputation for dishonesty.

Weaver, 17, testified the accuser had told her she liked Mays. Weaver also said she watched the accuser drink four shots of vodka and two beers and flirt with Richmond on the night she says the rape occurred.

Weaver said the accuser told her she thought she had been drugged as well – a conclusion Weaver said she did not believe. Asked by defense why she had doubts, Weaver said, “Because (she) lies about things.”

One commenter makes the points well; a woman named Amy who (not surprisingly)  is a prosecutor. Listen to this brief dose of sanity (emphasis added):

Did they have a choice about testifying? If you’re subpoenaed, you have to show up and answer questions truthfully whether or not you want to. It doesn’t make you a bad person. Their evidence (which I haven’t read in detail) may have made it clear that they are in fact terrible people, but the very fact that they testified doesn’t mean they “sided with the perpetrators.” As a prosecutor, I find conclusions like this unhelpful. People are often reluctant to testify for the prosecution, even when they have valuable evidence to give, because they fear being seen as taking sides against the accused (who is often a friend or family member). I am constantly reminding them that they don’t have a choice and that the accused should know that and not hold their testimony against them; articles like this contribute to the perception that testifying for one “side” puts you firmly in that side’s camp and undoes much of the work that I (and probably defence lawyers) do daily.

And of course, Amy is attacked and told to ‘stay quiet’, so she responds:

To me, the article reads very much as if it’s blaming them for testifying too, especially in the fourth paragraph (“you testified against your former best friend, reporting that she has a history of drinking and telling lies…When did you decide that you would side with the alleged perpetrators in attacking her character…etc.”) They were subpoenaed as part of the defence case and had therefore had to testify for the perpetrators, and had to answer the questions about her character truthfully. If they’d pretended she didn’t have a history of drinking, or refused to answer those questions, they could have gone to jail for perjury or contempt. They shouldn’t be blamed for that. As for their true “siding with the perpetrators,” blame away. (I realize that’s the main concern here and I’m not trying to defend these girls; I just fear that this article feeds the common perception that testifying for someone is equivalent to allying yourself with them — a perception that often makes prosecutions difficult).

But eventually, commenter relents and joins in rhetorical stoning of the two witnesses who, in fact, tried to stop the victim from leaving:

I don’t want to drag this on any longer, but Layla — I totally agree with you that they are disgusting individuals. I read detailed accounts of their testimony before posting the last time. The only thing I was trying to express concern about is the way some parts of the article are worded. Apparently I’m not making that clear, and I apologize if it appears that I’m defending them as people.

And such is the nature of the Mob Mentality. Facts don’t matter. Approval of the other bullies does.

But what do Heldman or any of these people care? Kelsey and Gianna and Trent and Ma’lik and the victim and everyone in Weirton or Steubenville aren’t real to them. They are things you blab about on the internet to make yourself feel better.. So, whatever.

I finally found a transcript of prosecutor Marianne Hemmeter at the press conference after she had succesfully convicted Trent Mays and Ma’lik Richmond:

No matter how you cut this case, she was the center of the storm. And it wasn’t just Steubenville or Ohio; it became international. She’s a 16-year-old girl. She didn’t want to go forward on charges. She knew something bad had happened. But she was piecing it together like everybody else. And here is a girl who’s 16 who’s going to have to testify to the most intimate details of her life, some of which might be embarrassing. And to have not just a local stage, but an international stage, was unbelievably pressure-filled for her—and other witnesses. You know, we had pretty good working relationships with some of the witnesses that you heard from, but once Anonymous hit, there was a chilling effect.

That’s the prosecutor, not me.

That’s what the Atlantic Wire said on January 6th…

Now, everyone’s involved. There’s talk that the high school football coach will resign as soon as Monday, while other students that saw the attack are taking fire after being caught on camera speaking freely about the rape.

January 6th. That was a Sunday. So…hmm.

Okay, let’s be fair.

They didn’t say WHICH Monday.

More lies from the Atlantic Wire and writer Alexander Abad-Santos, who wrote:

So is the country prosecutor trying to get her son and his teammates off the hook?

That’s one of many new alleged details Anonymous and Local Leaks claim they have evidence of, in a document dump that started Wednesday, which they’re calling The Steubenville Files. We detailed the findings already, and we’re not sure of their sourcing, but their leaks suggest that the football coach and the country Sheriff are friends. And even though the boys will now be tried as juveniles, they allege that Saccoccia has ties in the juvenile court system.

Prosecutor Jane Hanlin’s son was never on the hook. He had nothing to do with the assaults in any way, shape or form. Wasn’t there, wasn’t a witness, nothing.

So, no — the question itself is flawed. It suddenly implies guilt based on nothing and then posits a cover-up of the thing that wasn’t true.

Further, Hanlin is the one who helped gathered the evidence that convicted Mays and Richmond.

Further, when the Abad-Santos says ‘we’re not sure of their sourcing’ he should have stopped right there, really.