Jackie Coakley has been named by blogger Charles Johnson as the alleged rape victim at the University of Virginia that was reported on by Rolling Stone.
Rolling Stone included Jackie’s first name but omitted her last name.
Johnson on his blog Got News says that he confirmed with sources that Coakley, 20, was the girl named in the story. “We can also confirm that Jackie Coakley has misled other students at both her high school and her college about her past sexual relations with men,” he said.
The full identity is unverified. No other media outlets have confirmed Johnson’s information as of yet.
The Rolling Stone story was the subject of intense criticism, leading the magazine to publish a correction. “In the face of new information, there now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie’s account, and we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced,” Rolling Stone said.
“We published the article with the firm belief that it was accurate. Given all of these reports, however, we have come to the conclusion that we were mistaken in honoring Jackie’s request to not contact the alleged assaulters to get their account. In trying to be sensitive to the unfair shame and humiliation many women feel after a sexual assault, we made a judgment – the kind of judgment reporters and editors make every day,” it said later.
“We should have not made this agreement with Jackie and we should have worked harder to convince her that the truth would have been better served by getting the other side of the story. These mistakes are on Rolling Stone, not on Jackie. We apologize to anyone who was affected by the story and we will continue to investigate the events of that evening.”
The original story was changed by the Rolling Stone mostly due to a Washington Post investigation, which found “key elements” of the allegations were doubtful.
Now Johnson, who has also been heavily criticized before for his questionable reporting, has jumped into the fray. Johnson was the first person to name American Ebola patient Nina Pham, for instance, but got his Twitter account suspended when he also shared her address.
He’s also reported on multiple stories that later were cast in doubt, including the time when he came under investigation of Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood for allegedly paying a Meridian resident to lie about a vote-buying scheme. His reporting has enraged many people, such as a blogger at women’s blog Jezebel who said he writes content that’s “racist” and “Islamophobic.”
Johnson has stood firm on the new rape issue, though, and says that his information is correct.
He also shared a picture of Coakley, and some of her posts on social media accounts, claiming that the posts show how she’s “rape-obsessed.”
See an Associated Press update to the situation on the next page.
Groups Urge UVa to Reinstate Fraternity Activities
