Exposé Blogger Charles C. Johnson on Why He Outed Rolling Stone Rape Article Source ‘Jackie’

As the media frenzy over the retraction by Rolling Stone magazine of its article portraying an alleged horrific gang rape at the University of Virginia due to multiple apparent inaccuracies in the piece, exposé blogger Charles C. Johnson explains his research on the Rolling Stone rape article, which culminated in his naming the alleged victim, who is referred to in the article simply as “Jackie.”

“I’m quite a successful young journalist who has some unorthodox methods of getting out the truth, and so a lot of it is coming from media people who don’t particularly like me because of what I represent,” Johnson said in response to being questioned about widespread criticism in the mainstream media of his online outing activities.

“In this particular case with Sabrina Rubin Erdely – who was the author of this Rolling Stone piece – it appears she was trusting a young lady, Jackie Coakley, who essentially made up a very vicious claim of gang rape.”

He said he believes the story was “designed to push a narrative” that U.S. colleges are tolerant of rape on campuses. “It’s since sort of all fallen apart or collapsed.”

Johnson points out that while rape is one of the most underreported crimes, it’s also been identified as one of the most falsely reported crimes. “Unfortunately there are lots of sexual assaults on campuses. But the question is, how many of them fall into a gray line where it’s difficult to tell who raped who, in a lot of these cases a lot of its very, very murky.”

When asked directly about his decision to publicly name the alleged rape victim – identified as Virginia resident Jackie Coakley - Johnson said this wasn’t his intention in the beginning.

“I thought that if I found out what her real name was, I could go and find out more about her, maybe she’s made up claims in the past – maybe she’s not to be trusted.

“I really dislike this kind of approach of, you know, just trust us, we’re Rolling Stone, I don’t like that, I don’t agree with it.”

He said he continued to pursue the identity of the alleged rape victim named in the article because of the severity of the accusations, and because he found the reported story start to fall apart.

“It was a vicious gang rape, as it was described in the Rolling Stone piece, and the evidence that I was seeing was on the contrary,” he said. “We now know that she was publishing fake – or she was giving her friends a fake photo of a guy that she’d met in high school many years back, and just the whole story has collapsed.”

He also said that Coakley was very active in feminist campaigns on campus, specifically with a group at UVA called One Less - sexual assault education group.

“There was so much evidence on the other side, that the whole thing was a hoax, that I very much wanted to probe deeper and learn more about Jackie Coakley.”

Addressing the writer of the Rolling Stone piece, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, he said she actually worked at the University of Pennsylvania – where she was also a student – with Stephen Glass, a disgraced former journalist who was found to have fabricated up to half of the stories he wrote for The New Republic.

“She was actually reprimanded by Stephen Glass many years ago for making up a story, which is kind of an interesting, ironic side note, Johnson said.

“She claims in the interview that she has a very good BS detector, but her general inclination is to believe a source who is telling her something, Johnson said, noting that Erdely wrote or a lot of women’s magazines, alternative newspapers, and publications with a reputation for being left-wing.

“Often times they don’t really report the truth, they sort of report of kind of truthiness about things. They want to advance a certain agenda, present a certain picture of the universe.”

However, he denied the assertion that he was basically ganging up on Erdely with harsh criticism because of her alleged political agenda. “My contempt for the media is bi-partisan and non-partisan - it’s more towards people who are pushing agendas.”

Watch the full interview to also hear Johnson explain his decision to be the first to identify other media subjects, as well as a recent controversy he faced over publishing a photograph that he now says was erroneous.