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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The thing that gets me in all of this is how irresponsible the NYT author (Kolker) was in the retelling. What if this entire issue had been handled in arbitration (which Larsen refused, Dorland was okay with), meaning there would be no public documents? We would just have had the NYT timeline and framing, not the original source documents, which tell a wildly different story than what the NYT published.

It is bothering me how divergent the actual evidence is from the NYT narrative. In the NYT, Dawn sounds crazy, clinging, annoying, etc. Problematic in many ways. But when you read the actual evidence -- produced by Larsen herself in litigation! -- suddenly that largely falls away. You end up with a vulnerable woman who painfully starts to piece together, over years of time, how she's been maltreated and gaslit, someone who doesn't look anything like what Kolker portrayed.

If the hard evidence hadn't been there for us to assess on our own, how destroyed would Dorland have been by the NYT article? How complicit is the NYT in this entire affair? [/quote]

so -- while I get what you are saying -- I do think this is where you have to accept that no media outlet, no reporter, etc is perfect, and that every bit of reporting you read is imperfect and to some degree biased.

i'm a reporter and i would have done this article differently, but fwiw, i'm the same poster who upthread said we need to remember that kolker is a dude, and by being a dude, simply cannot have the same level of true understanding of what mean girl bullyfests involve and look like, or perhaps even the ability to recognize the mean girl bullyfest as arguably the most compelling part of this story. My bias means seeing the mean girl story.

Kolker's bias in this case, as not just as a man but as a bestselling author, is favoring the larger concepts of who owns an idea; who owns a story; what is and isn't literary license/theft. And I get why he has his biases and I have mine, we both come by them honestly. 
[/quote]

Sure, everyone has a bias, but in this case, [b]there is incontrovertible evidence of what actually happened that we can all see.[/b] Bias might come in around the edges with any story where there is a framework of undisputed facts, but here, Kolker presumably took a look at the same evidence we [i]all[/i] have, yet chose to frame his story in a way that leads the reader away from that same evidence.

There is such profound distrust of the media now, such a deep skepticism that had taken ahold of the country. And normally, I give reporters the benefit of the doubt, because I think they are doing good work that's important for a functional country. But when I read articles like this, where nothing exactly untruthful was said, but yet the factual reality is so very different than what the article conveyed, honestly, I get that skepticism. It especially bothers me because absent the court case, I wouldn't have been skeptical.[b] I would have accepted Kolker's framing entirely,[/b] unintentionally compounding what Dorland -- who is the victim here -- went through. And that really bothers me. [/quote]

So, this is still the same problem. We can have access to the exact same evidence and see different things -- or choose to see different things. We've all watched the Rodney King beating video. The cops are beating him: there is no question. Incontrovertible evidence of what actually happened. But that jury, sworn to follow the law, still let most of the officers off the hook.

Oh, and it would take (mostly white) journalists another 20+ yrs after the OJ trial to finally understand: Maybe the OJ verdict was about 75 yrs of racism by the LAPD? The facts about LAPD's significant and documented racism for decades were always there, too.

I'm not saying you shouldn't be pissed at the article, or that the article is great. I'm saying that even professionals bring bias to the table, and time has a way of changing a narrative. Also, you sound smart, which means you are too smart to be readily accepting 100 percent of Kolker's framing, or anyone's framing, all the time, ever. [/quote]

Of course I am not accepting everything at 100%, but what can I trust the NYT (the NYT!) with if I can't even trust them to accurately represent a timeline of events where there is incontrovertible evidence of the events? I mean, am I allowed to trust a basic timeline? A chronology?

The answer can't be "haha, jokes on you, always do your own research, reporters amirite?" It can't be that I should expect a reporter to obfuscate actual events in favor of portraying his bias. Or, it should not be, because if we can't trust institutions like the NYT with, at a minimum, factual chronological analysis, what happens to free media?[/quote]

I completely agree. Especially since this is not really an issue of great consequence. If you'll be lazy about the little things then will you be lazy about the big things. Also since the result is something that  paints an innocent party in a really negative light - you really gotta get that right before you stack the firewood at the feet of a non public figure with no power to speak of. I wish I could find Dawn and give her a hug. I cannot imagine how she feels in all of this. It has to be devastating and fighting back online is almost impossible. [/quote]

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