Just before the election, Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner cost himself $3 million in a seemingly easy-to-win libel suit by a U. of Virginia administrator by de-retracting much of Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s notorious hate hoax article “A Rape on Campus.”
The day after the election, Obama welcomed Wenner to the Oval Office for an interview in Rolling Stone and they got to talking about fake news:
One of the challenges that we’ve been talking about now is the way social media and the Internet have changed what people receive as news. I was just talking to my political director, David Simas. He was looking at his Facebook page and some links from high school friends of his, some of whom were now passing around crazy stuff about, you know, Obama has banned the Pledge of Allegiance.
In contrast, there’s sane stuff like fraternity initiation gang rape rituals on broken glass.Seriously, is there any social price Wenner will have to pay, such as not getting another Oval Office one-on-one, for sponsoring the climate of hate that led to the most lurid fake news fiasco of the last few years?
