The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Two Teens Found Guilty in Steubenville Rape Case; Media Malpractice Exposed

Posted on | March 17, 2013 | 43 Comments

‘Occupy’ protesters in Steubenville, Ohio, in January.

Trent Mays, 17, and Ma’lik Richmond, 16, were found guilty Sunday in a juvenile court after a four-day trial on charges that they sexually assaulted a 16-year-old girl during an all-night drinking binge last August. Lee Stranahan, who exposed the media malpractice and online lynch-mob atmosphere ginned up by the Anonymous hackers, examines the reality of the Steubenville case:

In a bizarre story with a cast of characters that includes the New York Times, a fugitive anarchist and Roseanne Barr, massive media malpractice led to the Ohio town being terrorized in real life by elements of the hackivist group Anonymous. After the major mainstream media and left-wing blogosphere got the story completely wrong by spreading wild rumors that the trial revealed to be totally false, the self proclaimed media watchdogs are nowhere to be found.
The Steubenville rape case is a prime example of the mainstream press botching basic facts, violating all principles of fair reporting and getting away with it. . . .

Please read the whole thing at Breitbart.com.

With an eager assist from Anonymous and a handful of smearmongering blogs, the media allowed this crime committed by two teenagers to metastasize into a bogus narrative that impugned the entire town of Steubenville and even the tradition of high school football, per se. The effort to turn this one incident into a symbol — something about “rape culture” or whatever — is typical of how the media get it wrong with their “make a difference” social-justice crusader mentality.

People who can think for themselves value reporting that gets the facts right, without any What It Means sermonettes.

However, you will find that when you start challenging the media’s politicized narratives, you will be accused of bad motives — mala fides — simply because liberals are more interested in dictating the meaning of events than in getting the facts right.

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Category: Crime, Media Bias, Ohio

Comments

43 Responses to “Two Teens Found Guilty in Steubenville Rape Case; Media Malpractice Exposed”

  1. RocksEm
    March 17th, 2013 @ 5:36 pm

    RT @smitty_one_each: TOM Two Teens Found Guilty in Steubenville Rape Case http://t.co/wa0Q8MqPkS #TCOT

  2. fuskiegirl21
    March 17th, 2013 @ 5:43 pm

    @smitty_one_each They only got a year.

  3. Dana
    March 17th, 2013 @ 5:44 pm

    There were something like 60 to 80 teenagers at this party, and enough alcohol that many of them got stinking drunk; the victim was so intoxicated that she couldn’t remember the assault at all, and testified that all she remembered was waking up naked in a strange house.

    But alcohol doesn’t just magically appear: either a liquor store had to have directly sold the booze to underaged buyers, or at least one adult must have provided it to the teenagers . . . yet not one single adult has been charged with this crime yet.

    Just where were all of the parents? If the victim awoke at a strange house, then she obviously didn’t go home that night; where were her parents, and how did they not know this, and why weren’t they frantic? How about the house in which she did awaken; were there no parents wondering what a strange, naked teenager was doing at their house?

  4. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    March 17th, 2013 @ 6:58 pm

    Lee Stranahan did a lot to get the truth out about the media (as did TOM). Thank you to both.

  5. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    March 17th, 2013 @ 7:01 pm

    There will be civil suits to be sure. And while these teens are culpable for their own acts (and there is plenty of culpability to go around), adults who enabled it should be charged with something appropriate related to that enabling.

  6. Rosalie
    March 17th, 2013 @ 7:35 pm

    An “adult” could be someone who is only 18 years old. And at that age, they’re not thinking about any consequences.

  7. Dana
    March 17th, 2013 @ 7:41 pm

    To buy alcohol, an adult would have to be 21 in Ohio, but stupidity can occur at 21, too.

  8. Joy Mowry Schwartz
    March 17th, 2013 @ 8:12 pm

    Joy Mowry Schwartz liked this on Facebook.

  9. Stranahan
    March 17th, 2013 @ 9:04 pm

    The victim brought a bottle of vodka with her.

  10. FerrisBuhler
    March 17th, 2013 @ 10:35 pm

    That this young woman was irresponsible and foolish does not justify what was done to her. No doubt she was a foolish girl.

  11. FerrisBuhler
    March 18th, 2013 @ 12:30 am

    21 to buy alcohol. It is a crime to give it to a minor.

  12. Adjoran
    March 18th, 2013 @ 1:06 am

    The fact is that several others are criminally culpable as accessories, but those the evidence pointed out were needed to testify to the crime itself and so were able to negotiate immunity. That happens in criminal cases where there isn’t enough physical evidence alone for a conviction.

    I don’t see what any of this does to refute the reputation of the town’s propensity to give football players a pass on criminal behavior.

  13. Adjoran
    March 18th, 2013 @ 1:07 am

    Yeah, she was practically begging for it, right?

  14. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    March 18th, 2013 @ 1:24 am

    I am not sure what the point of that is Lee, other than to refute the roofies part of the story. Yeah, she was stupid, got blind drunk and someone likely took advantage of that (two were convicted of it). The civil thing to do would be some girls taking care of her so she could get home.

    And I am not for any witch hunts (and I am glad for your efforts in that), but her being drunk does not make anything that did happen all right. The question is proof of what happened.

  15. Hollis
    March 18th, 2013 @ 2:24 am

    LOL at your mocking media types who proffer What It Means sermonettes while simultaneously dribbling out out a pissy, point-missing version of same. Congrats on the rightblogger trifecta: humorless whine-box, oblivious hypocrite, dogshit writer. Drink from a bottomless horn of baby diarrhea, you horrid, rape-apologizing piece of human garbage. God bless!

  16. Rosalie
    March 18th, 2013 @ 8:11 am

    Here in Pennsy it’s 18.

  17. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    March 18th, 2013 @ 8:33 am

    Yeah, but they don’t really mature until they get a real job and see how much taxes the government takes out.

  18. Finrod Felagund
    March 18th, 2013 @ 9:53 am

    I think his point is that not all the alcohol at the party was provided at the party, and the girl has no one else to blame for getting drunk than herself. This does not mitigate what was done to her one iota, however.

  19. Finrod Felagund
    March 18th, 2013 @ 9:54 am

    Go the fuck away, idiot.

  20. William T Quick
    March 18th, 2013 @ 9:57 am

    Fifty years ago I was buying bottles of cheap vodka out of the back door of an obliging liquor store, using a fake ID I made myself. I know of at least two similar incidents that occurred in my own midwestern town, in which nothing was ever done. After all, in my town, short of murder, the basketball players were untouchable.

    As for the parents and where they were? Where they always are: Utterly clueless about what their kids are actually doing.

  21. Rob Crawford
    March 18th, 2013 @ 10:43 am

    Wow. Lee didn’t say that. He didn’t come anywhere near saying that. He made a simple statement of fact.

  22. Rob Crawford
    March 18th, 2013 @ 10:44 am

    That they were convicted goes a long way to refute it.

  23. Wombat_socho
    March 18th, 2013 @ 11:27 am

    He’s been flushed.

  24. DaveO
    March 18th, 2013 @ 11:39 am

    Dana,

    Where the parents were and were not, just like the question ‘who sold/brought alcohol’ was likely judged as not germaine to the case. As Adjoran aptly demonstrates, the responsibility of the victim is not to be explored as the Feminists have declared that verboten, a second rape if you will. The woman raped was not asking for it, and the men involved should have been gentlemen and protected her regardless of her relationship to them.

    Evi is spot on – there will be civil suits as the lawyers seek what they consider their due from people who lack deep pockets. So Absolut, Barcardi, Captain Morgan, and Dewars will be sued.

    As for the young woman who was raped – what happens to her? And the rest of the community? Whole lotta hate got stirred up. Usually when that happens, a rapist knows to kills her or his victim to hide the crime. Steubenville just got a lot more dangerous due to the hate fomented by media malpractice.

  25. Dana
    March 18th, 2013 @ 12:34 pm

    What happens to the victim? Her life in Steubenville is ruined. Her name wasn’t published, but you can bet your last farthing that everybody in town knows who she is.

    The two assailants probably never even thought what they were doing was rape; they probably saw it as horsing around, but that doesn’t matter. According to CNN, they will now have to register as sex offenders for the rest of their lives, going on the same list as the 44 year old pedophile who raped a 4 year old boy, and practically indistinguishable from him in every way that counts: lists of who lives in the neighborhood, and what comes up in background checks when they apply for college or jobs.

  26. Dana
    March 18th, 2013 @ 12:45 pm

    You are probably right that where the parents were won’t be seen as germane to the case, but it damned well should be! It won’t be seen as germane, because the parents of the kids who were out getting drunk but didn’t get in any trouble due to it are breathing a sigh of relief, but won’t be willing to change their ways.

    The number one rule in Parenting 101, a rule no one wants to admit is the case: if you don’t want your children to drink or smoke or use drugs, then don’t drink or smoke or use drugs yourself. Kids may be immature, but they have a very good sense of hypocrisy.

  27. DaveO
    March 18th, 2013 @ 1:49 pm

    Heard tale the young woman is from across the river in West Virginia. As for the young men: sucks to be them. Hopefully the kids around Steubenville have learned that choices have consequences, whether they be rewards or punishments.

  28. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    March 18th, 2013 @ 1:50 pm

    Agreed. I would like to know where she got the booze she brought.

  29. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    March 18th, 2013 @ 3:03 pm

    You might be reading more into what Lee said than he actually said.

  30. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    March 18th, 2013 @ 3:06 pm

    It is past the statute of limitations, but there was a certain elks club that made the mistake of storing beer and booze in the back and not locking the door…

    I am sure a karmic price has been paid for that.

  31. The Mahablog » Steubenville: The Enablers Fight Back
    March 18th, 2013 @ 3:40 pm

    […] Stranahan of Breitbart, for example, both are outraged at the “lynch mob” and “media malpractice” surrounding the […]

  32. Deserttrek
    March 18th, 2013 @ 6:06 pm

    not sure what the stroy is trying to do.
    the girl was raped and others stood around and watched and did nothing. the rapists belong behind bars for life, yes I mean that. the witnesses who did nothing belong behind bars for many years also.
    the sports culture may have something to do with it. for too long the ability to handle a ball is more important than a civil society. this needs to change.

  33. Deserttrek
    March 18th, 2013 @ 6:06 pm

    so what? the bank gets robbed and its the banks fault?

  34. Deserttrek
    March 18th, 2013 @ 6:08 pm

    stuebenville got dangerous when it let high school football become more important than real life.

  35. Fed_Up18
    March 18th, 2013 @ 6:52 pm

    She was deliberately lured by a false friend & drugged – Google “Cody Saltsman” & get educated.

  36. Finrod Felagund
    March 18th, 2013 @ 8:02 pm

    Thanks very much for your excellent work taking out the Internet trash.

  37. Dana
    March 18th, 2013 @ 8:32 pm

    She was drinking, heavily. She may have been drugged as well, but nobody knows that. She was definitely raped, under the definition of the law, but sorry, no, that does not mean she wasn’t behaving badly herself.

    WHERE WERE HER PARENTS?

  38. zimriel
    March 18th, 2013 @ 8:46 pm

    Lotsa white faces and white necks in that crowd

  39. DaveO
    March 18th, 2013 @ 9:10 pm

    That’s every town where Americans live. Friday Night Lights bring communities together.

  40. UncleRay
    March 19th, 2013 @ 3:42 am

    Can we look forward to your next article praising the Teachers Union when they defend Coach Reno??

  41. K-Bob
    March 19th, 2013 @ 2:27 pm

    You know, I’m just not going to read anymore articles at Breitbart until they get some moderation of their septic tank full of comments. I love free speech, but that doesn’t mean I’d let someone sit in my house and spew garbage.

    It makes the site look unprofessional, right off the top. Like showing up at a golf tournament, only to find that the greens are covered in dog excrement, and full of weeds.

  42. K-Bob
    March 19th, 2013 @ 2:30 pm

    Translation: media Kool-ade is tasty!

  43. K-Bob
    March 19th, 2013 @ 2:31 pm

    Next will be comments about the “rape culture” of evangelicals and people who go to church.