NATASHA VARGAS-COOPER: Hey, Feminist Internet Collective: Good Reporting Does Not Have To Be Sensitive.

Here’s something that’s also sort of “unfair:” not talking to seven unconvicted, alleged criminals about their involvement in a purported horrendous crime! It is not rude, shaming, or belittling to seek quotes from alleged rapists. Actually, it is what a responsible journalist does, even when it makes said journalist’s source uneasy. And if making a source uneasy makes a journalist uneasy, it’s time for the journalist in question to find another profession.

If the reporter behind the Rolling Stone story, Sabrina Erdely, would have spoken to the seven alleged rapists about their version of events — or even just a couple of them! — the magazine could have avoided airing “Jackie’s” strange, hard-to-believe, increasingly doubtful story. Or if one of her assailants said, “HELL YEAH WE DID AND SHE WANTED IT!”, that would have been good to know: that guy is a pig. Or maybe one of the seven accusers attempted to stop the assault? Or tried to help Jackie? Or fled the room for help? Maybe we should talk to that guy?

There is a horrendous, hidden bias in Rolling Stone‘s reporting: the premise that none of these guys would tell the truth if asked. Whether it’s because they are white, or in a frat, or were even possibly directly involved in the act, the notion that the only things these men would say are lies is a stupid and cowardly assumption.

If you are a front-line warrior in the war against patriarchy, know this: facts, no matter how complicated or unpleasant, should not be obscured because they “help the other side.” Ask yourself, soldier, is the cause of equality so weak that statements made by the frat boys would destroy it?

A few paragons of the feminist left have condemned Rolling Stone‘s statement for discrediting their source. As well as brushing off inconsistencies in Jackie’s story as exposed by The Washington Post. “It’s as if survivors are expected to go to victim finishing school,” tweeted Durga Chew Bose. Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist, added, “My next book will be Bad Victim.”

But they conspicuously have not chastised Rolling Stone for their unwillingness to fact check Jackie’s story and enter into a losing bargain with a source who refused to have her severe accusations scrutinized.

It is remarkable and depressing how many SlutWalkers, members of The Progressive Internet, and Earnest Feminists, believe that good reporting somehow equates to victim shaming. If you believe that putting the screws to alleged rapists is somehow anti-feminist then you are an intellectual dwarf.

A lot of those out there. They don’t want reporting, they want Narrative. Truth is optional.