WashPost's Zak Appears to Scoff at UVa. Frat's Plan to Sue Rolling Stone for Defamation

April 6th, 2015 9:46 PM

"Social group whose primary activities include lewdness & intemperance, & whose recruits suffer humiliation & sadism, sues for defamation." That was a tweet from Washington Post "newspaperman" Dan Zak at 7:39 p.m. Monday evening. 

 

While Zak did not say either in that tweet nor in others in his recent Twitter timeline that he was referring specifically to the University of Virginia chapter of Phi Kappa Psi and its decision to sue Rolling Stone, it's difficult to imagine the oblique reference was made regarding another organization. Zak failed to link to anything online to substantiate that Phi Kappa Psi's UVa. chapter is particularly known to be, outside of the faulty allegations by Rolling Stone, of course, to be marked by lewdness, intemperance, humiliation, and sadism.

In fairness, perhaps Zak would argue the tweet was merely supposed to be a humorous aside playing off the stereotypical image many have of frats: How bad does it have to be if you're a fraternity and you can credibly sue for defamation?

The only other recent tweet connected to the Rolling Stone controversy was this one from April 5, which included a screen capture highlighting a sentence reading "the most consequential Rolling Stone made was to accept that Erdely had not contacted the three friends who spoke with Jackie on the night she said she was raped"

But like this report could've been one sentence long. http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/a-rape-on-campus-what-went-wrong-20150405 …