Shooting fish in a barrel with Bill Cosby

[Gravdigr]

This article, at Vox, is about this article, at NYMag.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I'm having trouble with this. If you know anything about groupies, you know a star/celebrity of his stature was surrounded by them his entire career. And it's a real pain in the balls(literally), when they change their mind after he gets stared. Solution, give them a lude and that won't happen.
Unethical? yeah. No more so than alcohol, pot, hash, or whatever, unless they were slipped a mickey, that's a big no no.

From the VOX link.

At 17, my agent introduced me to Bill Cosby, who was going to mentor me and take me to the next level of my career. Over the course of the next year, I was drugged half the time when I was with him and would come out of a delusional experience going, 'Whoa, what was that?' He would say, 'Well, I needed to undress you and wash your clothes because you got drunk and made a fool of yourself.' Do you remember the Jaycee Dugard story? She pretty much could have climbed over the fence any time she wanted to but was just so broken down and couldn't think straight. I felt like a prisoner; I felt I was kidnapped and hiding in plain sight. I could have walked down any street of Manhattan at any time and said, 'I'm being raped and drugged by Bill Cosby,' but who the hell would have believed me? Nobody, nobody.

Excuse me? For a year? Did she want to be a star bad enough to put up with that? If so, she made a deal with the devil, and is equally to blame. Yes, you could have walked down the street and no one would believe you, but the fact you were walking down the street and not walking away, kind of dulls any sympathy from me.

Another thing about groupies, they're attention whores. They'll quietly regret a bad decision, especially if the accidently hooked up with the bass player, or be bragging to their friends how many and which celebrities the balled. Then something like this breaks out in the news they'll change their story to get back in the spotlight.

Sure, I feel genuinely sorry for any of them who were slipped a mickey and raped. But I'm having trouble believing some of them, especially the multiple victims. I feel if I said he drugged and buggered me, the press would be all over it.

[glatt]

I don't want to be defending Bill Cosby, because I think he's a rapist.

Even though I don't want to defend him, I saw a teaser for an upcoming story on the news last night. Some lady was relating a story about how her friend was almost drugged and raped by Cosby. Almost. The friend had not actually been drugged or raped by Cosby, but the news was reporting it breathlessly anyway. There are enough legitimate complaints against Cosby that there is no need to go reporting on the women he DIDN'T rape but could have if the situation had been a little different. I wasn't raped by Cosby. Maybe they could do a story about me?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Exactly, it looks like some of the charges are true, but this gonzo journalism (I use the term journalism loosely) is out of control.

[Gravdigr]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

...gonzo journalism...

Oh man, I would have loved to read Hunter S. Thompson's take on this.

That would have been awesome.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by glatt

I don't want to be defending Bill Cosby, because I think he's a rapist.

Even though I don't want to defend him, I saw a teaser for an upcoming story on the news last night. Some lady was relating a story about how her friend was almost drugged and raped by Cosby. Almost. The friend had not actually been drugged or raped by Cosby, but the news was reporting it breathlessly anyway.

I don't know the details of that report, but it doesn't seem out of line to me.

If that is the entirety of the report ("Woman's friend was almost raped by Cosby"), the sin is in the overhyping and running into the ground of every new bit of info on the story of the day. No better or worse than any other case of 24/7 coverage of a story that can be told in half an hour.

But, as part of the overall coverage, further witnesses (and corroboration to existing accounts) of Cosby's pre-rape behavior patterns, even if they didn't culminate in rape, are newsworthy.