Heck, even CNN reported it (but not MSNBC). Crystal Mangum, the exotic dancer who in 2006 accused three Duke lacrosse players of rape launching an ethics train wreck that ended up costing the city of Durham damages, derailed the academic careers of the three students, got the lacrosse team coach fired, and resulted in a rare instance of a prosecutor being disbarred, finally admitted what everyone should have figured out by now.
“I testified falsely against them by saying that they raped me when they didn’t, and that was wrong. And I betrayed the trust of a lot of other people who believed in me,” Mangum announced on the podcast “Let’s Talk with Kat.” “I made up a story that wasn’t true because I wanted validation from people and not from God.”
Oh.
What?
“I want [the three former students] to know that I love them, and they didn’t deserve that, and I hope that they can forgive me,” she said. Crystal also explained that she has no regrets, because her devastating lies were just part of God’s plan. What a wonderful human being.
I hadn’t followed this sterling citizen’s exploits since an investigation showed that the rape charges against the three young men were unsupported by evidence and they were officially exonerated. It seems that Crystal is in prison for the second-degree stabbing murder of her boyfriend. But that was God’s fault too, I’m sure.
What I found fascinating is that neither of our two most disgracefully partisan, biased and unethical but esteemed newsprint publications felt this two-decades late admission was news fit to print. After all, democracy dies in darkness.
I’m just spitballing here, but do you think it could be that this ugly story decisively undermines the Left’s “believe all women” nonsense that fueled the cynical #MeToo frenzy and sparked such offshoots as the efforts to smear Justice Kavanaugh? And that it might cause some independent minded readers to ponder the extremely questionable sexual assault civil case New York ramrodded through the courts to “get” Donald Trump, and the welter of similar accusations surfacing against the President-Elect’s nominations for posts in his administration?
Or perhaps the reason this story isn’t on the metaphorical radar screens of the Post and the Times is because of the respective skin shades of the main adversaries. If Crystal were white and the three young men she framed were black, might the Times and Post care a bit then? After all, the Times has never renounced its support for the vile and dishonest “1619 Project,” which has been used in schools to advance the libel that the United States is still institutionally and culturally committed to keeping its knee on the throats of black citizens, to pick a vivid metaphor at random.
I’d just like to hear an explanation that doesn’t support the view that the stars of the mainstream media are intermittently manipulating what the public sees, reads and hears for their own political agendas, and that there is no way to be sure when or how.
No news, after all, is sometimes fake news.
_______________
Addendum: 12/14/24, 10:15 pm. A couple of commenters—well, one commenter and one site trespasser—have pointed out that the Times and Post have now covered the story. I had no control over what they did after the Ethics Alarms post went up. The awful Crystal Mangum made her admission the day before, and plenty of news outlets covered the story immediately, as the Times and Post could have, should have, and would have if they didn’t see their mission as being loyal to progressive agenda items rather than conveying events and facts in a timely fashion to the public. I had done multiple searches on search engines, the papers’ own search functions and by my own devices before concluding that coverage was missing, and it was, at least at 9:00 am when I began writing.
Ethics Alarms 
“Crystal also explained that she has no regrets, because her devastating lies were just part of God’s plan.”
Nope. God did not tell her to lie. She chose to lie. God knew she would lie. God can use her choices and the consequences thereof to bring change to her life and worldview, but it was not His plan that she lie in the first place.
I think she needs to grow a little more in whatever faith she is embracing to fully understand this. I wish her well in her journey in the hopes she someday comprehends the difference between what God ordains and what human beings choose.
Sadly, I don’t think Crystal is capable of comprehending much.
Or perhaps the fact that she was trying to get another 15 minutes of fame by telling us something we all already knew wasn’t considered newsworthy.
That’s a valid entry! Then again, the Times had space for such urgent developments as “Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco Are Engaged” and “Tilda Swinton Would Like a Word With Trump About His Mother.”
Oh sure, Curmie. “Nothing to see here. Move along.” Bull fucking shit.
Hey, it’s Christmastime! This is where the Ghost of Christmas Present sprinkles the sparkly dust on the sparring Londoners!
Lefty despises, demeans and ridicules religious holidays.
While that may be a good motivation to ignore certain persons in some situations, I disagree that this is not newsworthy. Tangible harm was done to the reputations – as well as the livelihoods – of several people caught up in her false accusations. There are people today who probably believe the Lacrosse players were guilty, despite the lack of evidence.
When the media splashes names and faces across its pages, it has the obligation to inform the public when there are updates to the situation. In other words, if the NYT and WaPo regarded the Duke case as news, it should regard this woman’s confession as news.
To ignore it leads one to believe that they are more interested in foisting the “Believe All Women” narrative. Doubtless, there are activists out there pleading with news outlets, “Please don’t report this woman’s admission because it will be weaponized against all other woman who come forward!”
The only good news in the reportage on this culmination of this travesty is the fact each of the boys won 20 Million USD from Duke. Good for them. Properly managed, that stake should get them financially to anywhere they could have gotten if they hadn’t been rendered unemployable by Nifong and this disgusting crew.
And let us not forget the NYT was all in on this fabrication, much as they were on the Russiagate story and all the other hit jobs. The undersigned’s college girlfriend got a letter to the editor into the Times when this “story” was filling up all the news that was fit to print arguing for the Duke kids’ innocence until proven guilty. I suspect she was friends with at least one of the parents of the Duke kids as she lived on the north shore of Long Island where some of the boys were from. She must have had some inside information very early on. I think publishing that letter was about the most balanced thing the Times ever did. If they were to publish this interview, the Times would have some ‘splainin’ to do.
Wait. She’s in prison for stabbing her boyfriend. How, then, did she get to participate in a podcast from prison?
As for God’s plan, I find it difficult to believe that a just and loving God would put in motion such a despicable plan that destroyed 3 innocent people’s lives, all for what? I don’t recall Jesus saying something like, “I am the truth, the way, and the light, but, you know, a good old fashioned made up sexual assault story is good, too, if it is for the greater good of God, my dad.”
jvb
Biden’s probably going to pardon her for the murder. The statute’s run on the perjury.
Her statement sounds a whole lot like the boilerplate admissions of responsibility often heard from inmates hoping to get a break from the parole board. On the whole, correctional staffers are a cynical lot, and they regularly hear tales of how much an inmate has changed. Many of these are obvious manipulation.
I told the wife as we watched this unfold on Fox this morning: “I smell a pending parole hearing.”
As other said here, I don’t think God advises us to break the “big 10″… her story was certainly false witness. The plain truth is that you can go to hell for lying as fast as you can for stealing. She is trying to get some punches on her “get out early” card
“ ‘I smell a pending parole hearing.’ ”
Red supplied (IMO) a Número Uno on the Apology Scale, followed by a F**CK OFF to the Parole Board, something which lies outside the…um…approach of the talented Ms. Mangum
PWS
The Times did cover it: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5993142/2024/12/13/crystal-mangum-duke-lacrosse-players-rape/ . The article is dated the same day as CNN’s piece (and yours). The Washington Post ran two articles on that day: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/12/13/duke-lacrosse-rape-crystal-mangum/ and https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2024/12/13/duke-lacrosse-false-rape-crystal-mangum/1259291e-b970-11ef-8afa-452ab71fe261_story.html .
Of note, these are both the same date as the CNN coverage and your post. I suspect that your blogging on the topic was simply premature.
How could my post have been “premature?”
When I wrote it, Fox, the NY Post and the more “conservative” media were all over it. It took me about an hour, so I began at around 9 AM. It wasn’t on the Post or Times site or print editions: I did searches for Duke Lacrosse and Mangum. The podcast had taken place the day before.
I assumed that the story would end up in the Post and Times eventually, because I, among many others, would point out their negligence. They Times waited about two weeks to report the rape accusation against Joe Biden. Same reason. And again, after I had written about it.
Ethics Alarms shouldn’t scoop the New York Times, not by a day, not by a minute.
there are more than just 3 lives that were impacted by this person’s fabrications. This is a transcript that gives a quick snapshot of the whole sordid affair.
46 players on the lacrosse team were affected, several had to leave school due to threat from professors and the public.
Click to access Duke-Lacrosse-video-transcript.pdf
Pay close attention to the 2011 DOE ruling about lowering standards for rape allegations. Males on campus today should be very cautious about carnal activities lest they be victims of similar persecution.
this person is now sorry. Too late sister.
“Males on campus today should be very cautious about carnal activities lest they be victims of similar persecution.”
Instructive here might be the cautionary tale of one Dr. Judith Grossman, who helped orchestrate a world which deems Y-Chromosomal Units as lower forms of life.
“I am a feminist. I have marched at the barricades, subscribed to Ms. magazine, and knocked on many a door in support of progressive candidates committed to women’s rights. Until a month ago, I would have expressed unqualified support for Title IX and for the Violence Against Women Act.”
The talented Dr. Grossman, her life’s work consumed with making this a better world…for at roughly half of us…received an epiphany which would be politely described as “poetic justice.“
Her own little bundle of joy was ensnared by the world she helped to craft.
“But that was before my son, a senior at a small liberal-arts college in New England, was charged—by an ex-girlfriend—with alleged acts of ‘nonconsensual sex’ that supposedly occurred during the course of their relationship A FEW YEARS EARLIER. (bolds mine).
“What followed was a nightmare—a fall through Alice’s looking-glass into a world that I could not possibly have believed existed, least of all behind the ivy-covered walls thought to protect an ostensible dedication to enlightenment and intellectual betterment.”
She was positively aghast that Sonny would not be afforded the presumption of innocence.
The humanity!
The talented Paul Elam puts a finer point to it:
Fuck You, Judith Grossman
PWS