The headline at Saturday's Assocated Press story at Yahoo News dealing with the implosion of Rolling Stone's November 19 story about an alleged — and, for all appearances, completely fictional — fraternity gang rape at the University of Virginia focuses, as so many other establishment press stories have, on the supposedly "chilling effect" ... (it) could have on sexual-assault victims reporting the crimes." Gosh, whatever happened to "the truth will set you free"?

A central issue here is the magazine's detail-free apology "to anyone who was affected by the story." While quoting several people who are outraged by the magazine's approach, AP reporters Alan Suderman and Frederic J. Frommer withheld a key detail from their readers — one which make it to anyone that Rolling Stone's story was seriously flawed.

When the now-retracted article by the Rolling Stone magazine was published on November 19 about a brutal gang rape of a first-year student at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house at the University of Virginia, the major broadcast networks rushed to the story and devoted multiple segments to both the article and reaction on the school’s campus. In doing so, they failed (unlike other outlets) to point out its flaws that brought an apology from the liberal magazine on Friday afternoon after it came to realize that many of the key facts in the story were in serious doubt.

Andrew Lohse is entitled to hacking out an embarrassingly poorly-argued, simplistic screed. But it is curious that editors at Time magazine chose to publish it. When you boil it down, Lohse essentially argues that fraternities are beyond the pale and must be abolished because of their genesis in the antebellum South.

On Thursday, President Barack Obama did something Republicans have inexplicably been reluctant to do. He nationalized the impending midterm elections by telling a friendly audience at Northwestern University that "I am not on the ballot this fall ... But make no mistake: These policies (of my administration) are on the ballot -- every single one of them."

That evening on Fox News's Special Report hosted by Bret Baier, in video seen after the jump (HT Real Clear Politics), George Will was ready with some facts and a deadly redistributionist riposte on how Obama's policies have worked out in the real world, including in the President's home state, during the past six years:

CNN's Twitter account on Thursday boosted a Rolling Stone article that hyped the far-left Occupy Wall Street movement's latest efforts. The social media post touted, "Think #OccupyWallStreet is dead? Think again. This short-lived occupation is still fighting for five key issues," and linked to Rebecca Nathanson's Wednesday piece on the "five campaigns that OWS-inspired groups have continued to fight for since the movement's presumed conclusion."