May 7, 2015

Jon Krakauer semi-exposes himself to criticism in Missoula, the target of his new book "Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town."

"Krakauer previously said he wasn't planning a tour or any other public appearances to promote the book, but he wanted to give critics in Missoula the chance to confront him."
Instead, he received an enthusiastic welcome and applause throughout his interview with University of Montana Journalism School Dean Larry Abramson before a standing-room only crowd of more than 550 people.

That warmth was shattered when a man who identified himself as Missoula attorney Thomas Dove made his way to the front of the room just as the interview ended, called Krakauer a liar, accused him of bias and of breaking the law by citing confidential documents in his book.

The crowd tried to shout down Dove, while a few others disappointed that Krakauer did not take questions from the audience demanded that Dove have his say. Krakauer started to answer Dove's questions, but eventually became exasperated and walked out of the room as the crowd became more hostile toward Dove.
So Krakauer purported to offer his critics in Missoula a chance to confront him, and he got a comfortable event to be staged somehow, through the auspices of the University of Montana, which has a big interest in shoring up its reputation. (The book is about things that happened to the university's students.) And a Missoula man shows up, prepared to confront Krakauer, but Krakauer takes no questions from the audience. When the man insists on speaking anyway, he seems like a heckler, and the huge Krakauer-friendly crowd tries to shout him down. But there are "a few others" present who, perhaps, felt burned that they showed up for what was purportedly going to be a confrontation with critics but turned out to be a well-cushioned platform for Krakauer. The "few others" and whatever they said were apparently enough to push Krakauer to start to answer, but somehow he "became exasperated." We're told the crowd got "hostile" to Dove, so I guess we're supposed to be satisfied that Dove really was a heckler and that the wisdom in numbers — "the crowd" vs. the "few others" — has determined that Krakauer was justified in walking out.

I want to see the transcript.

ADDED: There's some audio here. I learned that Dove was given a microphone, but then (for some reason) Dean Abrahamson cut things off. After that, Krakauer had some interaction with Dove but then walked out.

FINALLY: The commenter Carter Wood pointed to the video, and it's quite disturbing.



Dove isn't heckling. He has a microphone, and Krakauer endeavors to answer a few questions. Then the crowd takes up yelling and booing, perhaps to help Krakauer. Then Krakauer stomps over and snatches the mike out of Dove's hands. From the audience: a woman laughing, people booing, and a man saying "Get out of here!"

ALSO: To be fair, Dove was being boring. He had a sheaf of papers and took the liberty to read from them. That was after he'd gotten Krakauer to straight out admit he was biased and engaged in confirmation bias. That was a long enough turn for Dove, but he took advantage, like he was going to lead an inquest. That really wasn't going to work, but the way the crowd, the Dean, and the author shut him down made them all look awful. Stupid.

48 comments:

Brando said...

Sounds like Krakauer fits in well with his SJW brethren and sisteren! Safe from troubling speech or criticism, they are free to spout whatever they wish, whether it is real or imagined, so long as it fits their politically rigid agenda.

So this is how journalism dies...to thunderous applause!

Michael K said...

Rape culture has its own rules and its own allies. Krakauer is one of them.

traditionalguy said...

How can the man be labeled a heckler if he speaks after the talk ended? The second speaker was the one who was heckled into silence.

But then, up is down and black is white in Progressives Land.

Ipso Fatso said...

Hey Ann, here is a suggestion. See if you can get a hold of Thomas Dove and interview him for your blog. Maybe you can do one of those video things you do periodically. I think it would be time well spent.

virgil xenophon said...

MUST...NOT...DISTURB...TEH...NARRATIVE!

tim maguire said...

I think that excerpt makes Krakauer look very bad. Clearly the event is staged (though not necessarily with Krakauer's connivance). When he does get the kind of question that he was supposed to be there to field, the audience jumps in and attacks the questioner.

Rather than use his position as featured speaker to chastise the audience and let the man have his say, he takes advantage of the opportunity to run away and hide.

Coward.

sykes.1 said...

Krakauer's book "Into Thin Air" came into considerable criticism, too. Apparently, he spent the entire episode huddled in a tent. Anatoli Boukreev, whom Krakauer strongly criticized, was the true hero of the climb. He wrote his own rebuttal and later died on K2.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Sounds like the crowd was stacked with lesbians and shrieking feminists and Pajama Boy types. Are there any crowd pictures?

Scott said...

To be a progressive, you have to develop a taste for bad theater.

Vet66 said...

The left doesn't want criticism against "THE NARRATIVE." Radical feminism holding the victim umbrella. The so-called "hook up" culture in most universities degrades both men and women but it seems the predictable outcome, regret, falls more harshly on the women.

Chris said...

The title of the book bothers me. I grew up in Missoula, and it doesn't surprise me that he has critics. Or maybe a better way to put it is that it doesn't surprise me that Missoula has defenders.

Yes, Missoula is a college town, but it's also a lot more than that. With that title, Missoulians not in the university bubble are going to take it personally.

Phil 314 said...

Lawyers always ruin the fun.

Thuglawlibrarian said...

From the article:

"The criminal justice system has a high legal burden to convict a rapist, and as a result, many offenders end up walking away, he said. Universities have a lower legal threshold to discipline sexual offenders, but they don't do enough."

Wow.

madAsHell said...

See if you can get a hold of Thomas Dove and interview him for your blog. Maybe you can do one of those video things you do periodically. I think it would be time well spent.

^^^^this

Carter Wood said...

Missoulian coverage here, with video. Comments worth reading.

kcom said...

Epic fail as an exercise in rehabilitation. The man writes a book about how the fix is in and then tries to burnish his reputation by participating in an event where the fix is clearly in.

Who was his press consultant, Hillary Clinton?

madAsHell said...

Thomas Patrick Dove
2925 St Michael Dr Missoula, MT 59803-2918

telephone:925-381-8941

It seems that he has retired. Here is his CV.

It doesn't appear that he has been admitted to the Montana bar. I think he might be a snowbird, and spends the winter in San Francisco.

kcom said...

From the Missoulian link: "I think (the forum) is a good thing for our community," said Eric Carlson, a local artist.

It sounds like something straight from The Onion.

Carol said...

I dunno, I think the "problem" is that many of us have had the chance to read the book. So it turned into more of a laudatory forum. He did us a huge favor and after an hour no one was ready to watch a cross-exam. Maybe they should have gone into recess first.

And I don't see why UM would have "packed" the meeting when it was the institution being skewered, along with the county attorney.

And yeah I think K is fed up with lawyers anyway.

Mike Sylwester said...

Thomas Dove made his way to the front of the room just as the interview ended, called Krakauer a liar, accused him of bias and of breaking the law by citing confidential documents in his book.

That is exactly the moment when I would expect Krakauer to leave.

Thuglawlibrarian said...

The Missoulan article says it was a standing room, diverse crowd. From the video provided it sure didn't look diverse.

BarrySanders20 said...

Johnny Sokko says:"The Missoulan article says it was a standing room, diverse crowd. From the video provided it sure didn't look diverse."

Johnny, loved your show as a kid. Watched it after school growing up in suburban Detroit in the early 80's.

But there was diversity. There were fat white lesbians and skinny white lesbians. And fat pajama boys and skinny pajama boys. What more do you want?

damikesc said...

Lefty courage in action.

BTW, note, you didn't conservatives needing safe spaces and whining about how horrible the speaker was.

The "conservative" (and, odds are, he was also a leftie) simply wanted to note that the author lied about what he wrote.

And the kids --- who would demand a safe space normally --- tried to silence him.

Let's zero out federal student loans and let these drooling morons get funding through other means. Darwinism in college.

Ann Althouse said...

"Hey Ann, here is a suggestion. See if you can get a hold of Thomas Dove and interview him for your blog. Maybe you can do one of those video things you do periodically. I think it would be time well spent."

No, that's not the kind of thing I do. I do diavlogs where I'm in a conversation with somebody else and we have various disagreements and different points of view. It's never me interviewing the other person with me in a journalistic position. I avoid anything like that and won't do diavlogs with in that mode.

And Bloggingheads doesn't work like that anymore. I go on to be the person the regular diavlogger talks to, but I didn't want to be a regular, because I don't want to be perceived as the host or interviewer.

Anonymous said...

Who let the townies in?

Ann Althouse said...

@Carter Wood

Thanks!

I'll add that to the front page.

I looked for video and couldn't find that.

~ Gordon Pasha said...

Missoulan article was interesting. The person who really understands what it was supposed to be about was:

“I thought it was really good,” said Joey Kipp, a 16-year-old student at St. Ignatius High School. “I liked the fact that he gave a personal experience. That’s what I liked about it. When people have reasons for writing books, I guess it just hits home for me.”

Kipp said he was disappointed that a lawyer who questioned Krakauer about whether he engaged in “confirmation bias” was shouted down by the crowd after the interview.

“I also kinda didn’t like the end, how they booed that guy off the stage,” Kipp said. “People in the audience were actually biased when they were doing that. And I think they should have let him talk, I would have liked to hear what he had to say.”

Big Mike said...

... but the way the crowd, the Dean, and the author shut him down made them all look awful. Stupid.

... but the way the crowd, the Dean, and the author shut him down made them all look awfully stupid.

FIFY

damikesc said...

To be fair, Dove was being boring

The Dean wasn't exactly a ball of fire. And Krakauer isn't exactly a thrill a minute, either.

I suppose he could've asked Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson to come and read the questions for him.

I'd have found that entertaining.

Sebastian said...

"the way the crowd, the Dean, and the author shut him down made them all look awful"

No: just defending the narrative, opposing an obvious rape culture apologist. Shutting people down for a good cause is good.

rcocean said...

Dove was pretty pathetic for a public speaker. I mean bending and reading quotes off a paper? You're a lawyer and you can't quote 3 or 4 sentences off the top of your head or talk on your feet?

As for the audience, that's the kind of left-wing Stalinist goofs that run US public universities. Its only shocking, if you haven't been paying attention for the last 20 years.

traditionalguy said...

Dove was way out of line. He acted like a self appointed Masonic Order of Prosecuting Attorneys 33rd degree interrogating a witness to build a record in a case on trial.

Rusty said...

Missoula. The town you have to drive through to get to the good trout water.

Carol said...

I guess I've been to too many meetings where some old fart gets up and sucks all the oxygen out of the room. Anyway, anyone could have gone to this thing but the griz fanboys and city boosters didn't show up.

Ann I wish you'd read the book and blog what you think about his argument. He has the typical layman's impatience for proceedings that don't come out with the "right" result.

I just think there are still huge evidentiary problems with these kinds of cases, and assumed that's why the Co atty wasn't pursuing them.

But I think it is right that treating the victim as if she was telling the truth *in the investigation phase* is fair given that's how we treat other sorts of victims.

n.n said...

The "rape culture" activists' burden is to prove statistical or logical inference can be used to paint a class of individuals. The groups' progress from painting men as aggressive to rape-rapists is evidence that they have an ulterior motive. Americans' increasing unease with the pseudo-scientific rationalization and amorality/immorality of the abortion industry may be the cause.

damikesc said...

The "rape culture" activists' burden is to prove statistical or logical inference can be used to paint a class of individuals. The groups' progress from painting men as aggressive to rape-rapists is evidence that they have an ulterior motive. Americans' increasing unease with the pseudo-scientific rationalization and amorality/immorality of the abortion industry may be the cause.

They'd also have to answer why rape incidents are dropping while the definition of what is a rape ALSO drops.

Hell, my mother is harsher than I am. She feels that if a girl goes to the bedroom with a man, she knew what she was getting into. Even I don't go that far.

damikesc said...

As boring as the speaker may have been ... does ANYBODY think he'd have been shouted down or had the mic taken if he agreed with Krakauer?

Arguing that he's dull is ignoring the elephant in the room.

Brando said...

Krakauer lost any credibility when he wrote that "Into the Wild" book which was clearly about a mentally disturbed young man who needed psychiatric help and Krakauer took the position that he was on a higher plane of existence than the rest of us, and we're the crazy ones.

lgv said...

Krakauer was lying. He didn't want to give critics the chance to confront him.

He's never been good at handling criticism. At least he used to have a leg to stand on. Now, his writing is more loosely based on reality and it is open for even greater criticism. Every time he writes, it gets worse.

RMc said...

Johnny (Sokko), loved your show as a kid. Watched it after school growing up in suburban Detroit in the early 80's.

Hey, me too! Viva WXON-TV!

I distinctly remember the announcement made before each show: "Remember, kids, Johnny and his friends are actors, and they are only pretending!"

averagejoe said...

What a surprise to see progressives participating in their favorite pastimes, enforcing a mob veto and shutting up the speech of those they don't agree with. Heartwarming to see how delighted they are with themselves, such dependable little Nazis. Democrats uber alles!

Tim said...

Actually, many feminists are giving bad reviews of Krakauer's book because they don't think a man should be allowed to tell a woman's story about some subjects, including rape. They think the only rape stories men should tell is male apology stories. See WaPo review.

Ken B said...

To be fair Piggy was really annoying without his glasses, you can see why they might treat him that way.


Dove was trying to accurate. So that is cited in mitigation of mau mauing him!

Bob Ellison said...

Missoula is lovely. I think the folks there and in most of Montana and Idaho deliberately spread an image that there's is an area of hatred. Keeps jerks out.

Bob Ellison said...

*theirs

I'm about to give up on voice to text.

Fen said...

Krakauer should be careful. His thoughtcrimes are offensive, and we now know that violence will make the Left submit.

When the news comes I will say: "Krakauer's skirt was too short, he had it coming".

So easy to make the Left say "do not dare offend the Right, we believe in free speech but blah blah we just spotted out pants"

Abbie said...

No hang on. Krakhauer asked for questions to be submitted beforehand, which was not the case with the attorney when he asked his questions. You can criticise Krakhauer about that decision all you want but don't create the impression that he wouldn't take any questions. I get terribly upset by the facts relating to the Rolling Stone article and hate the politics that drive discussion about rape as much as the next conservative but I find no fault with the motive to write a book about a topic simply because the author would like go learn more about the topic, which is the innocence of specific rape victims. I trust Krakhauer's judgement enough to believe that he is being honest. Fault him for having no curiosity about victims of false rape accusations, sure, but that is an issue about whether he has an open mind. Do Krakauer the courtesy of responding to his facts with more facts.

Unknown said...

@Madashell

Maybe I should do some digging and post your address and phone number online. Mr. Dove has been villified as a heckler for asking a very serious question. What I find more disturbing, if Krakauer has nothing to hide, why not take questions? All other author's do, that is what a symposium is: give and take. FYI, Mr. Dove appears to be correct. Krakauer did violate Montana privacy law and then bragged about it. Several people are asking he be investigated, as this is not the first case of Krakauer stealing, cajoling, sweet-talking, passing notes to victims in courtrooms like a teenager, and hacking to get what he wants to suit his theory.

I am mad as hell too, but I won't out you because I have character, but you deserve it someone else does.