Accountability in Music • Page 313

Sigh

 

This whole situation is so weird and messy

 

man. why. so many unforced errors.

 

Fuck off Rough Trade imo

 

MAN, this industry is an unsalvageable trash heap. Just... gross. I’ll never forget seeing all these people who claimed to support survivors read that pitchfork piece and be like “well it’s obviously all true and objective despite glaring red flags because this article was written by someone I like”. All of them, responsible for this. All of them, enablers of this bullshit. God damn. Bleak as shit. Nothing to save.

 

How do we, as a community, move forward re: Pinegrove? What does accountability look like in this very unique situation? How can we have a productive discourse about this band in this thread without devolving into name calling or vaguely pointing fingers, which to be honest, is not very useful here?

 

You can’t have a productive discourse when there are still ppl he’s manipulated out there who he hasn’t even acknowledged. The whole thing is built on disingenuity. It’s not a unique situation at all. It’s happened, is happening, and will happen again. It’s the same discussion this thread has every day. The abuser is centred by the industry. The survivor is ignored, or misrepresented, and tries to move on, and we give the edge in that situation to the abuser instead of the survivor by discussing how to bring the abuser back into the fold rather than erring on the side of caution.

 

The dude destroyed any hope he had of moving forward with his career when he lied about having complied with the survivor's wishes just so he could get back on with his life like nothing happened. That's not accountability, that's not remorse.

 

Yeah you literally don't deserve forgiveness or your career if you lie about this sort of shit.

 

Has there been a direct statement from the survivor in question on the matter of his accountability, or is this all coming from secondhand accounts?

 

The survivor gave people close to her permission to speak out against the narrative being spun by ESH and Pitchfork. But she never directly made a statement, no.

 

Was there ever any more clarity on what actions took place that started this whole process?

 

What we can have a productive conversation about though is how to approach this particular situation and how we would approach hypothetical situations where the accused was not manipulating facts.

Everything about the Pinegrove situation continues to be a bummer, but it is still productive to talk about it, remind people of the facts, or even inform people who are perhaps just hearing of it / can't quite remember how everything played out. Our community is WAY more tuned into this stuff than anyone else.

 

I just wish someone would make an official statement against him, I know we're not owed that and they should do whatever makes them feel safest, but ESH has just gotten to control the narrative from the get go and of course that narrative favors him.

 

To be fair, his narrative wouldn't have nearly as much weight behind it if it hadn't been boosted/given legitimacy by a puff piece in a major music publication.

 

Pitchfork are responsible for this. If he hadn't made his 'comeback' with a puff piece for them, in particular, they probably wouldn't have regained anywhere near the amount of traction they had before those allegations surfaced.

 

From my understanding, after the Pitchfork article came out, there were a few friends that said the person mentioned in the story didn't agree with the narrative the article was putting forth, I believe on Twitter (are these still up anywhere to read?).

This, from the article, is what I can find about the "resolution:"

Since late 2017, both the band and the alleged victim have focused on coming to a private resolution via a trusted mediator. Until that resolution was reached, Hall said, “there was really no way for us to offer any clarification” to their fans. It was the alleged victim’s request that Pinegrove take a year off from touring and that Hall enter therapy. “We wanted to honor that,” Hall said. “She recognized that we’ve honored it, and has since approved our plan to release an album and play some shows later on this year.” (Their mediator confirmed this.)

There were also secondhand discussions about a secondary accusation against the singer that was never accounted for, if memory serves. But I don't think I've seen anything else about those.

 

They definitely would have had a fair bit of traction without the Pitchfork article, as Pinegrove's stans were clearly rabidly anticipating ESH's return to the spotlight. But yeah the Pitchfork story definitely gave them cover to say that everything was fine, ESH had "done the work", and he should be welcomed back to music with open arms. Now only people who know where to look can find out that that was all an enormous, shameless lie.

 

So I wonder if we can discuss this - journalists are obviously responsible for a certain amount of leg work confirming sources and whatnot. How do we hold a site like Pitchfork accountable for their role in this? I spoke privately with Jenn after the piece went up and started receiving backlash, and I fully believe she had the best intentions writing it - to provide a story on what she believed was an honest process of someone learning to be a better person. If the bulk of what invalidates her research comes from anonymous sources speaking through friends, what is the recourse for journalists when covering these matters? Again, this is my personal opinion, but I don't believe Jenn wrote the piece with the intent of it being some sort of puff piece to smooth over an abuser's actions. Do we ask that they write a retraction, an update? How to we begin to engage in a way that isn't just "fuck this enabler" when that wasn't the intent?

 

Thanks for the clarifications. So the journalist is saying they discussed things with the mediator who confirmed this?

 

As a half-fake-blogger-journalist-person, from reading the article again and hearing what you say here, it looks like she tried to get to every source she could and that would speak on the record. And that the survivor ostensibly spoke through the mediator for the piece. To me, I'd have trusted the mediator unless I was given a reason not to as well. (I don't know what was said off the record, or what other sources she had. If someone told me something off the record that invalidated what I had heard officially, I'd not have run the story as is, including a line that makes it seem as though the survivor got the accountability and resolution they were asking for.)

 

I guess in an ideal world updates to the article, or a retraction, would be the best way but honestly I wonder how many people would come back to the article to see the updates or the retraction. In this scenario I’m with you in that I don’t think Jenn wrote this from a malicious place but I think the damage is done. The only thing I can think is to hold pitchfork accountable and condemn them without condemning Jenn. I wonder if they’d even let her add a retraction or updates.

I feel like I’m spinning wheels typing this and not providing anything constructive but it’s such a landmine situation

 

I definitely think any update or change in course needs to come from Pitchfork the Entity, considering that Jenn is just a freelance writer at the end of the day.

 

If I were P4k, to put in a retraction/update, I'd need a first hand source that contradicted in part or whole pieces of the piece itself. To me, the key thing in the article that seems to be of dispute, is "did they actually do what was asked of them and get the blessing to continue touring/making music" ...

Hall said. “She recognized that we’ve honored it, and has since approved our plan to release an album and play some shows later on this year.” (Their mediator confirmed this.)

And, is there another person that was also hurt by the band that has not previously been public, and therefore invalidate most of the article's point, and would they speak off the record to confirm this. If either of those two things happened, that would be more than enough grounds to retract/update.