Dr. V: "Why did the journalism enthusiasts celebrate what the broader public would recognize as a debacle?"

Tom Scocca at Gawker takes emotion out of the Dr. V Grantland debacle in offering an intelligent analysis, wondering if this is long form writing’s Altamont and how the enthusiasts jumped on the bandwagon when the story was first released.

He writes:

This blindness didn't just apply to the moral implications of the narrative, but to the narrative itself. As a piece of reported nonfiction, it didn't really hold together. It visibly contained the bones of at least three separate stories, wired clumsily together. And none of those stories was really ready to publish.

Garry Smits notes what a moral and ethical disaster the piece was, pointing out this while reminding us that nearly all of the incriminating information related to this saga comes from auther Caleb Hannan's 7700 word piece:

Near the end of the story, Hannan writes something that is haunting:

" ... there was nothing satisfying about where the story had ended up. People had been hurt by Dr. V’s lies, but she was the person who seemed to be suffering most."

How does that not lead to a decision to leave Vanderbilt's private life out of the tale?