And the more responsible news outlets – like the Boston Globe – are doing just that, using words like alleged, account, and report.
Remember Francisco Nava. Remember Kerri Dunn. I could go on. I’ve been covering – for years – people at universities who stage (or are accused of having staged) hate crimes against themselves. So notorious is this behavior – self-generated physical and other attacks – that it inspired a play – Spinning into Butter.
This woman might indeed have been attacked. But many of these stories turn out to be hoaxes.