It’s about the media. It’s about gender. It’s about celebrity and fame. And mostly, it’s about asking ourselves why we ignored this story for decades. Let’s start with an overview from the Washington Post: Bill Cosby’s legacy, recast: Accusers speak in detail about sexual-assault allegations.

+ “The FBI says less than 50 percent of rapes are reported, and the Cosby case — with its delayed reporting and laggard response — is hardly unusual, nor peculiar to celebrity culture.” In Rolling Stone, Barbara Bowman (who says she was drugged and raped by Cosby) explains: “We have a culture that re-victimizes the victims.”

+ David Carr in the NYT on the media’s failings, and the way times have changed. “We all have our excuses, but in doing so, we let down the women who were brave enough to speak out publicly against a very powerful entertainer … It doesn’t really matter now what the courts or the press do or decide. When enough evidence and pushback rears into view, a new apparatus takes over, one that is viral, relentless and not going to forgive or forget.”

+ One comedy club remark, shared on YouTube, changed everything about how this story was covered. The Hollywood Reporter: How the Bill Cosby story snowballed.

+ Would things have been different if today’s social media existed when Robert Huber wrote his Philly Mag piece: Dr. Huxtable & Mr. Hyde?

+ Social media drove the sharing of Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s Rolling Stone article on a brutal assault at the University of Virginia, and within a week, the school’s president suspended all campus fraternities.