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Fact or Fiction? Rolling Stone's UVA Gang Rape Story (1 Viewer)

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RICHMOND, Va. (AP) The author of a discredited Rolling Stone magazine article about an alleged rape on the University of Virginia campus has apologized for failing to verify the victim's story.

In a statement sent to The Associated Press, Sabrina Erdely said she "did not go far enough to verify" the story of the victim, who was named "Jackie" in the November 14 story titled "A Rape on Campus."

Erdely's apology came shortly after the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism posted a report calling the reporting on the article a "story of journalistic failure that was avoidable."

Rolling Stone Managing Editor Will Dana posted an apology on the publication's website and said the magazine was officially retracting the story.
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http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/05/media/rolling-stone-uva-rape-article-columbia-probe/index.html

Major 'failures' found in Rolling Stone's 'A Rape on Campus'

An institutional failure at Rolling Stone resulted in a deeply flawed article about a purported gang rape at the University of Virginia, according to an outside review by Columbia Journalism School professors.

The review, published Sunday night, says the failures were sweeping and "may have spread the idea that many women invent rape allegations."

At the same time the review came out, Rolling Stone officially retracted the story and said sorry. But the publisher, Jann Wenner, has decided not to fire anyone on staff. He believes the missteps were unintentional, not purposefully deceitful.

One thing is clear: All of this could have been avoided if the writer, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, had made more phone calls.

"The editors invested Rolling Stone's reputation in a single source," Columbia's 12,866-word report concludes.

The source was Jackie, a student who leveled allegations of a violent gang rape against a group of fraternity students. None of her allegations have been corroborated.

Columbia's report says "if Jackie was attacked and, if so, by whom, cannot be established definitively from the evidence available."

Charlottesville police recently announced they could find no evidence that a rape occurred. But they stressed that their findings did not mean that she hadn't been raped and that they were keeping the investigation open.

Jackie did not cooperate with either the police investigation or Columbia's. Her lawyer told Columbia that it is "in her best interest to remain silent at this time."

Columbia's behind-the-scenes account is embarrassing for all involved. Rolling Stone failed several lessons from Journalism 101.

Sean Woods, the primary editor, "did not do enough" to press Erdely to "close the gaps in her reporting," the report says. And Will Dana, the magazine's top editor, "might have looked more deeply into the story drafts he read, spotted the reporting gaps and insisted that they be fixed. He did not."

Erdely, a freelance writer, issued a formal apology on Sunday night. So did Dana.

Magazine commits to Columbia's recommendations

"We are officially retracting 'A Rape on Campus,'" Dana said in an editor's letter. "We are also committing ourselves to a series of recommendations about journalistic practices that are spelled out in the report."

Those recommendations included little or no future use of pseudonyms and greater efforts to check "derogatory information."

Dana also said "we would like to apologize to our readers and to all of those who were damaged by our story and the ensuing fallout, including members of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity and UVA administrators and students."

The fraternity is considering suing Rolling Stone; a spokesman said the frat may have more to say on Monday.

The specter of legal action may explain why Columbia says "Erdely and the editors involved declined to answer questions about the specifics of the legal review" of the story, "citing instructions from the magazine's outside counsel."

Rolling Stone had asked Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism in December to conduct the external review.

Columbia embraced the challenge. Its review identifies three main failures, with the "most consequential" one being that Erdely did not interview the three friends who were with Jackie the night she says she was raped.

The "Rape on Campus" story did quote them, but those quotes were based on Jackie's recollection of conversations they shared, not based on any other interviews.

"That was the reporting path, if taken, that would have almost certainly led the magazine's editors to change plans," Columbia's investigators say.

When other news organizations, including CNN, spoke to the trio, it became clear that there were many inconsistencies in Jackie's story. For instance, the friends said Jackie did not appear bloody or beaten after the alleged attack.

The friends told Columbia that they would have talked to Rolling Stone if they'd been contacted. But they weren't.

Students say writer had an agenda

"It just goes to show that she likely operated with some kind of agenda," said one of the three, Alex Stock, "because she was looking for a story and it didn't matter if it was true or not."

After the report was published on Sunday night, he said, "At first I didn't know, but now I think it's devastatingly clear she didn't do her research at all."

Another one of the three friends, Ryan Duffin, said Erdely "thought Jackie had contacted us and we had said no to an interview." Duffin told CNN he agreed with Columbia's conclusion that more thorough reporting by Erdely would have changed the outcome.

"Had she gotten in direct contact with us, it probably wouldn't have been printed, at least in that way," he said. "A lot of the article was still based in truth, but the focal point would have been different."

Erdely told Columbia that in retrospect, I wish somebody had pushed me harder" about reaching out to the three friends.

But her editor, Woods, told Columbia that he did push: "I did repeatedly ask, 'Can we reach these people? Can we?' And I was told no."

Beyond the three friends, the report faults Erdely with not sharing more information with the accused fraternity ahead of time. If she had, the frat would have probably alerted her to factual discrepancies, and that "might have led Erdely and her editors to try to verify Jackie's account more thoroughly."

The report also faults Erdely and Woods with not trying harder to track down the alleged ringleader of the gang rape. Jackie gave Erdely the silent treatment while Erdely tried, so the magazine eventually "capitulated," apparently fearing that their primary source would stop cooperating.

Fundamentally, Erdely and the editors were over-reliant on Jackie and insufficiently skeptical the whole way through.

Even Wenner, when he read a draft of the story, told Columbia that he found Jackie's case "extremely strong, powerful, provocative... I thought we had something really good there.

Wenner told The New York Times in an interview that Erdely will continue to write for Rolling Stone.
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It's unreal that nobody is going to be fired. Both the writer and editor should be fired. And the fraternity should absolutely sue the crap out of Rolling Stone. So should UVA frankly for all the damage the lie did to their reputation.

 
GroveDiesel said:
It's unreal that nobody is going to be fired. Both the writer and editor should be fired. And the fraternity should absolutely sue the crap out of Rolling Stone. So should UVA frankly for all the damage the lie did to their reputation.
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Yeah, Erdely has some balls stating that her editor should have pushed her more.

 
Rolling Stone doesn't care as long as it doesn't cost them any money, or they would have fired the writer and editor.

 
I'd missed checking into the blogs to find out what Columbia University said about this. Thanks for the update.

The question for some of us then becomes what to think about Teresa Sullivan (the head of UVA) and the protestors' responses to the fraternities at Virginia. There were new restrictions placed upon them because of this story, and discipline and social disapproval (often in less than appropriate forms) was doled out without any form of due process for the accused. What now?

And I agree with Grove Diesel. That Sabrina Erdely or her editor might someday write another journalistic piece or oversee one is close to a cosmic joke and an informational farce. Their next pieces, as well as many Rolling Stone journalistic pieces going forward, should be no better than your average roll of toilet paper (okay -- should be set aside for extra skepticism) for a while.

 
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rockaction said:
bigbottom said:
rockaction said:
I'd missed checking into the blogs to find out what Columbia University said about this. Thanks for the update.
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You didn't miss anything. The report was just released tonight.
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Oof. :loco: I wonder what the Monday news cycle will look like.
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I don't expect there to be a lot of hoopla. The report appears to confirm most of what we already know, so the news isn't all that groundbreaking. Frankly, the most notable thing is that no one is getting canned, and Rolling Stone plans to have Erdely continue to write for them. Save a retraction and apology, pretty much no accountability for anyone involved, and that includes the girl who was the subject of the story.
 
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Statement from Sabrina Rubin Erdely:

"The past few months, since my Rolling Stone article "A Rape on Campus" was first called into question, have been among the most painful of my life. Reading the Columbia account of the mistakes and misjudgments in my reporting was a brutal and humbling experience. I want to offer my deepest apologies: to Rolling Stone's readers, to my Rolling Stone editors and colleagues, to the UVA community, and to any victims of sexual assault who may feel fearful as a result of my article.

Blah, blah, blah.."

She apologizes to everyone except the members of the fraternity who were falsely accused of gang rape in her her article. Her non-apology and the fact that nobody was fired at Rolling Stone is unreal. I don't know how this is considered acceptable. Hopefully those fraternity guys get a nice settlement.

 
I know this is a little abstract, but Jann Wenner and the rest of the RS staff seem to be intent upon laying blame at the feet of "Jackie" who is apparently, according to them, instead of Sabrina Erdely, now the "fabulist" in this story about a story about a story (no really, all the stories I've listed add up correctly). It reminds me of E.E. Cummings, for some reason.

Buffalo Bill 's
defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
Jesus
he was a handsome man
and what i want to know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Death
 
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chauncey said:
Statement from Sabrina Rubin Erdely:

"The past few months, since my Rolling Stone article "A Rape on Campus" was first called into question, have been among the most painful of my life. Reading the Columbia account of the mistakes and misjudgments in my reporting was a brutal and humbling experience. I want to offer my deepest apologies: to Rolling Stone's readers, to my Rolling Stone editors and colleagues, to the UVA community, and to any victims of sexual assault who may feel fearful as a result of my article.

Blah, blah, blah.."

She apologizes to everyone except the members of the fraternity who were falsely accused of gang rape in her her article. Her non-apology and the fact that nobody was fired at Rolling Stone is unreal. I don't know how this is considered acceptable. Hopefully those fraternity guys get a nice settlement.
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Interesting. RS expressly apologizes to the fraternity, but Erdely chooses not to. Clearly intentional.

 
bigbottom said:
chauncey said:
Statement from Sabrina Rubin Erdely:

"The past few months, since my Rolling Stone article "A Rape on Campus" was first called into question, have been among the most painful of my life. Reading the Columbia account of the mistakes and misjudgments in my reporting was a brutal and humbling experience. I want to offer my deepest apologies: to Rolling Stone's readers, to my Rolling Stone editors and colleagues, to the UVA community, and to any victims of sexual assault who may feel fearful as a result of my article.

Blah, blah, blah.."

She apologizes to everyone except the members of the fraternity who were falsely accused of gang rape in her her article. Her non-apology and the fact that nobody was fired at Rolling Stone is unreal. I don't know how this is considered acceptable. Hopefully those fraternity guys get a nice settlement.
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Interesting. RS expressly apologizes to the fraternity, but Erdely chooses not to. Clearly intentional.
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The Columbia report suggested, if not said directly, that a main failure in this was that she was looking for a case that would satisfy her notion that gang rape happens too often at fraternities, so it isn't surprising that she would be reluctant to apologize for something she probably still believes is true.

 
This is the new cycle though. Outrage is acceptable, when it goes too far or is inaccurate the apology and retraction are backpage news.

 
Apple Jack said:
Her not being fired suggests that there is more to this than meets the eye.
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I can't help but feel the author (and maybe even the editor) wanted to spotlight an epidemic, even if under false pretenses. As false as this story is, we're talking about a situation that can and has taken place.

Not supporting the author and I don't like the tactic at all.. just racking my brain for some reason to justify this because as you say.. I also get the sense that there is more to this than meets the eye. It makes more sense to me than the author/editor being dumb enough to publish a story without fact checking first :shrug:

 
DocHolliday said:
The fraternity and UVA need to sue. That is the only way heads roll at RS.
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The fraternity is suing and that might have something to do with why heads haven't rolled. That would be an acknowledgement that she and the editor were negligent. Or something like that.

 
bigbottom said:
Link to the Columbia report: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/a-rape-on-campus-what-went-wrong-20150405
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The genesis of this whole fiasco started before Erdely even spoke with "Jackie".

Last July 8, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, a writer for Rolling Stone, telephoned Emily Renda, a rape survivor working on sexual assault issues as a staff member at the University of Virginia. Erdely said she was searching for a single, emblematic college rape case that would show "what it's like to be on campus now … where not only is rape so prevalent but also that there's this pervasive culture of sexual harassment/rape culture," according to Erdely's notes of the conversation.[SIZE=12.75px]1[/SIZE]

Renda told Erdely that many assaults take place during parties where "the goal is to get everyone blackout drunk." She continued, "There may be a much darker side of this" at some fraternities. "One girl I worked with closely alleged she was gang-raped in the fall, before rush, and the men who perpetrated it were young guys who were not yet members of the fraternity, and she remembers one of them saying to another … 'C'mon man, don't you want to be a brother?'"

Renda added, "And obviously, maybe her memory of it isn't perfect."

Erdely's notes set down her reply: "I tell her that it's totally plausible."

 
Can a magazine "fire" a freelance writer? She's not a w-2 employee, right? I guess they could announce they won't be publishing her work anymore.

 
TenTimes said:
Apple Jack said:
Her not being fired suggests that there is more to this than meets the eye.
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I can't help but feel the author (and maybe even the editor) wanted to spotlight an epidemic, even if under false pretenses. As false as this story is, we're talking about a situation that can and has taken place.

Not supporting the author and I don't like the tactic at all.. just racking my brain for some reason to justify this because as you say.. I also get the sense that there is more to this than meets the eye. It makes more sense to me than the author/editor being dumb enough to publish a story without fact checking first :shrug:
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Ofcourse that is what was happening. I feel like most journalists write the story first, find the facts second. They have the story they want and then try to find a way to squeeze the truth into their idea for the article.

 
As some people have observed, the Rolling Stone non-guilt, non-firing response makes a lot more sense if they are preparing a defense against potential lawsuits.

 
its got to be lawyer stuff now no way that they did not get canned like tuna from a bale workout for this otherwise take that to the bank bromigos

 
CletiusMaximus said:
Can a magazine "fire" a freelance writer? She's not a w-2 employee, right? I guess they could announce they won't be publishing her work anymore.
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Speculation is that she probably is under contract for a certain number of pieces, and getting paid a good sum for doing so (maybe around $200k). She's not an "employee" in the sense that they don't need to pay her benefits, etc.

The problem is that Erdely had a narrative and a story already written in her mind, and she then sought out the means of telling it. So seemingly she was willing to believe anything that "Jackie" told her, to the detriment of following the basics of journalism the entire way. And for whatever reason, the editors at RS did the same with Erdely.

Knowing people who have been accused of/fired for plagiarism in the past, it's an impossible tarnish to remove. I don't know how anyone will be able to take serious anything Erdely writes (or, to a lesser extent, RS publishes) ever again.

The sad part is, campus rape surely is a major problem, and anyone with any sense of journalistic chops should have been able to find a story there with some work. But this one had to be "sensational." The attempts by Erdely and RS to illustrate the problem probably did more harm than good.

 
CletiusMaximus said:
Can a magazine "fire" a freelance writer? She's not a w-2 employee, right? I guess they could announce they won't be publishing her work anymore.
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RS affirmatively stated that Erdely would continue to write articles for them.

 
chauncey said:
Statement from Sabrina Rubin Erdely:

"The past few months, since my Rolling Stone article "A Rape on Campus" was first called into question, have been among the most painful of my life. Reading the Columbia account of the mistakes and misjudgments in my reporting was a brutal and humbling experience. I want to offer my deepest apologies: to Rolling Stone's readers, to my Rolling Stone editors and colleagues, to the UVA community, and to any victims of sexual assault who may feel fearful as a result of my article.

Blah, blah, blah.."

She apologizes to everyone except the members of the fraternity who were falsely accused of gang rape in her her article. Her non-apology and the fact that nobody was fired at Rolling Stone is unreal. I don't know how this is considered acceptable. Hopefully those fraternity guys get a nice settlement.
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Yeah, I saw that this morning. This lady is a real piece of work.

 
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