Below are excerpts from the Columbia Journalism Review's report on Rolling Stone's discredited and now retracted story "A Rape on Campus:"
Rolling Stone's repudiation of the main narrative in "A Rape on Campus" is a story of journalistic failure that was avoidable. The failure encompassed reporting, editing, editorial supervision and fact-checking. The magazine set aside or rationalized as unnecessary essential practices of reporting that, if pursued, would likely have led the magazine's editors to reconsider publishing Jackie's narrative so prominently, if at all. The published story glossed over the gaps in the magazine's reporting by using pseudonyms and by failing to state where important information had come from.
In late March, after a four-month investigation, the Charlottesville, Va., police department said that it had "exhausted all investigative leads" and had concluded, "There is no substantive basis to support the account alleged in the Rolling Stone article."3"
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"There has been other collateral damage. "It's completely tarnished our reputation," said Stephen Scipione, the chapter president of Phi Kappa Psi, the fraternity Jackie named as the site of her alleged assault. "It's completely destroyed a semester of our lives, specifically mine. It's put us in the worst position possible in our community here, in front of our peers and in the classroom."
"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.1"
That is how Ruby began her work, that is how Columbia begins its audit of what went wrong. Ruby went in search of a story to fit her preconceived notions, to show "what it's like to be on campus now," That is campus, singular, that's the genus Campus, that's any campus and every campus. I, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, already know what it is like: being on any campus now is to be at a place "where not only is rape so prevalent" but also where "there's this pervasive culture of sexual harassment/rape culture." THAT is outrageous. That is where Ruby started and a person who starts there is starting on the road to smear, to disaster.
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"Failure and Its Consequences
That is how Ruby began her work, that is how Columbia begins its audit of what went wrong. Ruby went in search of a story to fit her preconceived notions, to show "what it's like to be on campus now," That is campus, singular, that's the genus Campus, that's any campus and every campus. I, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, already know what it is like: being on any campus now is to be at a place "where not only is rape so prevalent" but also where "there's this pervasive culture of sexual harassment/rape culture." THAT is outrageous. That is where Ruby started and a person who starts there is starting on the road to smear, to disaster.
...
"Failure and Its Consequences
Rolling Stone's repudiation of the main narrative in "A Rape on Campus" is a story of journalistic failure that was avoidable. The failure encompassed reporting, editing, editorial supervision and fact-checking. The magazine set aside or rationalized as unnecessary essential practices of reporting that, if pursued, would likely have led the magazine's editors to reconsider publishing Jackie's narrative so prominently, if at all. The published story glossed over the gaps in the magazine's reporting by using pseudonyms and by failing to state where important information had come from.
In late March, after a four-month investigation, the Charlottesville, Va., police department said that it had "exhausted all investigative leads" and had concluded, "There is no substantive basis to support the account alleged in the Rolling Stone article."3"
...
"There has been other collateral damage. "It's completely tarnished our reputation," said Stephen Scipione, the chapter president of Phi Kappa Psi, the fraternity Jackie named as the site of her alleged assault. "It's completely destroyed a semester of our lives, specifically mine. It's put us in the worst position possible in our community here, in front of our peers and in the classroom."
