Rolling Stone’s rape on campus story ‘rife with bad journalism’

IT WAS billed as the shocking case that blew the lid on the culture of sex assault at university. But the story of ‘Jackie’ has unravelled in the most spectacular way.

IT was supposed to be the shocking case that blew the lid on a seedy culture of sexual assault at a US university.

But Rolling Stone’s story about a University of Virginia student who alleged she had been gang-raped by seven members of a fraternity, was “rife” with bad journalistic practice and is set to get the magazine sued.

The discredited article, which made headlines across the globe, was published in November under the headline: A Rape on Campus.

It was pegged on a freshman named “Jackie” who claimed she had been gang-raped at the Phi Kappa Psi feat house in September 2012.

The story triggered protests, and stoked a national debate about the way US colleges handle — or mishandle — sexual assault, before it unravelled in the face of a growing number of discrepancies.

An inquiry by the Columbia Journalism School found Rolling Stone had been “reckless” in research in the article and failed to verify facts that erroneously accused Phi Kappa Psi of crimes its members did not commit.

“Clearly our fraternity and its members have been defamed,” said Stephen Scipione, president of the fraternity’s Virginia Alpha Chapter, in response to the scathing review.

“But more importantly we fear this entire episode may prompt some (sexual assault) victims to remain in the shadows, fearful to confront their attackers.”

Rolling Stone retracted the story on Sunday and issued an apology. It commissioned the Columbia University inquiry after doubts emerged over the credibility of its source.

Published by the Columbia Journalism Review’s website, the 12,000-word investigation found lapses in journalism standards at Rolling Stone from start to finish of the purported expose.

The author of the 9,000-word article, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, who still contributes to the magazine acknowledged Sunday she “did not go far enough” to verify the story.

NO HARD EVIDENCE

Police in Charlottesville, where the university is located, said in March they had failed after five months to come up with hard evidence to back up the allegations that “Jackie” gave to Rolling Stone.

Without elaborating, Phi Kappa Psi said it planned “to pursue all available legal action against the magazine” over the story, which had “ostracised” members of the fraternity and prompted acts of vandalism at its stately, colonnaded premises.

Columbia University took Rolling Stone to task for failing to verify the alleged victim’s claims, or to give Phi Kappa Psi an opportunity to review the allegations in detail.

“The magazine set aside or rationalised 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,” it said.

The explosive article had sought to show a dramatic example of sexual assault on a college campus and the struggles that victims face afterwards — a problem at universities across the United States.

But reporters and editors were so focused on publishing the harrowing example of “Jackie” that “basic, even routine” reporting standards were not followed, according to the Columbia report.

One major stumbling block was the date of the alleged gang rape. “Jackie” said it occurred on September 28, 2012 during a party at Phi Kappa Psi; it later emerged no such event took place there that night.

Columbia Journalism School Academic Dean Sheila Coronel, left, and Columbia Journalism School Dean Steve Coll give a news conference to discuss findings of a report conducted at the school surrounding Rolling Stone magazine's expose of what it called a culture of sex assaults at the University of Virginia.

JACKIE CALLED ‘AN EXPERT FABULIST’

The magazine pledged to review its practices and removed the discredited article from its website, but publisher Jann S. Wenner said he won’t fire anyone despite Columbia’s blistering critique of his magazine’s reporting and editing failures.

Wenner said any failures were isolated and described Jackie as “a really expert fabulist storyteller” who managed to manipulate the magazine’s journalism process.

“Obviously there is something here that is untruthful, and something sits at her doorstep,” he told The New York Times.

But Columbia Journalism School Dean Steve Coll said blaming Jackie would lead people to take the wrong lesson from this entire saga.

“We do disagree with any suggestion that this was Jackie’s fault,” Coll said at a news conference in New York, calling the article an object lesson in what not to do when reporting, writing and editing about complex issues.

“The editors made judgments about attribution, fact-checking and verification that greatly increased their risks of error but had little or nothing to do with protecting Jackie’s position,” the report found.

University President Teresa A. Sullivan said the article hurt efforts to fight sexual violence, tarred the school’s reputation, and falsely accused some students “of heinous, criminal acts and falsely depicted others as indifferent to the suffering of their classmate.”

Some students called for Sullivan to pursue disciplinary action against Jackie. Others worried that other women will suffer because of the magazine’s failures.

Jackie’s lawyer, Palma Pustilnik, told The Associated Press that “we are not making any comment at all at this time.”

The university has not said how many rape reports it has received since the article was published last November. But in a response to a public records request, it said five sex assaults had been reported to its Dean of Students office from the start of school through Nov. 23, 2014. That followed an increase in reports from 16 to 31 to 40 in the previous full academic years.

The Columbia review presented a broad indictment of the magazine’s handling of the story, which horrified readers, unleashed protests on the Charlottesville campus and sparked a national discussion about sex assaults. Police suspended their separate investigation two weeks ago for lack of any evidence supporting Jackie’s claims.

The review was requested by Rolling Stone Managing Editor Will Dana, who issued another apology on Monday as he retracted the article. Author Sabrina Rubin Erdely also apologised, saying she would not repeat the mistakes she made when writing it.

But Sheila Colonel, the journalism school’s dean of academic affairs, said “nothing ever disappears on the internet,” and some University of Virginia students said nothing will erase the repercussions.

Columbia Journalism School Dean Steve Coll answers a question during a news conference.

WHAT WENT WRONG?

The fraternity where Jackie said she was gang-raped announced it will “pursue all available legal action against the magazine” now that the review “demonstrates the reckless nature in which Rolling Stone researched and failed to verify facts in its article that erroneously accused Phi Kappa Psi of crimes its members did not commit.”

The report found three major flaws in the magazine’s reporting methodology: Erdely did not try to contact the three friends, instead taking Jackie’s word for it that one of them refused to talk; She failed to give enough details of the alleged assault when she contacted the fraternity for comment, which made it difficult for the organisation to investigate; and Rolling Stone did not try hard enough to find the person Jackie accused of orchestrating the assault.

If the fraternity had had more information, it might have been able to respond in ways that would raise doubts among journalists, the review concluded.

Dana and Erdely both said they had been too accommodating of Jackie’s requests not to contact others. Coll took both to task for seeking shelter in being overly sensitive to an alleged rape victim. “The evidence doesn’t support” this explanation, he said, since the magazine also failed to investigate leads that Jackie hadn’t asked them not to pursue.

Originally published as Rolling Stone’s rape on campus story ‘rife with bad journalism’