Rolling stone issued a statement today regarding its widely publicized story, A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA.
To Our Readers:(All emphasis mine.)Last month, Rolling Stone published a story titled "A Rape on Campus" by Sabrina Rubin Erdely, which described a brutal gang rape of a woman named Jackie at a University of Virginia fraternity house; the university's failure to respond to this alleged assault – and the school's troubling history of indifference to many other instances of alleged sexual assaults. The story generated worldwide headlines and much soul-searching at UVA. University president Teresa Sullivan promised a full investigation and also to examine the way the school responds to sexual assault allegations.
Because of the sensitive nature of Jackie's story, we decided to honor her request not to contact the man she claimed orchestrated the attack on her nor any of the men she claimed participated in the attack for fear of retaliation against her. In the months Erdely spent reporting the story, Jackie neither said nor did anything that made Erdely, or Rolling Stone's editors and fact-checkers, question Jackie's credibility. Her friends and rape activists on campus strongly supported Jackie's account. She had spoken of the assault in campus forums. We reached out to both the local branch and the national leadership of the fraternity where Jackie said she was attacked. They responded that they couldn't confirm or deny her story but had concerns about the evidence.
In the face of new information, there now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie's account, and we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced. We were trying to be sensitive to the unfair shame and humiliation many women feel after a sexual assault and now regret the decision to not contact the alleged assaulters to get their account. We are taking this seriously and apologize to anyone who was affected by the story.
Will Dana
Managing Editor
Three things:
First, Rolling Stone, and Will Dana in particular, have a journalistic responsibility to further explain their statement. As it is written, it leads one to believe that they no longer stand by the report, even though they don't explicitly make that claim. The way this has been presented by them to the public is reckless, lazy, an irresponsible. In my view, they must either issue a full retraction or explain to their readers exactly what "new information" has made them lose trust in Jackie.
In addition, "[i]n the months Erdely spent reporting the story" there certainly had to have been enough time to for the due diligence that other news outlets have since shown. The "no reason to doubt" doesn't past muster for a magazine that many of us trust and respect. Given the nature of this story, RS had to have recognized the impact it would have. That they failed to protect themselves from doubts about its accuracy is extremely disappointing.
Second, the reason for my emphasis in the statement is this: RS concedes that UVA has a "troubling history of indifference" in other sexual assault cases. Let's not let that be forgotten, regardless of this particular story.
And, finally, I want to look critically at the so-called discrepancies in this case. I do not want to demonize either Jackie or the alleged attackers. I only want to focus on Jackie's allegations as told to RS, and the subsequent reporting on her story that seems to contradict her.
(Note for sensitive readers: details of the alleged assault are below the fold.)