Surprised no one's mentioned this, but late yesterday the Columbia School of Journalism completed its review of Rolling Stone's highly controversial article on campus rape. Specifically, the account of a violent gang rape at a University of Virginia frat house in 2012. The verdict? It was so badly flawed that it should have never been published.
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.
While the three-person review team, led by journalism school dean Steve Coll, found no evidence Jackie made the whole thing up, it did fault writer Sabrina Dubin Erdely and editor Sean Woods for running the story despite making no effort to corroborate Jackie’s account beforehand.
The most egregious error, in the Columbia team's eyes, was Erdely's failure to contact three of Jackie's friends who supposedly talked her out of going to the authorities. However, the three friends maintained they said no such thing, and had Erdely bothered to interview them they would have told her the same thing. Instead, Erdely relied solely on Jackie's account of the conversations. From my journalism major's perspective, that's just one step away from a slam-dunk libel suit. The only sticking point would be that it would be hard to determine whether the three friends were identified. Nonetheless, as I mention at Liberal America, this should have been a firing offense--though for now, Erdely will keep her post.
The sharpest criticism of the story at the outset was Jackie's insistence that Erdely not contact any of the guys who raped her, including "Drew," the ringleader who was Jackie's date that night. It turns out no such demand was made. In fact, Jackie actually suggested that Erdely check the fraternity's roster to find him. Erdely did indeed try to find him, but ran into dead ends every time. She finally decided to use a pseudonym to get around contacting him. The story apparently went to press even though Erdely and Woods hadn't been able to confirm he even existed.
As it turns out, the story started coming unraveled just a few days before the print version was due to go to press. During a phone conversation on the day before Thanksgiving, Erdely persuaded Jackie to give her "Drew's" real name. But Jackie couldn't recall how the last name was spelled. Erdely was alarmed enough to do what she should have done beforehand--cross-reference the name. She couldn't find any evidence he worked at the same pool as Jackie, was a member of the fraternity or had any connections to Jackie. Another phone conversation didn't make her feel any better. The result was an editor's note backpedaling from the way this story was reported. To my mind, though, it doesn't begin to make up for Erdely including negative comments from private people she didn't even bother to interview. That is unforgivable--and Erdely should have been fired.