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 The discredited story was intended to call attention to the issue
of sexual violence on college campuses, but instead “the magazine's
failure may have spread the idea that many women invent rape
allegations,” a team from the Columbia University Graduate School of
Journalism concluded in its critique.
It noted that social scientists say false allegations are estimated
to account for 2 to 8 percent of all rape reports.
The Rolling Stone article, written by contributing editor Sabrina
Rubin Erdely and published in November, detailed an alleged 2012
gang rape that a first-year student identified as "Jackie" said she
had endured at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house. It also accused
the university of tolerating a culture that ignored sexual violence
against women.
But in December, after coming under a barrage of questions about the
story's veracity, Rolling Stone apologized for "discrepancies" in
the account and admitted that it never sought comment from seven men
accused of the alleged rape.
 "Rolling Stone's repudiation of the main narrative in 'A Rape on
Campus' is a story of journalistic failure that was avoidable," the
Columbia team wrote in the report, which the magazine requested and
published on its website.
"The failure encompassed reporting, editing, editorial supervision
and fact-checking."
The review of the story was led by Steve Coll, dean of the Columbia
Journalism School.
In an editor's note printed at the top of the report, Rolling Stone
Managing Editor Will Dana said the magazine was officially
retracting the article and apologized "to all of those who were
damaged by our story and the ensuing fallout."
It is important that rape victims feel comfortable stepping forward,
Dana wrote, "and it saddens us to think that their willingness to do
so might be diminished by our failings."
The magazine's founding editor, Jann Wenner, said in an interview
with the New York Times on Sunday the botched story was an isolated
episode and that Erdely would continue to write for the magazine. He
also said neither Dana nor Sean Woods, who edited the article, would
lose their jobs.
While Dana said in his note that Rolling Stone would commit itself
to following “a series of recommendations about journalistic
practices that are spelled out in the report,” the report itself
said “Rolling Stone's senior editors are unanimous in the belief
that the story's failure does not require them to change their
editorial systems.”
NO RED FLAGS RAISED
The report quoted Erdely as acknowledging to Columbia's review that
she and her editors had perhaps been too accommodating of the
alleged victim and willing to take her account as a rape victim at
face value.
"In retrospect, I wish somebody had pushed me harder," Erdely said.
But the report said other mistakes throughout the editorial process
failed to raise the kinds of red flags that should have drawn
attention to fundamental problems with the story.
In particular, the report faulted Erdely and her editors for failing
to check Jackie's account against other sources, including her
alleged attackers and three friends depicted in the story as
unsympathetic to her.
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A spokesman for Phi Kappa Psi could not be reached immediately for
comment. However, the report quoted campus chapter president Stephen
Scipione as saying the magazine had "tarnished our reputation."
"It's completely destroyed a semester of our lives, specifically
mine," Scipione told the reviewers. "It's put us in the worst
position possible in our community here, in front of our peers and
in the classroom."
Rolling Stone has not been sued by the fraternity, and Reuters was
unable to determine if it planned to bring court action.
Legal experts said the report's findings could leave Rolling Stone
more vulnerable to a libel case, but they cast doubt on the
likelihood of such a lawsuit.
The Columbia review said fallout from the story had already caused
considerable damage to the magazine, and the news media in general.
"The story's blowup comes as another shock to journalism's
credibility," the report said, adding that the incident highlights
the need for newsrooms to reaffirm the best journalistic practices.
In particular, the report recommends stronger newsroom policies on
the use of pseudonyms, on checking information that casts people in
a negative light, and on sharing specific details about a report to
allow clearer rebuttals.
Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring also castigated the magazine,
saying its failures have "injected doubt at a moment when we are
finally building national momentum around efforts to end campus
sexual violence."
Attorneys were divided on whether Phi Kappa Psi or its members at
the university were in a strong position to bring lawsuits against
Rolling Stone. Bruce Sanford, a Washington media lawyer with the
firm BakerHostetler, said all they would have to do is prove
negligence on the magazine’s part.
Duke University Law School professor Stuart Benjamin pointed out
that the story identified none of the alleged attackers by name,
which could undermine any libel case. For the fraternity as a whole,
he said he didn’t think "the lawsuit would get you any more
vindication than you've already gotten."
(Additional reporting by Ayesha Rascoe and Ian Simpson in Washington
and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Gunna Dickson, Richard
Chang and Paul Tait)
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