Attorneys for Rolling Stone magazine and a former administrator at the University of Virginia completed their closing arguments on Tuesday, in a defamation case brought against the magazine for an article it published two years ago about now-debunked rape accusations. Seven jurors will begin deliberating the case on Wednesday in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Nicole Eramo, the former associate dean of students at UVA, also in Charlottesville, is suing the magazine for $7.5 million for its November 2014 story, “A Rape on Campus.” Eramo says the writer, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, unfairly portrayed her as a villain, and as an administrator protecting her institution rather than her students. The story centers around “Jackie,” a student who alleged she was gang raped and beaten at a fraternity party in 2012.

Tom Clare, Eramo’s attorney, argued that Erdely set out to tell a story of “institutional indifference,” and had a preconceived agenda that directed her reporting. He said she ignored key sources and facts that ran counter to her narrative, asserting “once they decided what the article was going to be about, it didn’t matter what the facts were.”

After the Rolling Stone piece thrust the case, and campus sexual assault more broadly, into the national conversation, a police investigation largely debunked the story “Jackie,” told Erdely. Rolling Stone issued an apology in December 2014, and the story was retracted in April 2015. To prove her case, however, Eramo must show the magazine intentionally acted with “actual malice.” 

Rolling Stone defamation trial nears end as lawyers say facts of UVA case ignored https://t.co/3nkzmG6woo

— The Guardian (@guardian) November 2, 2016

On the other side of the aisle, Rolling Stone’s lawyer, Scott Sexton, said there is no evidence that the magazine was aware of the story’s falsehoods before publication. “Everyone who encountered this young woman believed her,” he said. “Yet we are the ones, in a sense, being tried for having believed her.”

The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism was commissioned by Rolling Stone after the story’s retraction in 2015 to study how the article was reported and where it failed. The commission called Erdely’s piece “a story of journalistic failure that was avoidable,” encompassing “reporting, editing, editorial supervision and fact-checking,” especially concerning the writer’s reliance on a single source (“Jackie”), and her failure to corroborate details with friends or interview the accused attackers.

The trial has lasted over two weeks, as 10 jurors–the seven who will decide the case and three alternates–reviewed 11 hours of video testimony, a score of eye witnesses, and 300 exhibits. “Jackie” will be providing a recorded deposition, and will not show up in court.

Alec Siegel

Alec Siegel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. When he’s not working at Law Street he’s either cooking a mediocre tofu dish or enjoying a run in the woods. His passions include: gooey chocolate chips, black coffee, mountains, the Animal Kingdom in general, and John Lennon. Baklava is his achilles heel. Contact Alec at ASiegel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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In November 2014, an article was published by Rolling Stone, titled “A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA.” The author, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, reported about a supposed gang-rape that happened to a girl named “Jackie” at an on-campus fraternity at the University of Virginia.

The article quickly drew national attention and outcry, not only to the fraternity, but also to UVA, because of a named official who reportedly shunned “Jackie” from reporting the sexual assault.

Students protested, demonstrated, and some even vandalized the fraternity house. The Inter-Fraternity Council and the university’s president suspended fraternal activities until January 2015.

The first issue with the story that did not resonate well with readers was the lack of additional sources. The story was written from one point of view, which for the purpose of fairness and accuracy is not how a journalist should go about writing an article. In addition, a simple verification of facts would’ve lead to either more concrete evidence or a lack there of (which was later found to be the case).

The Washington Post published a piece detailing the discrepancies and doubts that they had found with the story, after doing small verifications. Police also conducted a thorough investigation and were unable to find evidence to support what “Jackie” said had happened.

There was no party that night. There was no boy named “Drew” who was a fellow lifeguard and Phi Kappa Psi fraternity member. None of it was true. So why would she lie?

Associate Dean Nicole P. Eramo is seeking roughly $8 million worth in damages in the case against Rolling Stone, its parent company, and Erdely. She argues that she was pegged as the villain and that she was targeted by not only Jackie, but by Rolling Stone as well.

On April 7, Jackie testified under oath, after being ordered by a judge to do so. Although, what she said is confidential and was sealed immediately.

What we do know from this case was that it was a grave disservice to not only the university and the fraternity, but also to the one in five women who will be sexually assaulted during their time in college. This article perpetuated the myth that many of those who report sexual assaults are just lying about what happened to them.

Every day on campuses around the country women and men are sexually assaulted, and many are choosing or are advised not to report their incidents. It is unfortunate that this story, of all of the stories about campus sexual assault to be published, was fabricated.

This also brought up the ethical dilemmas of adhering to a source’s desire to remain confidential and/or requests that other sources not be contacted regarding the incident. Jackie argued that she feared retaliation from her assailants if they were contacted, and Erdely agreed to keep them out of the discussion. However, as the Columbia Journalism Review found in a comprehensive investigation on the magazine, these errors could have been easily caught through simple verification without giving the details of the story away to another source.

Jackie’s lawyers had argued that her testifying would cause her to have to relive the pain and be re-victimized by the process. However, the judge denied the motion and ruled that she had to testify, hopefully to shed some light and understanding on what went wrong in late 2014.

Throughout this entire process many people have tried to figure out who “Jackie” really is. She is the main character in the story, and the person who created the haunting details that were later proved false…so shouldn’t her name be out there too? Some think yes and some think no. Somehow, she has been able to keep her anonymity, unlike the high profile names and organizations that were made public in the article.

The dean of the Columbia Journalism School, Steve Coll, told The Washington Post,

It’s an unusual situation, and I understand the argument on the other side, but I would not name her … She never solicited Rolling Stone to be written about. She’s not responsible for the journalism mistakes. To name her now just feels gratuitous, lacking sufficient public purpose. That could change depending on how the legal cases unfold, but that’s my sense now.

Julia Bryant

Julia Bryant is an Editorial Senior Fellow at Law Street from Howard County, Maryland. She is a junior at the University of Maryland, College Park, pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Journalism and Economics. You can contact Julia at JBryant@LawStreetMedia.com.

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It was clear when the Charlottesville police department announced that it had found “no substantive proof” to support the UVA gang rape detailed in Rolling Stone’s “A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA,” that the magazine had made some serious mistakes in its reporting. As a result, the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism was tasked with investigating the magazine’s story in order to figure out just where Rolling Stone went wrong. The report, which is being called “a piece of journalism about a failure of journalism,” outlines a list of fundamental journalistic failures on individual, procedural, and institutional levels. The controversy has forced Rolling Stone to issue a formal retraction.

Rolling Stone writer Sabrina Rubin Erdely began her article intending to showcase the pervasiveness of rape culture on college campuses using the story of an alleged gang rape survivor known as Jackie. Jackie’s horrific story of sexual assault and her campus administration’s lack of action resonated with readers and launched a national dialogue about rape. But just a few weeks after the story was published, details from Jackie’s story were called into question, leading to a formal police investigation into the alleged rape. While police found that they could not authenticate Jackie’s claims detailed in the article, they did not refute that something had potentially happened to her.

Columbia University followed suit with its own investigation in order to uncover what faulty journalistic practices led to such a scandal. The group summarized their findings writing:

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 a combination of failures including fact checking and corroboration attributed to the article’s inauthenticity, the takeaway is that Rolling Stone’s fundamental mistake was that they trusted Jackie way too much. The article’s editor Sean Woods claimed they were “too deferential” to their rape victim stating:

We honored too many of her requests in our reporting. We should have been much tougher, and in not doing that, we maybe did her a disservice.

Working with rape victims can be understandably challenging, especially when there’s the potential to re-traumatize them by having them retell specific events. Despite this, there still needs to be a way to hold sources accountable while preserving journalistic integrity. Rolling Stone failed to provide a balanced account of the events by only featuring the victim’s side of the story. This misstep now opens the door for other articles’ authenticities to be questioned, especially those written by Erdely, or others involving anecdotal evidence.

Surprisingly Erdely and her editors will not lose their jobs even in light of the report’s findings–apparently Rolling Stone views the report’s public embarrassment as punishment enough. However, that decision may not stand with an impending lawsuit against the publication on behalf of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity in the works. Publicly Rolling Stone needs to prove that its credibility remains after this massive disservice to journalistic integrity.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Last November, Rolling Stone shocked the nation with its 9,000-word article entitled “A Rape on Campus.” The piece told the horrific story of a University of Virginia freshman known only as “Jackie.” She claimed to have been gang raped by seven Phi Kappa Psi frat members during a frat date party. The article accused UVA of a “cycle of sexual violence” and “institutional indifference” that preferred to silence girls like Jackie who reported rape instead of helping them. The piece started an impressive national dialogue about rape culture, particularly rape culture on college campuses. Now after four months of investigating and roughly 70 interviews, police have concluded that the gang rape that reignited a movement most likely never even happened.

Charlottesville police announced Monday that they have found “no substantive basis” to support the gang rape detailed in Rolling Stone’s article. Investigators also found “no evidence” that a Phi Kappa Psi frat party even took place on the night of Sept. 28, 2012, which was when the rape was reported to have occurred.

In the above video Chief Longo says,

We’re not able to conclude to any substantive degree that an incident occurred at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house, or any other fraternity house, for that matter. That doesn’t mean something terrible didn’t happen to Jackie on the evening of Sept. 28, 2012. We’re just not able to gather sufficient facts to determine what that is.

There were a number of unsubstantiated claims made by Jackie in the Rolling Stone article that investigators detailed debunking. For starters, police found no proof that a party even occurred at the frat house the night of the alleged rape, but instead proved the Phi Kappa Psi brothers were attending a formal at their sister sorority, Delta Gamma, that evening. Jackie also claimed to have been hit over the head with a glass bottle during the rape, and that her roommate at the time, a nursing student, later removed glass shards from her face. But when police interviewed the roommate, she denied removing any such glass and claimed the wound was more consistent with an abrasion from having fallen. The list of inconsistencies didn’t stop there. For the full text from the Charlottesville police statement detailing their findings in the UVA rape case click here.

According to Chief Longo, the case is not closed but rather suspended until police are able to gather more information or someone comes forward providing more information.

So, what does this mean for Rolling Stone and its journalistic integrity? The magazine, which operated under the assumption that everything Jackie told it was true, already released a statement taking responsibility for its mistakes in handling the article. It admitted to its failure to contact the accused in the story, known as “Drew,” and get his side of the story. Now it’s opening itself up for further review by allowing the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism to complete its own investigation into the magazine’s reporting, which will later be published in Rolling Stone in early April.

As for Phi Kappa Psi, the accused fraternity might be seeking legal action against Rolling Stone for “defamation”. UVA’s Phi Psi chapter said in a statement provided to Business Insider:

Phi Kappa Psi is now exploring its legal options to address the extensive damage caused by Rolling Stone — damage both to the chapter and its members and to the very cause upon which the magazine was focused.

From a legal perspective the frat has a pretty good case, due to the magazine’s gross lack of fact checking and failure to even contact the frat for its side of the story. However if the fraternity members plan to follow through with a suit, they must be willing to expose themselves yet again to scrutiny that could result in even more unwanted publicity.

Alexis Evans

Alexis Evans is an Assistant Editor at Law Street and a Buckeye State native. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism and a minor in Business from Ohio University. Contact Alexis at aevans@LawStreetMedia.com.

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