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.

The post Rolling Stone Retracts Story About Alleged UVA Rape appeared first on Law Street.

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.

The post Police Find No Evidence to Support UVA Gang Rape Story appeared first on Law Street.

Hey y’all!

You might have missed it with all the huge news events within the last week, but there was a Rolling Stone article published last week about a young woman who was the victim of a heinous crime. Seven (yes, SEVEN) young men at a fraternity party raped the woman over a three-hour period. The rape took place two years ago, but now that the story is out UVA President Teresa A. Sullivan has decided to shut down all fraternities until at least January 9, 2015. There will be an investigation conducted during the suspension.

I read the Rolling Stone article and the details are mind boggling. Not just of the before and after but of the rape itself. It was horrifying. After the victim, Jackie, was raped she was able to locate her “closest” friends and tell them about the incident, which resulted in a decision I do not understand. One friend wanted to take her to the hospital immediately while the other two were more concerned about her reputation at the school. I’m sorry but those two kids were NOT your friend, Jackie. When your friends are more concerned about your reputation than your wellbeing, you need to take a good hard look at those relationship. I realize Jackie was in a horrible state but the friend who said she needed to go to the hospital should have put her foot down and taken her. According to the report her dress was drenched in blood and she needed to see a doctor.

I understand that life on a college campus can sometimes be difficult but what is more difficult–having people talk about you for a few weeks because you were raped and reported it or walking around on campus knowing that at some point you will run into your rapists, knowing what they did to you and that they are just living their lives like nothing happened?

I respect the school’s decision to shut down the fraternities and investigate but all of the evidence that was needed to prosecute these scumbags is gone. All that is left is eye witness accounts that aren’t really that reliable, especially after so much time has gone by. I worry about students on any college campus who are more focused on their reputations than justice when a crime is committed.

Allison Dawson

Allison Dawson was born in Germany and raised in Mississippi and Texas. A graduate of Texas Tech University and Arizona State University, she’s currently dedicating her life to studying for the LSAT. Twitter junkie. Conservative. Get in touch with Allison at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post University of Virginia Suspends All Fraternities After Rape Allegations appeared first on Law Street.