Report details failure of article

Associated Press

RICHMOND, Va.

A widely discredited Rolling Stone magazine article about an alleged gang rape at the University of Virginia was a “story of journalistic failure that was avoidable,” the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism said in a report published Sunday night.

The review, undertaken at Rolling Stone’s request, presented a broad indictment of the magazine’s handling of a story that had horrified readers, unleashed widespread protests at the university’s Charlottesville campus and sparked a national discussion about sexual assaults on college campuses.

The report came two weeks after the Charlottesville police department announced that it had found no evidence to back the claims of the victim identified in the story only as “Jackie,” who claimed she was raped by seven men at a fraternity house.

Rolling Stone’s “failure encompassed reporting, editing, editorial supervision and fact-checking,” said the journalism school’s report, which was posted on the school’s and magazine’s websites.

Rolling Stone Managing Editor Will Dana posted an apology on the publication’s website and said the magazine was officially retracting the story.

The author, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, also apologized in a statement, saying she would not repeat the mistakes she made when writing the November 2014 article “A Rape on Campus.”

“Reading the Columbia account of the mistakes and misjudgments in my reporting was a brutal and humbling experience.”

Rolling Stone had asked for the independent review after numerous news-media outlets found flaws with the story about Jackie, who said the attack happened during a social event at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house more than two years earlier. The article quoted Jackie as saying that the attack was orchestrated by a fraternity member who worked with her at the school’s aquatic center.