On Sunday, Rolling Stone published Columbia Journalism School’s investigation into “A Rape On Campus,” the magazine’s November retelling of a gang-rape during a party at a University of Virginia fraternity house.
We know that the review, which was led by Columbia Journalism School dean Steve Coll, will be “long and damning“; that Sabrina Rubin Erdely, the author, is expected to apologize; that the magazine’s editors and fact-checkers will not be fired as a result of the article.
Here are four questions to keep in mind as you read the article:
What efforts were made to contact the accused?
In a Dec. 1 Washington Post story, Rolling Stone editor Sean Woods said the magazine did not talk to the alleged attackers because staffers “could not reach them.” But nonetheless, he was “satisfied that these guys exist and are real.”
Since the article was published, the fraternity whose house the assault allegedly took place in denied hosting a social event the evening of the alleged assault, and journalists have been unable to reach any man who supposedly lured Jackie to her assault. So, what efforts were made before the article was published to get a response from the fraternity and verify the identities of the alleged attackers?
What efforts were made to reach Jackie’s friends?
In an interview with The Washington Post’s T. Rees Shapiro, three of Jackie’s friends denied being contacted by Rolling Stone’s reporters and editors and disputed several claims in the article:
They also said Jackie’s description of what happened to her that night differs from what she told Rolling Stone. In addition, information Jackie gave the three friends about one of her attackers, called “Drew” in the magazine’s article, differ significantly from details she later told The Post, Rolling Stone and friends from sexual assault awareness groups on campus. The three said Jackie did not specifically identify a fraternity that night.
Although these friends are portrayed as reacting to Jackie’s assault by weighing the social cost of reporting the rape, they told The Post that they “urged Jackie to speak to police and insisted that they find her help.”
So, what explains the difficulties between these two conflicting accounts? And what efforts were made to secure interviews from Jackie’s friends?
Why weren’t the discrepancies caught before publication?
Rolling Stone journalist Matt Taibbi has described the fact-checking system at Rolling Stone as “long,” “thorough” and “painful.” Here’s Taibbi on “Imus in the Morning” via the Erik Wemple blog.
“For people like me and for a lot of the other reporters who’ve worked there over the years, this was a real shock to us because, speaking personally — people laughed at me when I said this on Twitter — what I go through normally in the fact-checking process at that magazine has always been a really difficult, long, thorough, painful process,” said Taibbi. “And that was actually one of the things that always attracted me to working there, which is that I feel safe when I publish things because I feel like it’s been double-checked and, you know, that was always a good feeling. And clearly I think in this particular situation, the controls got broken down somewhere and they’re looking into that. I’m sure they’re coming up with some answers.”
How did this fact-checking apparatus fail to raise questions about this article before it was published?
What corrective steps should be taken to avoid a similar situation?
Although Wenner told CNN he believes any errors were unintentional, the fact remains that a deeply troubled article made it through the magazine’s editing and fact-checking ranks.
With that in mind, what precautions might be taken to prevent the magazine from repeating similar missteps? Where did the editing process break down and how can it be corrected?
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