Rolling Stone | The Washington Post
Rolling Stone says “there now appear to be discrepancies” in the account of a rape at the center of its blockbuster story about rapes at the University of Virginia.
The magazine has “come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced,” Managing Editor Will Dana writes. “We were trying to be sensitive to the unfair shame and humiliation many women feel after a sexual assault and now regret the decision to not contact the alleged assaulters to get their account.”
Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house at the University of Virginia. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
The piece’s author, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, did not contact the men that main character Jackie said raped her. “I’m satisfied that these guys exist and are real,” Sean Woods, who edited the story, told Washington Post reporter Paul Farhi. “We knew who they were.”
A spokesperson for Rolling Stone says Woods will remain with the magazine.
T. Rees Shapiro reports that the fraternity where Jackie said the rape happened did not host a party on the night in question. The Post also rereported Jackie’s claims, and says she “revealed to friends for the first time the full name of her alleged attacker, a name she had never disclosed to anyone.” Shapiro continues:
But after looking into that person’s background, the group that had been among her closest supporters quickly began to raise suspicions about her account. The friends determined that the student that Jackie had named was not a member of Phi Kappa Psi and that other details about his background did not match up with information Jackie had disclosed earlier about her perpetrator.
Comments