Dive Brief:
- Rolling Stone magazine has backed away from its story that alleged a University of Virginia student was gang-raped at a Sept. 28, 2012, Phi Kappa Psi fraternity party.
- The magazine issued its “note to readers” on Friday after the Washington Post reported that many key details of the account appeared to be false, while others could not be corroborated.
- Among holes in the story: There was no social event at the fraternity on the night in question, and the alleged victim’s friends doubt her story. Also, the woman’s supposed date to the party was a member of the fraternity and a lifeguard who worked with her, and the fraternity claims that no member was a lifeguard in 2012.
Dive Insight:
As the Washington Post points out, the Rolling Stone story appears to be a stunning lapse in journalistic judgment, and the magazine’s reporter and editors may have lied about their supposed attempts to track down obvious sources that would have helped verify or discount critical details of the story. Advocates on the issue of campus sexual assault worry that the issues surrounding the Rolling Stone story will now set back the movement, swaying opinions against future victims and sowing doubts about their claims. Barring a dramatic revelation of new facts, the UVA rape story seems destined to take its place in the annals of bad or fabricated journalism, just a notch below the infamous creations of Janet Cooke at the Washington Post, Jayson Blair at the New York Times, and Stephen Glass at Vanity Fair.