What the UVA Rape Case Reveals

Rolling Stone magazine and its reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely are facing a great deal of skepticism about a story called “A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA.” The article tells the story of “Jackie,” a University of Virginia student who says she was gang raped at a fraternity party early in her freshman year.

There are solid journalistic reasons to question Erdely’s reporting. She failed, as Slate and others have objected, to get any statements from the accused, while offering feeble and conflicting accounts about why — first saying the young men were hard to find, and then explaining that the victim was uncomfortable about having them contacted.