Rolling Stone editor Will Dana has revised his apology for a now-dismantled article about a horrific gang rape at the University of Virginia.
No longer does Dana blame the accuser, Jackie, for his magazine’s failure to corroborate her story.
When the apology was published on Friday, it claimed the magazine’s trust in Jackie was “misplaced.” That line is no longer found in the apology.
Instead, Dana now says that the reporting mistakes in the article “are on Rolling Stone, not on Jackie.” The change, though not noted in an update, comes from media backlash accusing the magazine of pushing its own journalistic failures on Jackie.
Dana still puts a lot of blame on Jackie, writing his magazine was “mistaken” to honor Jackie’s insistence that her alleged rapists not be contacted.
“In trying to be sensitive to the unfair shame and humiliation many women feel after a sexual assault, we made a judgment – the kind of judgment reporters and editors make every day,” Dana wrote. “We should have not made this agreement with Jackie and we should have worked harder to convince her that the truth would have been better served by getting the other side of the story.”
The updated apology on the website now mirrors a series of tweets Dana posted Friday afternoon.
