If anyone was unsure of the veracity of Rolling Stone‘s account of an alleged gang rape at a University of Virginia fraternity, the final nail is now in the story’s coffin. Sunday night, the Columbia School of Journalism released its much anticipated blistering report on the magazine’s November feature.
The next afternoon, reporters from major news outlets around the world tore into Rolling Stone as they questioned the report’s authors. And right in the middle of the press conference, news broke that the fraternity in question, Phi Kappa Psi, was going forward with “all available legal action” against Rolling Stone.
Still, perhaps the most astounding news of all in the last day is that everyone at Rolling Stone, including freelance author Sabrina Erdely, will continue working for the publication. A close second for this accolade is Rolling Stone‘s assertion that they don’t need to “change their editorial systems.” All of this comes on the heels of a Charlottesville police investigation ending two weeks ago that also ripped Rolling Stone‘s story to shreds.
The Columbia review, which is even a third longer than the original 9,000-word piece and took three and a half months to produce, details Rolling Stone‘s many missteps at every level.
It is, essentially, a fascinating tutorial in how to fail miserably at the fundamentals of Journalism 101:
A press conference held by report authors Steven Coll, the school’s dean, and Sheila Coronel, the academic dean, revealed little new information outside of the report. But, aside from the fact that no one from Rolling Stone was present, the most telling aspect of the presser was the reporters’ sharply worded questions. Some outlets even sent multiple reporters. CNN, which broke the news that no one would be fired, had three reporters ask questions. Two from CBS News took the mic as well.
Right off the bat, CBS reporter Julianna Goldman questioned Columbia’s decision to keep Jackie’s identity private (“Jackie” was the alleged victim, whose story has since fallen apart and been discredited as an elaborate catfishing scheme).
Lloyd Grove of the Daily Beast wondered if Rolling Stone did in fact “cooperate fully,” as Columbia contends, considering the magazine didn’t answer questions about legal decisions that they deemed attorney-client privilege.
Several reporters, including from NBC and ABC, wanted Coll and Coronel’s opinions as to whether everyone should be able to keep their jobs. Both report authors deferred to Rolling Stone.
Vanity Fair‘s Sarah Ellison even asked why Rolling Stone bothered to request Columbia conduct the independent review in the first place. In the report, Rolling Stone representatives are quoted as saying they don’t see anything wrong with their practices. At times they even place blame on Jackie, which Coll and Coronel disagreed with vehemently in the press conference (along with others at Columbia Journalism Review).
CNN reporter Tom Kludt questioned Columbia’s conclusion that no one invented any facts. “Could you really say that she [Erdely] didn’t engage in dishonesty?” he asked, citing her misrepresentation to the readers over attribution of quotes. Erdely relied solely on Jackie for key parts of her story, including alleged conversations Jackie had with three friends following her alleged attack. Erdely does not make clear that the recollection of the conversations, which paint her friends in a very negative light, come from Jackie alone.
Erdely receives perhaps the harshest reprimand for this critical error in Columbia’s report. The authors also assert she did not do enough to contact the three friends. Coll, in an interview on CJR’s website, points to her failure to find the three friends as one of the biggest mistakes:
The Washington Post tracked down the friends in no time, and they disputed Jackie’s version of events.
The report listed numerous points and opportunities in the writing and editing process where if just one person had spoken up or done just a little more due diligence, the story’s holes and errors would have been exposed and this whole mess Rolling Stone and Erdely now find themselves in could have been easily prevented.
For example, the report states she could have contacted the alleged attackers, or given the fraternity even just a few details of what she was going to accuse them of when asking for comment, or contacted the three friends, or listened to fact-checkers, or simply relied on more than one source for a 9,000-word piece. It’s no wonder why the piece topped Columbia Journalism Review‘s list of the worst journalism examples of 2014.
The press conference continued for an hour, consisting largely of reporters’ critiques of Rolling Stone, saving their longest knives for fellow peer Erdely. A NY Times reporter wanted to know if either of the authors would trust what they read going forward in Rolling Stone. Others wanted to know if the authors had combed through other Erdely and Rolling Stone pieces. Another asked if Erdely should ever be allowed to write for a national publication again. Other press conference participants wanted details of Erdely’s financial arrangements with Rolling Stone, implying that the magazine printed the story to avoid paying Erdely a kill fee.
It was also known that Erdely had an agenda from the start and let her bias get in the way of the facts. She went on a fishing expedition for the most horrific rape story she could find on an elite college campus. As the report authors indicate, Erdely had other stories to choose from, but none were as compelling as this one.
It appears to many that she, along with all the editors, were blinded by their zeal for a bombshell shock and awe story.
Jonathan Mahler of the New York Times put it best:
The report dedicated space to what it terms “confirmation bias,” or starting out with preconceived notions about a story:
Erdely embarked on a mission with the idea that campus rape is an epidemic, and any and all stories she encountered had to be true — and the more horrible, the better for her story. When she came upon Jackie’s story, the narrative almost wrote itself.
Both Columbia authors cautioned against this practice in the press conference.
Coronel advised, “The general rule is there if a story fits into a prevailing narrative, you should be even more skeptical about it. It’s one of those red flags.”
Coll went even farther:
Hopefully some of the other journalists in the room took what he said to heart, although no one should really bet on that.
As for the report itself, overall most of Rolling Stone and Erdely’s reporting failures had already been uncovered by media outlets. The nitty gritty details about the editors’ and Erdely’s sides of the story are somewhat interesting — they throw each other (and Jackie) under the bus at various points, but support each others’ version of events at other times.
But the main take away from the report is the sheer breadth and depth of its severity: no one associated with Rolling Stone is spared. No excuses — ranging from Rolling Stone’s defense of being “too sensitive” to Jackie (and not wanting to alienate her by contacting her alleged attacker), to staff cutbacks — are tolerated. After all, Rolling Stone still employs an entire fact-checking department, a luxury most daily newspapers have axed.
The magazine finally issued a formal retraction and took the piece down from its website, and Erdely issued a formal apology. UVA’s president Teresa Sullivan also issued a statement, which read in part: “Irresponsible journalism unjustly damaged the reputations of many innocent individuals and the University of Virginia.”
Still, as one reporter at the press conference pointed out, no one from Rolling Stone or the University has issued an apology specifically to the fraternity – whose name has been dragged through the mud, whose house has been vandalized, and whose organization was suspended by the University when the story first broke.
The only person on record to do so is UVA economics professor Ken Elzinga, in a well-crafted letter. Elzinga also encourages legal action: “A sizable judgement against the offending parties may be a deterrence to this kind of action by those who rush to judgment in the future,” he writes, while suggesting some proceeds be donated to charities.
Rolling Stone was hoping to put this issue to bed with the report, but it leaves more questions than answers. How could a national magazine release such a story that did so much damage to all parties involved? How could no one be fired? How could said publication be so nonchalant?
Rolling Stone did note in a statement they will “commi[t] ourselves to a series of recommendations about journalistic practices that are spelled out in the report.” The recommendations include banning pseudonyms, “checking derogatory information,” and “confronting subjects with details.”
But this is a platitude, and perhaps not even not indicative of their true thoughts on the matter. The report includes this gem:
The consequences of one reporter’s and one magazine’s bad practices are so far-reaching and mind boggling. Erik Wemple lists several: the defaming of the university, the fraternity, and the three students; the police resources expended; and, last but certainly not least, “the cause of justice for victims of sexual assault.”
Erdely says in her apology that “the past few months…have been among the most painful in my life.” But she and Rolling Stone could have done so many things differently — or even just one of the many — to end up with a drastically different outcome. Chief among them, perhaps they could have all read a high school journalism textbook.
Whitney Blake is a 2006 graduate of the University of Virginia’s College of Arts & Sciences.
