Rolling Stone magazine has now apologized, sort of, for publishing a lurid account of a gang rape at a fraternity at the University of Virginia that — it has become increasingly clear — never happened. But the larger story is why so many people — editors, readers and university officials — bought the story in the first place.

Within three days of publication of the fantastical account, which read more like third-rate pulp fiction than investigative journalism, the university president had suspended all Greek activities on campus. As with the Red Queen from “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” it was “sentence first — verdict afterwards.”