Campus Carrier Editorial Board
Students may remember from November the large public outrage after Rolling Stone magazine published an article where a female University of Virginia student alleged her rape accusation was ignored by the school. An article published on the New York magazine’s website explains how in the Rolling Stone article titled “A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA,” the student who the article called “Jackie” recounted how she was gang raped by seven men while at an event hosted by the fraternity Phi Kappa Psi. The article sparked national outrage and conversations about the brutality of fraternity practices.
Soon after the Rolling Stone article was published, the story’s veracity was questioned. A journalistic report conducted by Steve Coll, dean of Columbia’s School of Journalism, was published on Rolling Stone’s website on April 5. The report explained how Rolling Stone had not gone through proper fact checking procedure in verifying the story. Until the article was published, the student “Jackie” refused to give the name of the rape ringleader. After she gave the name, other details, like where she stated the man worked and the fraternity he was a part of, were not checking out.
Rolling Stone released a statement saying their trust in Jackie had been misplaced. This caused further outrage from the public who believed that by doing this, Rolling Stone was victim blaming. Since the article’s release, Rolling Stone has faced incredible backlash, with Columbia Journalism Review naming the article on their “Worst Journalism of 2014” list. Also, according to an article published on the New York Times website on April 6, the fraternity plans to take legal action against Rolling Stone.
The implications of the Rolling Stone article are not, however, just applicable to Rolling Stone. We can draw two major implications from the article, both in terms of the journalism community and rape allegations at large.
For the journalism community, the story represents a major fall in ethics and journalistic responsibility. The journalist had a powerful narrative to tell and, with the proper research, could have made an incredibly impactful point about rape culture on college campuses. However, because the journalist did not fully verify all sources, a possible survivor’s story was discredited and dismissed along with the article’s point. Journalists are the ones responsible for backing up their story. No matter how sympathetic an interviewee might be, it’s the writer’s job to make sure all the facts are completely accountable.
Next are the implications for future rape allegations. This case made major headlines and empowered discussions of how much fraternity culture plays into rape culture. Now that the story is lost in unaccountability, future survivors’ stories may become more criticized or worse, ignored. We cannot afford to discard other cases before they are even presented, merely due to this one story’s lack of credibility.