Anatomy of a failure: What Rolling Stone got wrong

Rolling Stone magazine's publication of "A Rape On Campus" last November, which purportedly chronicled a brutal rape at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house on the University of Virginia campus, resulted in the entire Greek life system being suspended by university president Teresa Sullivan.

The suspension was intended to allow the school to do some soul searching. It was intended to allow the university to examine its policies and for students to ponder their own responsibility to prevent sexual assault.

As we now know, there was one major problem with the narrative. Sabrina Erdely, the author of the 9,000-word story, spoke with "Jackie," the alleged victim and the sole source quoted in the account. The Columbia Journalism School reviewed the piece and recounted several failures of basic journalism. 

Rolling Stone has subsequently retracted the story and has apologized to all the real victims involved. Erdely has also apologized, but she cited the admitted difficulties of handling a story about a crime that so deeply violates its victims.

Erdely interviewed "Jackie" a total of eight times, and the Rolling Stone online account indicated that "Jackie" "proved to be a challenging source," and refused to provide the name of a lifeguard who worked at the pool on campus whom she claimed organized the rape. At that point, Rolling Stone's editors agreed to continue with the story "without knowing the lifeguard's name or verifying his existence."

Erdely, editors and a fact-checker all believed "Jackie," and the fact-checker even provided details as to why she believed Jackie.

"She wasn't just answering, 'Yes, yes, yes,' she was correcting me," the checker said. "She was describing the scene for me in a very vivid way. … I did not have doubt." Rolling Stone asked not to reveal the name of the fact-checker because she didn't have decision-making authority, according to the Rolling Stone account of the story.

After the story published, Erdely asked "Jackie" for the name of the lifeguard and assured her it would not be published. Armed with the name, she attempted to verify his membership in the fraternity and his employment at the pool. She was unable to do either.

Columbia deservedly didn't hold back in its harsh assessment of Rolling Stone's systemic failures.

"The failure encompassed reporting, editing, editorial supervision and fact-checking," Columbia's account read. "The magazine set aside or rationalized as unnecessary essential practices of reporting that, if pursued, would likely have led the magazine's editors to reconsider publishing Jackie's narrative so prominently, if at all."

Besides Rolling Stone now facing the worst possible embarrassment as the result of its lack of responsibility being laid bare before the entire country, there are, of course, myriad ripple effects. Erdely's credibility as a journalist has clearly been shot to hell. The university's reputation has been sullied, as it turns out, under false pretenses. 

I'm admittedly not the most sympathetic person toward the Greek life system, but it turned out Sullivan's suspension of all Greek life activities was a punishment for a crime that we have little to no real evidence to believe actually happened. Much like the Duke lacrosse case in 2006, in which three players were falsely accused of raping a woman at a party, the fraternity brothers in Phi Kappa Psi now will have to deal with the ramifications of being accused of sexual assault unjustly.

One of the few things Erdely did right in the wake of this failure was to express concern about the effects that her and Rolling Stone's mistakes will have on the discussion about sexual assault and rape. Make no mistake: Rape still is a serious problem and communities the world over need to do a much better job of addressing the root causes. A false account, especially one so graphic, can do untold damage to the good work that started, even under bad pretenses.

Ultimately, it will be a long time before Erdely and Rolling Stone regain lost credibility. Worse yet, it will be a very long time before all the wounds caused by shoddy reporting, editorial oversight and fact-checking are healed.