UVA Rape Story Called a ‘Journalistic Failure’

ENLARGE

Phi Kappa Psi fraternity near the University of Virginia campus was described in Rolling Stone’s article as the scene of the alleged rape. Photo: Steve Helber/Associated Press

An investigation by Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism into an explosive Rolling Stone article detailing an alleged gang rape at a University of Virginia fraternity concluded that the story was a “journalistic failure that was avoidable.”

The Rolling Stone article was written by Sabrina Rubin Erdely and published last November under the headline “A Rape on Campus.” It sparked a national uproar over sexual misconduct at college campuses. At UVA, President Teresa Sullivan suspended all Greek activities for six weeks and students marched in protest.

But before long, other media reports raised serious doubts about the veracity of the Rolling Stone article and the reporting and editing process behind it.

Columbia’s examination, released Sunday evening, rendered a harsh verdict, saying the magazine had employed faulty “reporting, editing, editorial supervision and fact-checking.”

The report also found that if the magazine’s editors hadn’t “rationalized as unnecessary essential practices of reporting,” the editors would likely have reconsidered publishing the story as prominently as they did, if they published it at all.

The examination didn’t call for anyone to be dismissed from Rolling Stone. The magazine’s managing editor, Will Dana, is quoted in the report as saying, “It’s on me. I’m responsible.”

On Sunday evening Rolling Stone released an editor’s note signed by Mr. Dana, who described the Columbia report as “painful reading.” He also said that Rolling Stone is officially retracting “A Rape on Campus,” and he apologized to readers and “all of those who were damaged by our story and the ensuing fallout.”

Mr. Dana specifically apologized to members of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity as well as UVA administrators and students. “Sexual assault is a serious problem on college campuses, and it is important that rape victims feel comfortable stepping forward. It saddens us to think that their willingness to do so might be diminished by our failings,” he wrote.

Ms. Erdely, in a statement, said the past few months have been among the most painful in her life, and reading the Columbia report detailing her mistakes was “a brutal and humbling experience.”

She said she erred in overly trusting one woman’s account, saying, “I did not go far enough to verify her story.” She apologized to her readers, her colleagues, the UVA community and victims of sexual assault.

The Charlottesville, Va., police concluded in late March after a four-month investigation that “there is no substantive basis to support the account alleged in the Rolling Stone article,” the Columbia report notes. Police said at the time they were unable to interview the woman featured in the story and their investigation remains suspended until she decides she “wishes to cooperate.”

After doubts were raised about the article, Rolling Stone asked Columbia to investigate.

The report was written by Sheila Coronel, dean of academic affairs at the Graduate School of Journalism, Steve Coll, dean of the school, and Derek Kravitz, a postgraduate research scholar at Columbia who is a contract journalist for The Wall Street Journal.

Findings included a need for “a revitalized consensus in newsrooms old and new about what best journalistic practices entail, at an operating-manual-level of detail.” And the report found a need to better balance “sensitivity to victims and the demands of verification.”

Rolling Stone said it relied on the account of a young woman it identified as Jackie for its description of an alleged 2012 gang rape at a party, which was the article’s lead example. Mr. Dana has said the magazine decided not to contact the alleged perpetrators at Jackie’s request and out of sensitivity to victims of sexual assault. In the story, Jackie said that a fellow lifeguard invited her to a party and then oversaw her assault.

Columbia’s report found that Sean Woods, Ms. Erdely’s editor, didn’t press Ms. Erdely “to close the gaps in her reporting.” Mr. Woods “did not do enough,” according to the report.

Jann Wenner, Rolling Stone’s publisher, read a draft of the article but typically leaves “editorial supervision” to Mr. Dana, the managing editor, the report said. Mr. Dana “might have looked more deeply into the story drafts he read, spotted the reporting gaps and insisted they be fixed,” the report found.

Mr. Dana, in a text Sunday evening, said he and Mr. Woods will stay at the magazine and that Ms. Erdely will continue to write for it. That news was first reported by the New York Times.

The “most consequential” decision, the report found, was Rolling Stone’s acceptance that Ms. Erdely “had not contacted the three friends who spoke with Jackie on the night she said she was raped.” If Rolling Stone had done so, the report said, it “would have almost certainly led the magazine’s editors to change plans.”

However, Rolling Stone also erred by failing to “make clear to readers” that Ms. Erdely and her editors didn’t know the “true name” of the lifeguard who allegedly supervised the rape, and hadn’t spoken to him or even verified “that he existed,” the report found.

George Martin, the rector, or head of the school’s board of visitors, denounced the Rolling Stone piece late last year as a “massive failure of journalistic ethics.”

The alleged gang rape was described as taking place at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house near the UVA campus. The Virginia Alpha Chapter of Phi Kappa Psi voluntarily suspended its activities after the article appeared, but was reinstated by UVA in January.

The local Phi Kappa Psi organization said in March that it had worked openly with the Charlottesville Police Department in its investigation. The chapter said it was exploring its legal options to address the “extensive damage caused by Rolling Stone.”

The report said that Rolling Stone’s editors, as well as Ms. Erdely, “concluded that their main fault was to be too accommodating of Jackie because she described herself as the survivor of a terrible sexual assault.”

Columbia, however, disagreed with that conclusion, noting that editors made decisions about “attribution, fact-checking and verification that greatly increased their risks of error but had little or nothing to do with protecting Jackie’s position.”

Write to Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg at jeffrey.trachtenberg@wsj.com and Valerie Bauerlein at valerie.bauerlein@wsj.com