UVA Four Months Later: 'Rolling Stone Didn't Do Its Job'

CNN.com:

That's the feeling at the University of Virginia, four months after Rolling Stone magazine published and then all but retracted a story detailing an alleged gang rape at the campus. 

Now the magazine is preparing to publish an independent review by Columbia University of what went wrong in the making of the story. For UVA, that means yet another round of news coverage. 

Journalism students at UVA have seen up close how a news organization can hurt a community. Professors have thought about incorporating the lessons into classes. 

Perhaps most importantly, student activists are working overtime to correct persistent misperceptions about college sexual assault and support victims. 

"Rolling Stone didn't do its job," said UVA student body president Abraham Axler. "And in some ways our community was responsible for the cleanup of that mistake, and that's what people are angry about." 

The 9,000-word story, titled "A Rape on Campus," focused on the alleged gang rape of a freshman named "Jackie" in 2012. It also asserted that the university failed to meaningfully respond to the crime and connected this to systemic problems across the country. 

When the article came out in late November, "everyone was affected deeply," said Siva Vaidhyanathan, a UVA media studies professor. "The vividness of the story was gut-wrenching." 

But Vaidhyanathan had doubts right away because, he said, the story "demonized" administrators who were sincerely trying to improve UVA's handling of rape cases. 

The writer, Sabrina Rudin Erdely, soon came under scrutiny. 

"It was as if she came into the story with the plot already lined up, and she was just looking for that killer anecdote to fill in the gaps," Vaidhyanathan said. 

By early December, the gang rape story had unraveled. Amid mounting doubts about some of the details in Jackie's story -- seven attackers over a period of hours -- and widespread criticism of Rolling Stone's decision not to contact the alleged rapists, the magazine apologized and said it would investigate further.

The magazine asked Columbia's graduate school of journalism to lead a review. 

In March, the local police said they could find no evidence the rape had occurred, but also said it remains possible something very traumatic happened. Jackie has not spoken publicly. 

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