Rolling Stone retracts UVa rape report

Rolling Stone magazine retracted its controversial story about an alleged gang rape at the University of Virginia after an independent review deemed it a “failure of journalism,” the magazine’s managing editor said Sunday.

“The report was painful reading, to me personally and to all of us at Rolling Stone,” Rolling Stone managing editor Will Dana said in an editor’s note appended to the outside review published on Rolling Stone’s website, and cross-published on the website of the Columbia Journalism Review magazine.

The authors of Columbia University’s investigation called Rolling Stone’s article and what happened after its publication “a story of journalistic failure that was avoidable.”

“The failure encompassed reporting, editing, editorial supervision and fact-checking,” Columbia’s authors wrote. “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.”

The report’s authors were Sheila Coronel, dean of academic affairs at Columbia Journalism School; Steve Coll, dean of the Columbia Journalism School; and Derek Kravitz, a postgraduate research scholar at Columbia Journalism School.

Rolling Stone requested the probe after news reports raised doubts about the accuracy of writer Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s explosive Nov. 19 article, “A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA.”

The story shook the University of Virginia, where officials swiftly suspended fraternity activities and asked local police to investigate the allegations.

Erdely issued an apology Sunday, calling the past few months “among the most painful of my life. Reading the Columbia account of the mistakes and misjudgments in my reporting was a brutal and humbling experience.”

She apologized “to Rolling Stone’s readers, to my Rolling Stone editors and colleagues, to the UVA community, and to any victims of sexual assault who may feel fearful as a result of my article.”

The original Rolling Stone narrative told the story of a freshman named “Jackie” who said she was gang raped during a social function at a fraternity.

The Columbia investigators concluded, “If Jackie was attacked and, if so, by whom, cannot be established definitively from the evidence available.”

Earlier, police and the media had raised questions about several significant discrepancies in Jackie’s story.

On March 23, Charlottesville police announced they had suspended their investigation after they could find no evidence that the alleged rape had taken place.