A few months back, one of the biggest magazines in the United States published an exposé on campus rape at the University of Virginia, telling the story from the viewpoint of a girl named Jackie - however, upon further investigation from other outlets, the whole thing became a Rolling Stone Magazine scandal when it was discovered that the entire story was a fabrication.
Now, months after the Rolling Stone Magazine scandal first came out last November, the publication published a new study by the dean of the Columbia School of Journalism in New York (Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Steve Coll), in full collaboration with the magazine, as they studied what exactly went wrong with the original article.
As Vox reports, the latest Columbia University study on the Rolling Stone Magazine scandal shows that the original article, "A Rape on Campus," failed at the main task of what journalism should go for: actually telling the truth.
The original article told the story of Jackie, a still-unnamed former student at UVA who claimed she was sexually assaulted in a horrific manner at a fraternity house when she was starting out at the school; however, further reports show that it had been completely impossible to verify Jackie's account on what had happened, turning the whole thing into the Rolling Stone Magazine scandal it is now.
The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism's report was 13,000 words long and it evaluated step by step how the editorial process for the publication had been, then concluding that the Rolling Stone Magazine scandal had occurred due to the publication having failed to go through "basic, even routine journalistic practice."
The Guardian reports that both the magazine and the article's author, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, apologized for the story.
"Deepest apologies: 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," Erdeley stated, as the Rolling Stone Magazine scandal reached a point where the publication as forced to take the article down from its website.
