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Rolling Stone has no one to blame but itself

The Mining Journal (Marquette)

There is very little anyone can say in defense of Rolling Stone magazine's handling of the sexual assault story it published last year, which sent the University of Virginia campus and fraternity Phi Kappa Psi into turmoil.

"A Rape on Campus" by Sabrina Rubin Erdely was brimming with bad journalistic practices, according to a scathing review conducted by the Columbia School of Journalism published (April 5).

The review was requested by Rolling Stone Managing Editor Will Dana, who officially retracted the article Monday, reported The Associated Press.

Quickly, in review: The article, published in the magazine's November 2014 edition, detailed a culture of sexual assault on the Virginia campus and one young woman's terrifying experience with it.

Almost immediately, media sources started looking at the story more closely and asking tough questions, the same ones Rolling Stone editors should have been asking from the start.

This, according to the review, was a mess that absolutely did not have to happen.

The report, AP said, found three major flaws in the magazine's reporting methodology: Erdely did not try to contact key sources in the story, instead taking Jackie's (the alleged victim) word for it that one of them refused to talk; the reporter failed to give enough details of the alleged assault when she contacted the fraternity for comment, which made it difficult for the organization to investigate; and Rolling Stone did not try hard enough to find the person Jackie accused of orchestrating the assault.

Everyone with dirty hands is, of course, apologizing all over the place: Dana, for letting Erdely commit the journalistic sins that she did; and Erdely herself, for commiting the sins.

The people who battle sexual assault, meanwhile, are worrying aloud that this mess will discourage people from reporting actual assaults. Fraternity leaders were said to be lawyering up.

With so much information flowing into and out newsrooms each day, we understand how good-faith errors can happen.

What wasn't the case here, however. Rolling Stone was sloppy, which produced a very bad result.