‘Rolling Stone’ Apologizes for Lie-Filled Rape Story, Never Bothered to Fact Check

by Warner Todd Huston | April 6, 2015 11:33 am

Rolling Stone magazine has finally revealed its investigation into its utterly failed, lie-filled story of rape on the campus of the University of Virginia. The report reveals major journalistic lapses.

In fact, it seems that the magazine went ahead and published its story without even bothering[1] to double check its sources to even find out if one of the main rapists it was accusing in its story even existed!

On Easter evening, Rolling Stone published the results of a long investigation into its blockbuster story of a gang rape on the campus of a major American university that was supposedly a fraternity initiation ritual. The story was the toast of the liberal media until it began to fall apart at the seams. Now, that investigation seems to show that the music magazine went to press with its story without even determining if one of the story’s main attackers was even a real person.

The investigation conducted at Rolling Stone’s request by Steve Coll, dean of the Columbia School of Journalism, revealed that rape victim “Jackie” proved to be a challenging source for Rolling Stone writer Sabrina Rubin Erdely. Sometimes Jackie did not respond to phone calls, texts and emails. At two points during the writer’s process, she thought her “victim” might withdraw her cooperation entirely.

But there were other problems with Jackie’s story. For instance, Jackie refused to provide Erdely the name of the lifeguard who she said had organized the attack. Jackie explained this reticence by saying she was too afraid of him. According to Dean Coll’s investigation, that led to tense exchanges between the writer and her source.

This is a total failure of so-called journalism and proves that the “idea” of the story was more important to Rolling Stone than the facts.

Rolling Stone was so desperate to believe the false story that it wholly abandoned its duty to fact check.

Endnotes:
  1. without even bothering: http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/04/05/rolling-stone-published-rape-story-without-proof-that-main-attacker-existed/

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