The issue is best described by the article:
Last November, we published a story, 'A Rape on Campus' [RS 1223], that centered around a University of Virginia student's horrifying account of her alleged gang rape at a campus fraternity house. Within days, commentators started to question the veracity of our narrative. Then, when The Washington Post uncovered details suggesting that the assault could not have taken place the way we described it, the truth of the story became a subject of national controversy.
Read more: http://www.rollingst...5#ixzz3WVkzn5d7
Basically, Rolling Stone published the article which shocked a lot of people especially when these accusations came from such an esteemed school such as UVA. It was criticized heavily and led to Columbia's school of journalism reviewing it and they came to the above conclusions.
Columbia's article is here: http://article2.cjr....1428283910525=1
LAST JULY 8, SABRINA RUBIN ERDELY, a writer for Rolling Stone, telephoned Emily Renda, a rape survivor working on sexual assault issues as a staff member at the University of Virginia. Erdely said she was searching for a single, emblematic college rape case that would show “what it’s like to be on campus now … where not only is rape so prevalent but also that there’s this pervasive culture of sexual harassment/rape culture,” according to Erdely’s notes of the conversation.
The collapse of "A Rape on Campus" does not involve the kinds of fabrication by reporters that have occurred in some other infamous cases of journalistic meltdown. In 2003, the New York Times reporter Jayson Blair resigned after editors concluded that he had invented stories from whole cloth. In February, NBC News suspended anchor Brian Williams after he admitted that he told tall tales about his wartime reporting in Iraq. There is no evidence in Erdely's materials or from interviews with her subjects that she invented facts; the problem was that she relied on what Jackie told her without vetting its accuracy.
Do you believe that Rolling Stone should of retracted their story? What do you think this means for the reporting of rape culture & rape stories? What would you have done?
Do you think this article was purely negative/positive or a mix of both? Do you believe that Rolling Stone has since taken appropriate measures? Do you think UVA should take further action against Rolling Stone?
** It is important to note that this is NOT a discussion of whether 'Jackie' was actually raped or not. Merely on the reporting of it. Please do NOT speculate on that.**