Account of Gang Rape at UVA Comes Under Scrutiny

[IIOY]

More on the story about the story. From today's NYT:
An article in Rolling Stone magazine about an alleged gang rape on the campus of the University of Virginia has come under scrutiny for its reporting methods, even as the university and the local police investigate the events the article described.

The article began with one woman’s description of a violent rape in 2012 by seven members of a Virginia fraternity, complete with vivid and harrowing details. It criticized the university’s culture and fraternity system, and said that the supposed attackers had not yet faced any consequences. After the article’s publication last month, the case was handed to the Charlottesville, Va., police; the university vowed to update its policies; and the fraternity, Phi Kappa Psi, suspended its operations.

But some have also raised questions about the article. Its writer, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, has faced criticism because she has acknowledged in interviews that she did not contact or interview the men accused of the rape. News organizations, seeking to be fair, usually seek comment from those suspected of criminal conduct.

In an interview Tuesday, Ms. Erdely said that she stood by her reporting.

“I am convinced that it could not have been done any other way, or any better,” she said. “I am also not interested in diverting the conversation away from the point of the piece itself.” The real scandal, she said, is that the university administration did not pursue the accusations further.

Still, some journalists have raised questions about the story. Richard Bradley, who as an editor at George magazine was duped by the former New Republic writer and fabulist Stephen Glass, said in an essay that he had since learned to be skeptical of articles that confirm existing public narratives. “This story contains a lot of apocryphal tropes,” he wrote. Others, including Jonah Goldberg, a Los Angeles Times columnist, compared the case to rape accusations in 2006 against three lacrosse players at Duke University who were subsequently cleared and speculated that the Virginia story might be a hoax.

Rolling Stone declined to comment, but provided a statement. “Through our extensive reporting and fact-checking, we found Jackie to be entirely credible and courageous, and we are proud to have given her disturbing story the attention it deserves.”

The subject of the article, who was identified by only her first name, had requested that her assailants not be contacted, and Rolling Stone decided that her situation was too delicate to risk going against her wishes, according to people familiar with the reporting process who declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

News media critics questioned the article’s reliance on a single source. “For the sake of Rolling Stone’s reputation,” said Erik Wemple, The Washington Post’s media critic, “Sabrina Rubin Erdely had better be the country’s greatest judge of character.”

Further details of the episode, beyond what was in the article, have not yet emerged, and the man accused of orchestrating the alleged assault has not been publicly identified. The identities of the other men accused of the rape were not known to Rolling Stone, beyond nicknames, and it is not clear whether they are known to the authorities. The university did not immediately provide any comment beyond a statement from President Teresa A. Sullivan, and the Charlottesville Police Department said it had no new information Tuesday.

Ms. Sullivan said Monday that the school “is too good a place to allow this evil to reside.”

Marc Cooper, an associate professor in journalism at the University of Southern California, said the magazine had not misled anyone or abrogated a duty in not contacting those accused, because they were unnamed. If the article had been written as a first-person account, he said, there would be no questions.

“I don’t think there’s nearly as much at stake as people think,” Mr. Cooper said.

Helen Benedict, a Columbia University journalism professor who has reported on sexual assault in the military, also defended the story.

If a reporter were doing a story about a university accused of failing to address the mugging or robbery of a student, that reporter would not be expected to interview the alleged mugger or robber,” she said. “The piece might have been stronger with more than one source, but exposés of wrongdoing often start with one whistle-blower.”

Allegations of campus sexual assaults and rapes being mishandled by colleges have made headlines recently. In the Rolling Stone article, Ms. Erdely details other cases at the University of Virginia and elsewhere, giving examples of how even well-intentioned campus administrators can inadvertently discourage students making rape allegations from pursuing criminal, or even formal, complaints. More than a thousand Virginia alumni have posted comments online about sexual assault at the university in response to the article.