found failures in the reporting. the failure was avoidable. reporter: editors mistakenly invested in the single source, jackie the supposed victim. they did not interview jackie s friends who would have contradicted her account. the magazine did not give the accused fraternity enough information to really respond to the allegations. the frat did not even hold a party on the night jackie claimed. that fraternity announcing today it will pursue a lawsuit against rolling stone over its reporting. and uva s president says irresponsible journalism unjustly damaged the reputations of many innocent individuals and the university of virginia. so how can erdely ever write again?
utterly horrifying. clearly these facts have not been enough to lead to the sort of public outrage that effects massive sweeping change. we decided to try to put a human face on the campus rape crisis. they sought out a story that would perfectly encapsulate the horror of the crime. when a sexual assault advocate was called at the university of virginia she thought she found that perfect story. a young woman gang raped at her first ever frat party. her life crumbles as her rapists go on like nothing happened. it was just the sort of horror that would capture national attention and it does. rape on campus had more traffic than any celebrity non-feature in the magazine s feature.
discredited, completely retracted, and now possibly heading to court. the university of virginia fraternity at the center of rape accusations reports it does plan to pursue all legal options against rolling stone magazine after an independent review found the magazine s piece on an alleged gang rape was a journalistic failure. all the while officials at rolling stone say nobody will lose a job. a recap rolling stone published this article in november. it reported on a woman who claimed seven men had raped her at a frat house a couple of years earlier. the article sparked outrage, and the frat suspended all chapter activities. other media outlets also began pointing out holes in this woman s story and eventually a police investigation found no evidence at all of any rape.
journalists in particular, and you can say this sort of goes in the line between opinion and advocacy that s a fair assess assessment here they have been to be clearly xleer with readers. dealing with the fraternity and the school they were almost trying to avoid this is the cynic in me right? trying to avoid enough information out of the school or frat could have used to knock down the story before it was published which i find really troubling. media outlets are competitive. the washington post and other publications had started to raise questions, university of virginia prior to publication according to what erdely told me because what they were talking about among themselves. at the same point that s not truly a journalistic value. the question of trying to protect somebody they view they think is rightly a rape survivor is not a value that can trump your journalistic need to be sure you know what you re publishing is true and right. pr s david, thank you very much. nic
more news on fraternities out of control at penn state on thursday night the frat announced the temporary closer of the penn state chapter following allegations of hazing. this is just two weeks after another fraternity on campus was suspended after a facebook page emerged which had nude photos of incapacitated women among other things. ronan farrow found these problems had one common denominators. i spent a year reading civil lawsuits the complaints in civil lawsuits against fraternities, never once read one in which a whole narrative paragraph did not explain very clearly how everyone drunk to the point of blackout.