These people are playing a game. Its not part of religion, its not part of islam. Islam is peace and submission to the will of god. Ifill and, duke and wisconsin head to the n. C. A. A. Championships. As the madness ends, some sane talk on the status of college athletes. Those are some of the stories were covering on tonights pbs newshour. Major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by moving our economy for 160 years. Bnsf, the engine that connects us. Lincoln financial committed to helping you take charge of your life and become youre own chief life officer. And the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives. And with the ongoing support of these institutions and. This program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. And by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. Ifill kenyas military launched a second day of air strikes against alshabaab militants in somalia today. The air strikes targeted camps in the gedo region of somalia just across the border. It was retaliation for the Militants Attack on a Kenyan University that killed 148 people. At the same time today, Muslim Political leaders in kenya denounced alshabaab. We want to disassociate ourselves and our islamic faith from the actions of these demented monsters. They are not muslims and do not represent us. We will do everything in our power to expose and eliminate them from our midst. Ifill in nairobi, hundreds of people turned up at a hospital to donate blood for the surviving victims of the university attack. And in nigeria, islamist militants allied with boko haram disguised themselves as and killed at least 24 people in an attack on a mosque. In syria, about 18,000 people were trapped today in a Palestinian Refugee camp in damascus, after Islamic State forces captured much of it. Amateur video over the weekend appeared to show isis forces taking up positions in the yarmouk camp. By today, activists said they controlled 90 of the site. Palestinian forces fought back, and the Syrian Military dropped barrel bombs on the camp, in support of the palestinians. India today unveiled a new air quality index to raise awareness of dangerous pollution levels. With its release, Prime MinisterNarendra Modi called for conservation and cutting waste. But while india is the worlds Third LargestGreenhouse Gas emitter, modi said cutting emissions is not the answer. translated until we focus on our lifestyle and get the world to focus on it, we will not succeed despite all other measures being taken. But it is difficult to convince the developed nations about this. Ifill air pollution kills more than 600,000 people in india each year. It comes largely from coalfired power plants, but india is rapidly building its coalfired Power Generation to expand its economy. On wall street today, stocks got an Easter Monday boost, in part from a jump in oil prices that helped energy stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial average gained nearly 120 points to close near 17,900. The nasdaq rose 30 points, and the s p 500 added 13. Two passings of note tonight the reverend gardner c. Taylor, a celebrated minister and civil rights figure, died sunday in durham, North Carolina. He grew up in baton rouge louisiana, graduated from Oberlin College and pastored Concord Baptist Church in new york for four decades. He also led the Progressive National baptist convention. Gardner gained national renown as a preacher, and in 2007, received the president ial medal of freedom. The reverend gardner c. Taylor was 96 years old. And, gertrude weaver has died in arkansas, just five days after she became the worlds oldest living person. She passed away today at a nursing home at the age of 116. Her next birthday would have been in july, and shed asked that president obama come to her party. Still to come on the newshour Rolling Stones flawed journalism, and how it might affect survivors of Sexual Assault. President obama defends the framework for a nuclear deal with iran. Closing arguments in the Boston Marathon bombing trial. Cartoons on youtube counter recruitment tactics by Islamic State militants. The week ahead in politics with amy walter and susan page. And, as march madness comes to an end, the state of affairs for student athletes. Ifill a new report commissioned by Rolling Stone and conducted by the Columbia University graduate school of journalism describes in detail the life and death of a now discredited account of a brutal gang rape at the university of virginia. The article drew nationwide attention, but almost immediately collapsed under the weight of scrutiny after Police University officials and other journalists discovered inconsistencies in the story told by its protagonist, a student identified only as jackie. The new report concludes reporter Sabrina Rubin erdely and her editors failed to verify her story with other sources. The magazine used pseudonyms rather than confront the alleged attackers. And, they ignored factcheckers warnings that the alleged victim was the articles only source for key details. Steve coll is dean of the Columbia Journalism School, a pulitzer prizewinning journalist himself and headed up the outside investigation. Ifill thank you for joining us. For six months this story was reported, four months in your investigation. How id this happen . Well, it was a collective failure and an avoidable failure. You had a reporter who got caught up in subject matter, had worked very hard but did not do some of the basic checking of derogatory information with subjects didnt do some of the basic provision of details to subjects that would have generated information that probably would have led her to turn in the other direction. Then her editor failed to insist that she close these reporting gaps. The editor allowed into the story misleading attributions that withheld from readers Important Information about what was and wasnt known to Rolling Stone. And then finally the editors editor, the supervising editor of the magazine, though he read the drafts, though he had some conversations about the holes in the story, he didnt intervene. And while as you pointed out the factchecker did raise a couple of important questions, the Checking Department as a whole was either overridden or didnt forcefully intervene to insist that some of these holes be addressed. Ifill steve, last november we intevd Sabrina Rubin erdely here on the news hour right after this article came out and just before the holes began to appear and i want to play a couple of things she had to say which are now supported by some of your findings. The first is a discussion of confirmation that she entered into the story with a story to tell and found someone to tell it. Lets listen to the way she described it in her own glordz part of the reason i chose university of virginia is that i felt it was representative of what was going on at campuses across the country. When i spoke to experts they told me that really the scary truth is that, if you dig deep enough on any campus this is probably what you will find that what happened at the university of virginia is not the exception. This is the norm ifill taken together with the fact that she relied on a single source, jackie the woman who was allegedly attacked who told her story about her friends and what her friend said the night of the attack. Lets will be to Sabrina Rubin erdely again and her description of how that unfolded. That was an incredibly common and disturbing thing that emerged interest the article. When jackie confided in her friends, they dismissed it. They laughed it off. They told her to brush it off and get over it. Some of them called her a baby for wallowing in it and said after a while she was still crying about it and that is incredibly common among rain survivors at university of virginia and elsewhere, that these women are sort of shamed and blamed and theyre told to just shake it and off get back to the party culture. As far as we know none of this happened, at least the last part about what her friends did and how they reacted. In addition to that you could see that the reporter was making the larger case and trying to make it about the university this dom bind, was this a firing offense . Well, we didnt find the kind of dishonesty inventing facts, lying to colleagues about who you called and what reporting you did, plagiarism, that, im sure you know, are common automatic firing incontinences in news rooms or certainly offenses that generate severe sanctions. This was a pattern a failure that involved the writer for sure but also her editors and the policies at Rolling Stone which were inadequate for the complexity of the story she was working on. And yet nobody was fired, i should just say. Nobody was fired as far as im aware of. Rolling stone announced that everyone would keep their jobs. I think that, you know, the wider subject that you highlighted with those clips is important. It is this habit in journalism of reporters, assuming they know what the story is and then looking for a case to illustrate their assumptions. That can be a very dangerous endeavor and can the basis for successful narrative journalism if the reporter goes in with an open mind and really discovers on the reporting trail what the truth of the matter is. But in other cases here is certain lay cautionary tale of someone coming in with assumptions that are deeply embedded and you can hear them in the statements that she made to you when the story came out and then really closes her ears to facts that contradict the assumptions that she already holds. I was going to say as you have referred to this phenomenon of confirmation bias, its a wellestablished part of social science. We like to filter out facts that arent aligned with our preexisting assumptions. Isnt that what editors and factcheckers are for, to save you from those kinds of biases . Absolutely right. And its hard. Anyone who has been around investigative reporters know that strong investigative reporters sometimes get off track. They get tangled up in their subjects. They get emotive about the wrongdoing that they think theyre exposing and thats exactly why you have partnerships between reporters and editor because the editor is supposed to provide the break the perspective, to provide the empirical sense that oh, were were not done yet. We need you to go back and talk to more people. Its not acceptable for us to go to print without contacting the Three Friends that youre quoting on jackies account but without knowing if they would sign up for the version of this terribly unflattering speech that you have attributed to them. These are the basic things that reporters and editors do together. We found that there was plenty of failure on both sides of that partnership niltses but youre certainly right that an editor is a central part of an equation like this. One final question does the victim the source herself hold any responsibility for this . Not in my judgment when you consider it as a matter of journalism, which was our charge she was 17 years old when she enrolled at a student. She didnt enlist Rolling Stone. Whatever are her motivations which are not known. She did not speak to us. She is not at fault for a failure of journalism. Hat is about the methodology and the practice that Rolling Stone undertook in this case. And by the way, Rolling Stone and the writer sometimes sheltered under the defense that they had only been too sensitive to jackies position. And it was an important part of our report to say no, we dont think so. We think that there were many reporting trail yous they dove followed without any effect on jackie and certainly without any request by jackie that they refrain that would have changed the outcome. Steve coll of the Columbia Journalism School. Thank you very much. Thank you, gwen. Advocates for Sexual Assault victims are also worried that the Rolling Stone story will damage their cause. Alison kiss, executive director of the clery center for security on campus joins me now. How much damage did this story do . I think it may set us backwards a little bit. Theres been quite a bit of attention on campus of Sexual Assault over the past two years and people have been comening at this from multiple directions, student activists, administratorrers on campus really putting time and effort into getting collaborative responses and i think this story made us take a few steps back gliefl a lot of the people said at the time this proves that people like you were trying to reach too far to create a drama that does not really exist, a problem that is not as bide spread as advocates say. You know, thats one of our fears in this. I think that, when you take a single narrative and as steve mentioned there were multiple layers of errors here and the idea was that Rolling Stone said they cared too much about jackie when in fact i think their profit showed there was very little care for jackie and other victims and survivors. So here you have a situation where theyre almost adding to the perception that this does not happen because that per is very legal. There are people that think Sexual Assault doesnt happen on college and University Campuses. So when they see a story like that it just feel them with an anecdotal. Its not based on statistics but when they hear Something Like they say and its getting quite a bit of attention they might grab on and say this not happening on our campus and we know it is. Ifill the fraternity involved is saying this is reckless and theyre suing. The governor of virginia ed said this was a travesty, if not his word, my word. And now we wonder if the university of virginia or other universities had take shelter, as well, under this and back away from their efforts . What is your sense of that . My sense is this story caused quite a bit of harm. I think that the journalistic efforts failed. They were irresponsible. It basically, as i said put or caused harm not only to jackie and other survivors but other people who were potentially defamed in the story. So i think it shows that we need to approach this. We train colleges and universities daily on approaching Sexual Assault with a balanced approach, and i would encourage folks within the media who are reporting on this as well to also take that balanced approach. So if youre hearing multiple sides you have to do the background. Its really what you owe to the subject of your story. Will victims be less likely to report assault . Reporting assault is often part of the problem here at the root of this as much as the assault themselves. I think whenever you have a story that circles around false reporting in some capacity that it may minimize the crime of Sexual Violence and Sexual Assault and people may be less likely to come forward and report an assault. Were talking about the most under reported crime on college and University Campuses and across the board. We know that there are only about 2 to 10 percent of reports are false reports. But we do know theyre scrutinized so certainly when theres attention on a potential false report now i think that there was the chief of place in virginia said that they do believe something happened to jackie. I think that what trauma tells us something most like lay did happen to jackie. But again when the narrative is swelling, you know dangerously swelling around false reporting i think it may minimize people coming forward. I hope thats not the case but its certainly an option. Ifill alison to what extent does the trauma itself sometimes make it activity to get the story straight for the journalists or either for the victim . When you talk about trauma and how it affects the victim, its going to be different with every person so its really important to understand that certain facts or certain details may not come across correct limit it could be an incorrect date or time. But then again there could be certain facts that the victim has right down to every little i mean could almost tell you cracks in the ceiling and what type of shape theyre making. So its important when reporting on these stories, that you have dont take an advocacy role. I think a journalist has to take a balanced approach but its important to know the way trauma can affect someone when theyre recounting a violent talk. And as steve coll commented she herself is not pressing her case anymore with the police or with the columbia journalism folks. So what good, if any, can come of this from your point of view, from your perspective . I think its an opportunity for journalists to really learn how to work with survivors of Sexual Violence. I think that there are many who do this really well so theyre very up front when working with a survivor and explaining to them the process. And letting them know what the process is going to be throughout the story. Not shielding them and it sounds like, in this case, there was a quote unquote care for jackie but there actually wasn