Rolling Stone magazine said Friday that it found discrepancies in its controversial story about an alleged gang rape of a woman named "Jackie" at the University of Virginia and had lost faith in the piece -- a shocking retreat coming merely days after author Sabrina Rubin Erdely defended the reporting.
"In the face of new information, there now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie's account, and we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced," Will Dana, the magazine's managing editor,
wrote on its website.
"We were trying to be sensitive to the unfair shame and humiliation many women feel after a sexual assault and now regret the decision to not contact the alleged assaulters to get their account," the post said. "We are taking this seriously and apologize to anyone who was affected by the story."
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/12/05/uva-rolling-stone-rape-reaction/19963451/
On Nov. 19, the magazine ran a story of "Jackie," an unidentified UVA. student who says she was gang-raped at a party at the house of Phi Kappa Psi in the fall of 2012. Her shocking story with vivid details from the night of the incident and its charges that sexual assaults at U.Va. often go unreported deeply embarrassed the university and launched an investigation by school officials and local police. All Greek life activities were also suspended in the wake of the story.
Soon after the 9,000-word story ran, media critics began to question Erdely's reportorial methods. According to
Rolling Stone, she spent months talking to Jackie, her friends and university officials. But Erdely never spoke to the accused "Drew" and other men at Phi Kappa Psi.
Erdely didn't contact the men for comments due to an agreement with Jackie, Dana said. "Because of the sensitive nature of Jackie's story, we decided to honor her request not to contact the man she claimed orchestrated the attack on her nor any of the men she claimed participated in the attack for fear of retaliation against her," Dana wrote.
The fraternity also spoke out Friday.
"We have no knowledge of these alleged acts being committed at our house or by our members," according to a statement released Friday by the university chapter of Phi Kappa Psi. "Our initial doubts as to the accuracy of the article have only been strengthened as alumni and undergraduate members have delved deeper."
reported that Jackie "stands by her version of the events."
"I never asked for this" attention, she told the
Post. "What bothers me is that so many people act like it didn't happen. It's my life. I have had to live with the fact that it happened every day for the last two years."
The
Post also reported that a group of Jackie's close friends believe "something traumatic happened to her, but they also have come to doubt her account" as they haven't been able to verify some key points.
"A name of an alleged attacker that Jackie provided to them for the first time this week, for example, turned out to be similar to the name of a student who belongs to a different fraternity, and no one by that name has been a member of Phi Kappa Psi," the
Post report said.
The
Post contacted the man whose name was cited, but he told the paper that he was familiar with Jackie's name but he had never met her in person and was not a member of the fraternity.
In a
statement, University of Virginia President Teresa Sullivan said: "Over the past two weeks, our community has been more focused than ever on one of the most difficult and critical issues facing higher education today: sexual violence on college campuses. Today's news must not alter this focus."
"We will continue to take a hard look at our practices, policies and procedures, and continue to dedicate ourselves to becoming a model institution in our educational programming, in the character of our student culture, and in our care for those who are victims," she said.
