In November, a Rolling Stone magazine story went viral. Called A Rape on Campus, it centred on a student at the University of Virginia, Jackie, who alleged that she had been gang raped at a frat party and very little was done. The story depicts her friends laughing at her and administration not taking her seriously.
Almost immediately, doubts were raised as to the validity of the story – not unusual for any story about rape. However, as other reporters dug into the story, it began to crumble. Both the Washington Post and the Columbia Review of Journalism published rebuttals to the story, and on April 5, Rolling Stone retracted it.
The main issue was that no one involved - writer, editor, fact-checker – thought it was important enough to get the name of the alleged rapist. Writer Sabrina Erdely put pressure on Jackie to reveal the name, but she didn’t on the record. Off the record, however, she couldn’t remember how to spell it – which set off alarm bells for Erdely, who wondered why Jackie didn’t know the name of someone she was so afraid of. But no one wanted to accuse Jackie of lying, so they let it slide. The Columbia Review report said that Erdely and the editors at Rolling Stone also declined to chase down other avenues of reporting, even though Jackie didn’t try to deter them.
The main point brought up in the report is that Erdely relied too heavily on Jackie to facilitate corroboration that she could have done herself. Since Jackie was hard to pin down and flaky while Erdely asked her for help, there are gaps in the reporting. Erdely also didn’t talk to anybody at the fraternity involved. In the story, Jackie speaks of three friends who laughed off the assault. Erdely also didn’t independently track them down to get their side of the story.
Essentially, Erdely relied too heavily on hearsay and didn’t do enough work to verify all the facts that she could, leading to a story that didn’t hold up under scrutiny and has had a ripple effect, tarnishing the university, Rolling Stone, Erdely herself, and most importantly, rape victims themselves.
Why go into this? Because countless people are going to use the story as proof that every rape victim is lying.
You see it again and again: a woman tries to come forward about her rape, and the questions start: What were you wearing? Were you drinking? And the comments: You’ve had sex before though. Remember that coming forward could ruin a man’s life. Examples are endless. The New York Times implied an 11-year-old was responsible for her own gang rape. CNN reporters showed pity and sorrow for the ruined lives of the Steubenville rapists.
And the constant, common thread: Women lie. Women are manipulative. Women want to ruin men. Despite women coming forward all the time about their rapes, the Rolling Stone story will cause that bit of doubt that will forever keep women from being taken seriously.
Despite what anti-feminists will say (I don’t know for sure as I don’t want to look, but I am 100 per cent sure people are using it as proof all women lie about their rapes) the point of the Rolling Stone reporting failure is not that women are liars who make up their rapes constantly (In Canada, it’s believed that about 2-4 per cent of rape accusations are fake, which is a tiny fraction considering only about 6 per cent of rapes even get reported). The point of the story, first and foremost, is a journalistic failure. The Columbia Review report even said that there were multiple other reported rapes that Erdely could have used, though none were as sensational as Jackie’s.
But even though Jackie was found to be making up (at least) parts of her story, that should not be a reflection on every woman who tries to speak out about her rape.
