Rolling Stone rebuked by independent review of campus rape story

[Yahoo! News]

By Frank McGurty NEW YORK (Reuters) - Rolling Stone magazine failed to follow basic journalistic safeguards in publishing a story about an alleged gang rape at a University of Virginia fraternity house, according to an outside review of the matter released on Sunday. The discredited story was intended to call attention to the issue of sexual violence on college campuses, but it might have had the opposite effect by reinforcing the notion that rape allegations are often fictitious, a team from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism concluded in its critique. "Rolling Stone's repudiation of the main narrative in 'A Rape on Campus' is a story of journalistic failure that was avoidable," the Columbia Journalism Review said in its report, which was conducted at the magazine's request and published on its website. "The failure encompassed reporting, editing, editorial supervision and fact-checking." Led by Steve Coll, the dean of the Columbia Journalism School, the review examined the editorial process behind the explosive story, which failed to hold up under a barrage of questions raised by other media after its publication in November.

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