Analyzing an avoidable failure

ON DECEMBER 5, 2014, the American magazine Rolling Stone published on its website an apology for its readers over a controversial story titled “A Rape on Campus.”

“We published the article with the firm belief that it was accurate. Given all of these reports, however, we have come to the conclusion that we were mistaken in honoring Jackie’s request to not contact the alleged assaulters to get their account. In trying to be sensitive to the unfair shame and humiliation many women feel after a sexual assault, we made a judgment – the kind of judgment reporters and editors make every day,” part of the note reads.

Click on photo to read the full article on the Rolling Stone’s website.

Several weeks after its retraction of the story, the Rolling Stone contacted the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism to conduct an investigation of “what had gone wrong.”

Sheila Coronel, founding executive director of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism and Dean of Academic Affairs at the Columbia Journalism School and director of the university’s Stabile Center for Investigative Journalism was one of those who wrote the report. The two others were Steve Coll, Dean of Columbia Journalism School, and Derek Kravitz, a postgraduate research scholar at Columbia Journalism School.

The CJR had already released the results of its investigation.

LAST JULY 8, SABRINA RUBIN ERDELY, a writer for Rolling Stone, telephoned Emily Renda, a rape survivor working on sexual assault issues as a staff member at the University of Virginia. Erdely said she was searching for a single, emblematic college rape case that would show “what it’s like to be on campus now … where not only is rape so prevalent but also that there’s this pervasive culture of sexual harassment/rape culture,” according to Erdely’s notes of the conversation.

Click here to read Rolling Stone’s investigation: A failure that was avoidable.

The CJR also discussed the role that editors played in coming up with the story.

One of the truisms about recent reductions in newsroom staffs is that fewer journalists equals less quality and lower standards. And undeniably, the cutbacks over the past decade have diminished coverage of state legislatures and county courthouses. But as we learn from Columbia Journalism School’s thorough examinationof the Rolling Stone debacle, simply assigning more journalists – particularly more editors – to a story provides no guarantee of quality. It may make things worse.

Click here to read more.

How did the Columbia Journalism School conduct the investigation?

Over several months, the authors conducted interviews and investigations that ranged widely in scope. Yet the final report is not intended to be encyclopedic. The report has several intended purposes. One is to illuminate the key reasons Rolling Stone‘s failure was avoidable and to draw lessons.

What was the single point of failure at Rolling Stone? Click on the photo to read the interview with Sheila S. Coronel and Steve Coll.

PHOTO from CJR website.