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“The past few months, since my Rolling Stone article ‘A Rape on Campus’ was first called into question, have been among the most painful of my life,” Erdely wrote in a statement.

“Reading the Columbia account of the mistakes and misjudgments in my reporting was a brutal and humbling experience.”

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The report goes into greater detail than previous critiques. In it the story’s protagonist, “Jackie,” is shown to have outright lied to Erdely. But what strikes one in the report is how many experienced editors and fact-checkers, even Erdely herself, noted discomfiting lacunae and discrepancies in Jackie’s testimony during the research process that were consciously set aside, right up Rolling Stone‘s chain of command.

At the heart of the debacle was the fact that Jackie was the sole source for her story, normally a journalistic kiss of death. Throughout Erdely’s investigation, Jackie obstructed any line of inquiry that might expand the consulted circle of witnesses and expose her fabrications, through evasions or outright stonewalling, until Erdely abandoned the attempt.

Why didn’t Erdely back away in spite of her unease, and why did Rolling Stonepublish the piece in spite of multiple editors’ reservations? Because — my explanation, not theirs — moral panic over rape culture, the myth that rape is a common crime on campus that is not taken seriously, is having a seemingly interminable cultural moment; because liberal journalists have internalized the mantra that self-identifying victims’ accounts must be believed since rape victims don’t lie (in spite of many proven, well-publicized false allegations); and because, while the pain of men falsely accused of any abuse against women or children is rarely even considered worthy of investigative inquiry, let alone empathy, women’s pain — even the merely alleged pain of those proven to have lied — is considered worthy of unlimited empathy.