Jann Wenner, a founder of Rolling Stone and its publisher, declined repeatedly to be interviewed, or to offer any comment. But in the interview Friday, Mr. Dana said the article stemmed from a feeling he and other senior editors had over summer that the issue of unpunished campus rapes would make a compelling and important story.

They decided to assign Sabrina Rubin Erdely, a contributing editor who has also written for GQ and The New Yorker, and who has been nominated for two National Magazine awards, according to her website. Ms. Erdely did not return calls and messages seeking comment. But she has said publicly that she sought out the right story, on the right campus, and that she found what she was looking for in Jackie.

The accuser appeared to be distressed, perhaps as a result of her trauma, according to a person familiar with the newsroom’s process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to describe sensitive events. She had repeatedly asked Ms. Erdely that those she accused of raping her not be contacted. When the magazine brought up the issue again later, she threatened to withdraw from the story.

That concern, combined with a feeling that it should err on the side of sensitivity, persuaded the magazine to accept her wishes. “Sabrina had talked to quite a few other women who had said, ‘If you talk to me, you can’t go talk to my attacker,’ ” Mr. Dana said, and so it seemed like a reasonable request.

“These are hard stories to do,” said Bruce Shapiro, executive director of Columbia University’s Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, which focuses on the issues of reporting on violence and conflict. An engaged and empathetic reporter, he said, will naturally be concerned about potentially inflicting new trauma on the victim of a harrowing incident. “I do think that when the emotional valence of a story is this high, you really have to verify it.”

Experienced reporters on the topic, he said, often only work with women who feel strong enough to deal with the due diligence required to bring the article to publication.

The details of a heartbreaking conversation recounted in the story, in which Jackie tells her friends of her rape and is told that she should stay quiet, also came only from Jackie, Mr. Dana said. One of the friends declined to comment, and Ms. Erdely could not reach the others.