Rieder: Rolling Stone's colossal journalism meltdown

Rem Rieder | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Scathing report on 'Rolling Stone' rape story issued The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism released a scathing report of the 'Rolling Stone' magazine's journalistic practices regarding an alleged gang rape at a University of Virginia frat house.

It's a devastating report on a terribly flawed piece of journalism.

It was already abundantly clear that Rolling Stone's story on an alleged gang rape at a University of Virginia fraternity house was a colossal mess.

But a searing report by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism published Sunday night reveals that the article reflects a complete meltdown in the journalistic process at the magazine.

So many basic journalistic tenets were kicked to the curb as Rolling Stone last November published what purported to be a tale of both a chilling crime and a deeply flawed culture at a prestigious university. The story has completely collapsed, leaving the article's author, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, the magazine's editors and fact-checkers and Rolling Stone itself as collateral damage. Not to mention the frat house.

Even worse, far worse, it severely harms the cause it aimed to support, the fight against violence against women on campus, by staking its conclusions so heavily on a single source whose allegations didn't hold up.

Rolling Stone deserves major credit for launching an outside review of the unhappy episode, for cooperating fully with the Columbia J-school investigators and for publishing in full their unedited conclusions. That's a good way to mitigate the damage, to start the rebuilding process, to begin to reestablish credibility. NBC would have been far wiser to commission an external investigation of the charges swirling around embattled anchor Brian Williams rather than keeping the probe in-house.

But the response of key Rolling Stone personnel suggests that they still don't grasp the enormity of what transpired.

Publisher Jann Wenner told The New York Times that Erdely would continue to write for the magazine and that the article's editor, Sean Woods, and managing editor Will Dana would remain in their jobs.

Despite the rampant breakdowns spotlighted by report, Dana doesn't see the need for structural reforms. "It's not like I think we need to overhaul our process, and I don't think we need to necessarily institute a lot of new ways of doing things," the report quotes him as saying. "We just have to do what we've always done and just make sure we don't make this mistake again."

Coco McPherson, the magazine's fact-checking chief, said: "I one hundred percent do not think that the policies that we have in place failed. I think decisions were made around those because of the subject matter."

In a sense these reactions are more harrowing than the rape article's numerous problems. Because the process pitilessly highlighted in the report show a system that is porous indeed.

What's the point of launching such a far-reaching probe if you are not going to learn from it and act on its conclusions?

The massive report addresses the failures in great detail. It's well worth reading for anyone who cares about the journalistic process. But a few examples will give you the flavor.

Even before the release of the report, the police department in Charlottesville, Va., announced that it had suspended its investigation of the incident because there was no evidence a rape had occurred at the fraternity on the night in question. Think about it: The piece had not established that its central event had even taken place.

The report focuses heavily on a couple of pivotal points that underscore the weakness of both the story and, significantly, the editorial process that produced it.

For one, the magazine never even established the identity of the lifeguard who was said to have orchestrated the rape of Jackie, the alleged victim whose story is the crux of the article. Jackie didn't want to give up the last name. But the magazine never undertook a serious effort to find him and question him about the episode, which would be crucial both for verification and fairness. Ultimately, it simply identified him with a pseudonym, always a dangerous sign in something purporting to be journalism.

Then there is the matter of Jackie's three friends who are quoted in the story and portrayed in an extremely unflattering light. The magazine never contacted them; the quotes attributed them come only from Jackie. Worse, that is never made clear to the reader.

The portrait that emerges is one of amateur hour while dealing with a complex, sensitive story that demands the highest level of professionalism.

Seeing this sorry episode as a one-off rather than a serious indictment of a system and those charged with running it is unacceptable. Let's hope publisher (and Rolling Stone co-founder) Wenner thinks this through more clearly. The future of his magazine demands it.