Part 1: Situation Definition
In the past year, and especially the past several months, sexual assault on college campuses and fraternity scandals have been a topic of national discussion. Perhaps to capitalize on this trend in the media, or perhaps just out of coincidence, Rolling Stone magazine published a feature story in November 2014 called “A Rape On Campus.” The article had been an investigative piece which was written over the course of four months by seasoned reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely. “A Rape On Campus” gave an in-depth account of a horrific gang rape and its fallout at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity at the University of Virginia through the eyes of the victim, and went viral upon its publication. The victim of the story had requested that a pseudonym, “Jackie,” be used in place of her real name. Jackie also refused to name the perpetrators of the assault to Erdely, though she claimed to know at least two of them (Coronel, Coll, & Kravitz, 2015). That was where the trouble started.
Jackie claimed to be too frightened of her attacker to name him in the piece, and because of the sensitive nature of the article and her ordeal, Erdely decided to be complicit with the former’s refusal to name her attackers. Erdely and the editors at Rolling Stone also feared Jackie would stop cooperating with them if they pushed her too hard to disclose details of her attack (Tompkins, 2015). However, about a week after the publication of the article, and after another conversation between Erdely and Jackie, the victim finally provided Erdely with the name of her attacker. Subsequently, Erdely began to investigate, and had trouble finding any connections of the alleged perpetrator to Phi Kappa Psi, his alleged workplace, or Jackie. Fearing that her story was inaccurate, Erdely went to her editor, Sean Woods, and admitted that the integrity of the article was in jeopardy (Coronel et al., 2015). Rolling Stone then published an editor’s note retracting the story.
Major ethical issues arise from this case, and two of the most prominent among them are fact-checking and the use of psuedonyms. Fact-checking is often compromised when a news organization is working under pressure of a deadline, but a lack of fact-checking has led to some major problems for news organizations, making it a difficult dilemma of timeliness vs. accuracy. In addition, pseudonyms are often used to protect the subjects of sensitive stories, but can also end up releasing the source of responsibility, which can embolden them to spread false or fabricated information.
Part 2: Analysis
When any news story goes through the publication process, it is expected that it will be fact-checked along the way. Journalism’s number one aim is to report the truth. For this reason, it is necessary that stories are as accurate and truthful as possible. Fact-checking should be thorough and beyond any reasonable doubt in order to report news as accurately as possible.
The number one reason that fact-checking often falls short is out of an urge to get a story out as quickly as possible. Tompkins (2015) reports that in the case of Rolling Stone, the magazine failed to fact-check Erdely’s article to the fullest extent possible because the magazine was “under pressure to publish by deadline.” The magazine was also most likely doubly pressured because of the trend in reporting fraternity scandals in 2014. When there is a trending topic in the news, readers will be more attracted to stories about the topic to build their knowledge of it. This, in turn, leads to economic gains for the news publication (Doudaki & Spyridou, 2015). Thus, Rolling Stone would have felt pressure to publish the story as soon as possible to capitalize on the trending topic of fraternity scandals in the news.
A lack of fact-checking may also be seen as permissible because of a changing attitude in the digital age. According to Fisher (2014), in the age of social media, young reporters have expressed a belief that any information that is “out there” is news, whether or not it proves to be true. At publications like Buzzfeed, which has gotten into trouble numerous times publishing viral news videos that turn out to be hoaxes, there is an urge to share with readers any information that is available at the present time. Modern journalists at Buzzfeed and other similar publications believe that with the wealth of information on the Internet only a click away, false stories will correct themselves over time, and the editing process can take place after publication- all that matters is getting a story published before anyone else (Fisher, 2014).
Rolling Stone may also have been lax in fact-checking because of the circumstances of the case. Tompkins (2015) suggests that editors did not “push hard enough” for Erdely to fact-check because of her status as a reporter and because of the status of the victim. First, Jackie was an alleged victim of rape, which meant that Rolling Stone took extra caution in pushing her to reveal or clarify details of the case. They also went easy on Erdely because, as Coronel et al. (2015) wrote, Erdely had written numerous stories in the past and was respected for being “a very thorough and persnickety reporter who’s able to navigate extremely difficult stories with a lot of different points of view.” As studied in class, a sense of trust and respect for a reporter can cause lax fact-checking, as was the case with Stephen Glass at The New Republic.
The other major ethical issue in this case was the use of pseudonyms. Erdely and the staff at Rolling Stone felt it necessary to use pseudonyms for the main victim, Jackie, and her friends at the university because of the sensitive nature of the case (Clark, 2015). Naming victims of sexual assault is a complex issue that many reporters face (Grand & Stone, 2013). On one hand, there is the importance of delivering the truth to the public, but on the other hand, there is the importance of protecting the victim of the abuse or assault from further trauma. In Jackie’s case, Rolling Stone opted to use a pseudonym for her and her friends because of the traumatic nature of her assault and the fear she expressed towards it (Coronel et al., 2015). Grand & Stone (2013) suggest that evaluating the use of pseudonyms in a sexual assault report should be on a case-by-case basis, because it is not a black and white issue. By their logic, Rolling Stone committed no foul.
However, there are also issues with using pseudonyms. Clark (2015) reports that pseudonyms should be used as a last resort in journalism because they are a work of fiction, and introducing a pseudonym puts the reader in the difficult decision that they must trust that this is the only fabricated part of the story. News organizations have a responsibility to be transparent with their readers about how information for a story is compiled (Karlsson, 2010). Withholding the names of sources in the story creates a strain on this expectation.
Using pseudonyms also somewhat relieve the source of responsibility. Because Jackie’s real name was not used, it was realistic for her to assume that she would not face any backlash for fabricating the rape story and falsely accusing the frat brothers. Pseudonyms were also used for Jackie’s friends that were dismissive and encouraged her to keep quiet about her rape. If the real names of these friends had been provided, they could have been a valuable resource for helping Rolling Stone fact-check Jackie’s claims (Tompkins 2015).
Part 3: Conclusion
Rolling Stone should have been more aggressive in fact-checking their story. According to Coronel, et al. (2015), Jackie had never shown signs of being uncomfortable about revealing information or requested that they refrain from questioning her. The editors at Rolling Stone refrained from pursuing the claims in her report merely out of a fear that they would aggravate her further after the trauma she experienced. When writing a story that involves such severe claims against a fraternity and an entire university, there should be a presumption that the witness should undergo fact-checking. If either the magazine or the victim felt uncomfortable with this process, the story should not have been published.
Also, if Rolling Stone was determined to contribute to a movement exposing corruption in sexual assault cases on campus, they should have left sufficient time to thoroughly fact-check the story. Due to the severe nature of the accusations in Jackie’s story, deadline pressure cannot be used as an excuse. “A Rape On Campus” damaged the reputations of Phi Kappa Psi and the entire University of Virginia. If Rolling Stone and Erdely wanted to investigate sexual assault, Babcock (2015) suggests that it may have been more prudent to report “on-the-scene” or attend press conferences and share details via social media, since social media helps get information out faster than a feature-length story.
I believe that Rolling Stone was justified in not releasing Jackie’s name. Before they found her claims to be false, they presumed that she was the victim of a violent and heinous sex crime that was still causing her emotional distress two years later. Publishing her name would have only caused her to relive the backlash that she supposedly faced the first time around, and recall the events of the story all over again. Grand & Stone (2013) report that if the name of a sex crime must be shared, the article should refrain from describing the nature of the sex crime in graphic detail. Since “A Rape On Campus” described the rape graphically, it was appropriate to withhold Jackie’s name. Finding out the names of her friends, however, may have been in the magazine’s best interests, instead of accepting the pseudonyms Jackie gave them. The friends were not victims of the crime, and could have been a valuable source of information that may have prevented the publication of this false story and the subsequent damage to the reputations of the individuals involved.
References
Babcock, W. A. (2015). The deadline dilemma. Gateway Journalism Review, 45(336), 3.
Clark, R. P. (2015, April 7). The psuedonym as a crutch: A big lesson from the Rolling Stone scandal. The Poynter Institute. Retrieved from http://www.poynter.org/how- tos/writing/333137/the-pseudonym-as-a-crutch-a-big-lesson-from-the-rolling-stone- scandal/
Coronel, S., Coll, S., & Kravitz, D. (2015, April 5). Rolling Stone and UVA: The Columbia University Graduate School Of Journalism Report. Rolling Stone. Retrieved from http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/a-rape-on-campus-what-went-wrong- 20150405
Doudaki, V., & Spyridou, L. (2015). News content online: Patterns and norms under convergence dynamics. Journalism, 16(2), 257-277.
Fisher, M. (2014). Who cares if it’s true?. Columbia Journalism Review, 52(6), 26-32.
Grand, A., & Stone, S. (2013). Naming Victims Of Sex Crimes. Quill, 101(2), 33-36.
Karlsson, M. (2010). Rituals Of Transparency. Journalism Studies, 11(4), 535-545.
Tompkins, A. (2015, April 5). Investigation of Rolling Stone’s ‘A Rape On Campus’ finds journalistic failure. The Poynter Institute. Retrieved from http://www.poynter.org/news/mediawire/332785/investigation-of-rolling-stones-a-rape- on-campus-finds-journalistic-failure/