Disappointment

Earlier this week, in my News Reporting class, we read an article about a gang rape at the University of Virginia.  A horrific situation is described in a Rolling Stone article that went into great detail of both the crime and the aftermath.  Throughout the article, I was amazed by how poorly the schools administration was said to have handled the rape.  The article also described shocking responses by the victim’s friends to her rape.  A “protect UVA first” scenario was described.

I read the whole article and I must admit, I didn’t think twice about the validity of the article.  I understood the explanation for why the renamed rapists weren’t questioned for the piece.  It all seemed legit.

Unfortunately, today I received an email from my instructor saying that Rolling Stone’s managing editor has come out and said that they have discovered discrepancies in the victims account and that they regret their decision to not interview the accused.

This is unfortunate for many reasons but mostly because it changes the dialogue from being about sexual assaults, which do happen all the time at universities all over the country, to about a reporters mistakes in not fully reporting a story.  I doubt the reporter failed to interview the claimed assailants out of laziness.  I imagine it was because of several different factors including the victims confidentiality, as well as, fear of her attackers.  However, the story needed that angle to be complete.  It’s a disappointing situation all around.