Rolling Stone's "A Rape on Campus" at UVA
■ The claim
Rolling Stone published a detailed account of a student, called Jackie, being gang-raped at a University of Virginia fraternity party, and portrayed the university as indifferent.
■ What actually happened
Reporting by other outlets quickly found the account could not be corroborated, and police found no evidence to support it. Rolling Stone retracted the story on April 5, 2015, and published a Columbia Journalism School review describing failures in reporting, editing and fact-checking. In November 2016 a jury found Rolling Stone and writer Sabrina Rubin Erdely liable for defaming UVA associate dean Nicole Eramo, with $3 million in damages; the fraternity separately settled with the magazine.
■ The proof
Rolling Stone's April 2015 retraction and the Columbia Journalism School report, plus the Nov. 4, 2016 defamation verdict in Eramo v. Rolling Stone.
■ Original reporting
- UVA Library archive: 'A Rape on Campus' (Rolling Stone, Nov. 19, 2014)https://takeback.lib.virginia.edu/items/show/582
■ Corrections, findings & records
- Rolling Stone: Columbia Journalism School reporthttps://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/rolling-stone-and-uva-the-columbia-university-graduate-school-of-journalism-report-44930/25/
- CNN: Full text of Rolling Stone's apology (April 5, 2015)https://money.cnn.com/2015/04/05/media/rolling-stone-apology-uva-rape-article/index.html
- CNN: Jury finds Rolling Stone defamed UVA administrator (Nov. 4, 2016)https://money.cnn.com/2016/11/04/media/uva-rolling-stone-defamation-jury/
- CJR: What the Rolling Stone verdict meanshttps://www.cjr.org/analysis/rolling_stone_verdict_defamation_case.php
■ Wayback Machine copies
Stories sometimes get edited after publication. These links open the Internet Archive's earliest snapshot of each original.
- Archive copy: UVA Library archive: 'A Rape on Campus' (Rolling Stone, Nov. 19, 2014)https://web.archive.org/web/2/https://takeback.lib.virginia.edu/items/show/582
■ Grade
RETRACTED: The outlet itself retracted, corrected, or settled. How we grade →