By Alyssa Sanford
for Media Ethics (JPW 309-01) | 9/14/15
Compassion for an alleged rape victim, and fear of losing a crucial source, led Sabrina Erdely astray in her reporting for the November 2014 Rolling Stone article, “A Rape on Campus.”
It was a story that captured national attention, and a story that drew harsh criticism from the public and journalists alike when Erdely revealed that she harbored doubts about her source’s narrative just weeks after publication.
The editors at Rolling Stone who oversaw the publication of the article from its inception to its final draft consulted a team of media experts from the Columbia School of Journalism to examine the problems inherent in the article, and ran the report in an article entitled “‘A Rape on Campus’: What Went Wrong?”
“This report was painful reading, to me personally and to all of us at Rolling Stone,” wrote managing editor Will Dana in a preface to the report. “It is also, in its own way, a fascinating document — a piece of journalism, as [Columbia School of Journalism dean Steve] Coll describes it, about a failure of journalism.”
Erdely’s primary failure is inherent in her reluctance to properly identify her subjects. The article begins with reference to “18-year-old Jackie” from “a rural Virginia town.” But Coll and his team make it clear in their report that Jackie was only “a shortened version of her true first name.”
It’s problematic, then, that Erdely failed to denote this slight name change with quotation marks, or an aside to her readers. While it could be construed as an ethical decision to maintain her source’s privacy, Erdely’s silence on the matter is jarring.
Furthermore, Erdely gave pseudonyms to other key figures in Jackie’s account: of the alleged rapist, Erdely wrote, “a good-looking junior… who we’ll call Drew.” Perhaps it is because Erdely wished to protect Jackie’s interests that she didn’t disclose Drew’s real name; but if Drew is being accused of a crime and can no longer claim the protection from public exposure afforded to minors, then Erdely should have felt compelled to print his full name.
However, Coll’s report finds that Erdely tried to find out Drew’s identity with some guidance from Jackie and ultimately could not find anyone who matched his description and was linked to the fraternity that Jackie claimed he was. When Jackie was unwilling to help Erdely track him down, Erdely had to settle for “a pseudonym” and would “avoid contacting the lifeguard after all,” according to Coll and his team.
In spite of how difficult it was to ascertain the alleged rapist’s true identity, and how opposed Jackie seemed to the idea of Erdely reaching him for comment, it is unethical for a journalist to write an article that solely focuses on the interests of the main subject.
Fred Brown, a prominent member of the Society for Professional Journalists Ethics Committee, weighed in Erdely’s reliance on her literary vehicle to verify the identities of the people featured in her account.
“Yes, it is ethical to rely on the victim as one of the vehicles for telling the story, and even the most important vehicle, but not the only vehicle,” said Brown. “There should be an effort to verify and contact the alleged perpetrators. That was the major shortcoming of the Rolling Stone story. The victim’s description of the perpetrator didn’t check out—or rather, there was not enough effort put forward into checking out that person. As it turned out, there was no such person.”
Many of the voices that Erdely incorporates into the article—conversations between Jackie and Drew, and commentary from Jackie’s friends “Cindy,” “Randall” and “Andy”—come directly from Jackie. Their words, filtered through Jackie, are unflattering: “She’s gonna be the girl who cried ‘rape,’ and we’ll never be allowed into any frat party again,” Cindy is quoted as saying at the beginning of the article.
In spite of editor Sean Woods’ claims in the Coll report that he “‘asked Sabrina to go reach’ the three friends” and was repeatedly told that she couldn’t track them down, Erdely’s reluctance to give their side of the story equal play in the article was an ethical breach, according to media ethicist and University of Oregon professor Stephen J. A. Ward.
“You are not disrespecting anyone’s claims by asking for verification,” said Ward, in reference to how a journalist should approach a story about an assault victim. “The main thing is to tell (your source) that this will be a big and very public story, and as a journalist, you have an ethical responsibility to verify. Are you not disrespecting the rights of the accused by not asking for evidence?”
In the event that “you run into a roadblock” and can’t verify the source’s account by speaking to the accused or other possible sources, “I believe you should hold on to the story and not publish it,” Ward said. “On the other hand, you may get verifying information, and eventually feel you have enough to run the story… but what is enough is not a precise notion—you will simply have to judge when enough is enough.”
“Ask the victim who she was in contact with after the assault. And ask her what she can tell you about her assailants. Then find those people and talk to them,” said Brown. “It’s just good journalism.”
Both Ward and Brown feel that Erdely failed to uphold one of journalism’s tenets: “Minimize harm.”
“A story claiming someone committed rape is about as serious and damaging a story you could do about anyone, so the principle of minimizing harm (no unverified allegations against the purported rapist) is keen,” said Ward. “Yet we must also minimize any harm we might do to the alleged victim, while making sure that if the rape occurred that we, as journalists, abide by the stern principle to seek the truth and report it.”
“Accuracy is always a reporter’s first obligation. In my opinion, it’s also the most important factor in maintaining an ethical approach to reporting,” said Brown. “And if you don’t have all the facts, or at least make a thorough effort to get as many relevant facts as you can, you’re not being an ethical journalist.”
Human Spellcheck 