The Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism published its report on Rolling Stone's "A Rape on Campus" article, calling the piece a "journalistic failure."
Steve Coll, the school's dean, led the review that determined the magazine's editorial staff deserve blame rather than one individual. Below are five of the main takeaways from Coll's review.
1. The article's reporter, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, relied too heavily on one source, the victim in the story, a female student at the University of Virginia (UVA) only identified as "Jackie." Erdely told Coll and his team she was "a bit incredulous" early on in talking to Jackie given how vividly she remembered certain peripheral details of her attack. Despite her vivid memory of the alleged gang rape, Jackie could not accurately tell Erdely how to spell the last name of the man who she said lured her to the scene of the attack.
Erdely also said Jackie had balked repeatedly at disclosing the man's name and only agreed to do so when they gave him a pseudonym.
2. Coll determined Sean Woods, the article's principle editor, and Will Dana, the magazine's managing editor, would have significantly reduced Jackie's prominence in the article if they had followed a few "essential practices of reporting." The report stated the fatal error was in the editorial team's "methodology." Woods, Dana and the magazine's senior editors seemed to have ignored a number of red flags including concerns raised by their own fact-checking department.
3. The fact-checking department apparently did not feel empowered to raise concerns about Jackie's three friends, who she said picked her up from the party where she was attacked. The magazine's fact-checking department head told Coll, These decisions not to reach out to these people were made by editors above my pay grade."
4. The report touched on disclosure on the part of Erdely and the magazine's editors. When Erdely reached out to the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, she did not disclose specific details of Jackie's allegations against their members. Erdely assumed the fraternity knew of the allegations and therefore did not want to give away sensitive information.
Coll and his team stated this is typically a sound decision in investigative reporting, though it could backfire if the information is faulty. The report also stated Erdely should have considered giving the fraternity more information, given how potentially damning Jackie's account was. If Erdely had done so, she may have been able to address inconsistencies in Jackie's story before the article was published.
The school was also worried about how they were going to come off looking in Erdely's article. Consequentially, this may have caused Erdely to be more skeptical of UVA than she was of Jackie. The article seemed to have suffered from a lack of communication between Rolling Stone, UVA and Phi Kappa Psi.
5. Lastly, Coll's review took issue with the public response Dana offered when they first acknowledged problems with the article. Dana admitted he rushed the magazine's public statement because several publications were coming out with critiques exposing the article's inconsistencies.
An unnamed source told CNN Money that Jann Wenner, Rolling Stone's publisher, does not plan to fire anyone in the wake of Coll's review. Coll said this was not a case of fabrication, but rather one of disregard for blatant warning signs and poor decision-making.
Wenner reportedly believes the magazine's editorial staff has faced punishment enough in the publication of Coll's review.
