The Rolling Stones article “A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA” was written by Sabrina Erdely. The article, although a bit long, was dense with information and held my attention throughout. I think this article was so attention grabbing because it was an expose on a topic that is often covered up and the author formatted it more like a story which, in my opinion, makes the read more enjoyable since it was so long. The reason I think it was formatted more like a story, even though it’s contents make it more of an expose, is because the article carried a plot from start to finish and treated the subjects more as characters. This article made me want to keep reading and see what the results were. I think this is one of the better expose articles of this length and density that I have read and I give Erdely serious props for keeping such a serious and sensitive issue somewhat enjoyable to read.
As far as contents go, Erdely followed the victim from start to finish and she added research on review boards that currently looking into the situation. She also added in several details, which I feel makes the reader connect with the content even more because it makes it easier to visualize what is going on. I also really liked how Erdely broke up the different sections of the article with the lyrics to “Rugby Road”. I think this may be one of the strongest parts of the article. I think that these lyrics hold so much importance in the article because the song is the traditional fight song of the school, and is so crude and what we would consider today to be extremely politically incorrect. Don’t get me wrong I don’t think political correctness is always important because it often covers things up, but I just can’t imagine a state learning institution having such a graphic fight song. The lyrics do make one think that sexual abuse has been a long standing thing at UVA because in my opinion all the lyrics are basically talking about males doing various sexual actions to women.
Even though I think Erdely had a lot of quality contents in this article like the research and the in depth descriptions of the assaults, it concerns be a bit the quantity of the one-sidedness. I understand that when your dealing with such a sensitive subject that a lot of people may not want to talk, and it may be in the universities best interest not to divulge information, but I just feel as if every story and incident has some back story to it, and between all involved with the university and perpetrators I just feel the Erdely could have gotten something more out of someone to show the full story. I feel that there’s a lot of truth in backstories because every story does have two sides, even if one is in the right and the other the wrong, but I feel that regardless of the position of the side it can bring more truth to the article.
Moving more towards ethics, I think Erdely did her job as a journalist and stayed in the right by following some of the major points of the SPC Code of Ethics. By exposing such a terrible thing that is often hidden from the public I think she really held true to the principle of “Seek Truth and Report It”. Also, I think that Erdely was as sensitive as possible to the victim and also held true to the principle of “Minimize Harm”. In addition to her sensitivity to the victim, I think she also helped minimize harm by changing the names of some of the bystanders who didn’t really play a major role in the assault. By doing this she saved these people from any repercussions that the article may have brought upon. The only thing I question is if this reporter really did follow the principle of “Act Independently”. It just appears that this story is so one sided and I find it difficult to allow myself to believe that Erdely didn’t have an predispositions making her go on the side of the victim.
To conclude, overall I did think this was a good expose article. I also believe it was a great example of “Seek Truth and Report It” since it does deal with a topic that is traditionally overlooked because of it’s sensitive properties and the stigma that comes with being both the victim and assailant of a sexual assault.