Here’re the two points I find really remarkable and interesting during today’s class discussion about the failure of the Rolling Stone story.

First, journalists’ intention to do good can not justify the inaccuracies in reporting. Put it in the case context, it is undeniable that the mistake Erdely and her editor made was due to, at least mostly, their intention to seek justice for the sexual crime victims and avoid re-traumatizing. However when they got blown up and the misreporting got all over the world, their good intention doesn’t produce an outcome it should have produced- people start to question victims’ credibility even more harshly, UVA’s reputation got stained, and perpetrator(if there really is one) at large is still at large. By listing all these consequences, we could conclude that accuracy should always come first and nothing can ever beat it, even a strong will to do good and help the mistreated. This will always be the case in journalism because the source where the power of journalism comes from is credibility. The premise on which journalists’ work can have laws revised and the powerful held accountable is that people have faith in the truth that’s presented, not someone’s good intention. Thus once the contract of trust is torn, no deal’s going to maintain, even heavenly hearts cannot save the broken trust. This expands on the point made in my last post that exhaustive and independent investigation should  be given the precedence in journalistic practices, even when the protection to the victims seems more like a pressing need.

The second point is about the language used in the article that deemed to be offensive and sensational. Personally I’m not in for criticizing author’s word choices or sentence structures, which in my opinion is more of a stylish thing. The criticism about Erdely’s language per se is somehow just another type of confirmation bias-when we know there’s something wrong in that article, everything in it would look wrong. However, when it comes to offensive language in journalistic writing in general, I do believe that journalists should be extremely cautious when put down these words. Because offensive languages are, in my opinion, essentially against the nature of journalism, that is being objective and fair. Therefore purposeful use of offensive words to allure readers should be considered an unethical journalistic practice. Overall, I would say that only when necessary should offensive and sensational words be used(like in an important quote), but determining whether it is necessary or not is a case-by-case examination and there will be lots of hard choices to make.

The ethical issue presented by the investigation “A Rape on Campus: What Went Wrong?” is basically accuracy of  journalistic reporting. The SPJ Code of Ethics says to seek truth and report it, minimize harm, act independently and be accountable and transparent. The investigation found that the journalistic practice conducted by the Rolling Stone editorial team failed to meet all these ethical standards and therefore led to the final collapse of the story.

Confirmation bias is the first and foremost lapse of the Rolling Stone editorial team. “Avoid stereotyping. Journalists should examine the ways their values and experiences may shape their reporting”, states the SPJ Code of Ethics. The primary reason why Sabrina Erdely was taken in by a elementary level hoax and her story went through a fact checker, and editor and legal counsel was that Jackie’s story confirmed their ideological expectation of the “pervasive culture of sexual harassment/rape”. Under such a stereotype, Erdely let go of her “incredulous” feeling as a reporter over and again, she and the editor became overtly deferential to Jackie, going past important reporting routines of verification and overlooking the obvious contradictions and discrepancies in Jackie’s account. As Cathy Young put it, Erdely’s story flowed from the pen of one possessed of “the troubling zealotry of advocates for whom believing rape claims is somewhat akin to a matter of religious faith.” The whole investigation ended up serving as a tool to confirm the author’s conjecture instead of a lens to detect the reporting gaps.

Another ethical issue brought up by “What Went Wrong” is the fairness of journalistic reporting especially when there is derogatory information that is going to be published. The Code of Ethics states that journalists should diligently seek the subject to let them respond to accusations of wrongdoings, which I completely agree, for giving voice to the accused is not only a prerequisite for basic fairness, but also a way to minimize potential harm to those affected. For the Rolling Stone story, if they had ever identify the lifeguard in Jackie’s account, the whole disaster would never have happened, and the damage to UVA, the fraternity and even Jackie would have been eliminated.

Another ethical issue arises when the investigators found that Erdely, the editor and the fact checker all relied heavily on their source. The lack of independent reporting and investigation largely limited the journalist’s  access to the perspective of other parties involved in the story, such as Jackie’s three friends, UVA administrators and again, the alleged rapists. I personally believe a great proportion of this was done out of the intention to avoid re-traumatizing the victim of sexual crime, however I’m also convinced that the Rolling Stone sacrificed their autonomy in finding sources and verifying critical facts for fear that they would lost their “golden-ticket” source by bringing in people Jackie doesn’t want to be involved.

Transparency is another point raised by the investigation. As “What Went Wrong” states, the Rolling Stone’s failure in transparency should not be chalked up as a stylistic issue or a minor miss in attribution, but a problem deeply-seated in the process of reporting. The line between what had been verified and what had not was blurred throughout Erdely’s writing, the fact the author didn’t know “Drew’s” true name and the misquote of “Randall’s” “shit show” conversation with Jackie, for instance.  The blemish in transparency of information beat Wood’s and Dana’s good “faith” and led to a miserable debacle of the Rolling Stone’s credibility.

For sure an institutional failure like this is more often than not a fatal coincidence caused by a  spate of methodological problems existing within compounded with disadvantaged extrinsic environment, as is stated by the investigation article. The disadvantaged extrinsic factor, in this case, is the response from UVA administration that turned out to be quite uncooperative. The damage-control-like attitude of UVA authorities definitely deepened the pre-existing conformation bias and blocked Rolling Stone’s chance to pull the story back to the right track.

Many thought-provoking questions brought up by this investigation that the short length of this post won’t allow me to touch upon. Admittedly, the choices the Rolling Stone journalists had made were not easy, and the reflection on the misreporting, for its part, is honest, the journalistic practice they conducted, however, is undoubtedly problematic and unethical, overall. As it stands, the failure of Rolling Stone should serve as a learning opportunity for people taking journalism as a serious and honorable profession, and a warning for the future that paying reverence to the well-being of a victim should never take precedence over exhaustive investigation.

Source: SPJ Code of Ethics: http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp

What Went Wrong: A Rape on Campus:  http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/a-rape-on-campus-what-went-wrong-20150405

When Sources Lie: Why You Can’t Rely on Confidence or Consistency: http://gijn.org/2015/05/29/when-sources-lie-why-you-cant-rely-on-confidence-or-consistency/

The retraction issued by the Rolling Stone regarding the feature piece, A Rape on Campus, detailing a heart-wrenching story of a gang rape happened on a frat party in the University of Virginia  followed several investigations proving the account false. Evidence from a variety of sources was found and threw the entire story into disarray.

Setting aside the details uncovered by multiple investigations afterwards, all of which have demonstrated that the institutional failure of Rolling Stone is completely avoidable, the original story per se is far from flawless in terms of accuracy and reliability. Its unclear identification of “Jackie” and total absence of accounts from the accused rapists’ side all suggest that the whole story was built on a shaky ground that is evidentially inadequate and ethically contentious.

“Identify sources clearly. The public is entitled to as much information as possible to judge the reliability and motivations of sources”, reads the SPJ Code of Ethics. However, in this article, the author and the editor decided to let their main source- the claimed victim of that gang rape-go entirely anonymous throughout the story.

Anonymous source is nothing new. Despite the controversy upon using anonymous source, major news organizations have been relying on anonymous sources for centuries, and few would deny that without anonymous sources, a large proportion of critical and urgent news in the public interest, the Watergate Scandal and the Pentagon Papers for instance, could never be exposed to the lay public. Thus the ethical issue laid here is not the legitimacy of using anonymous source in general journalistic practice, but whether the use of anonymous source should be considered a journalistic misconduct in this case specifically. My answer to this would be yes, and I believe so due to two main reasons. First, unlike many news articles relying on anonymous sources out of pressing public need, where readers will be denied to the important news unless the anonymous sources cooperate with the journalists, and there are tangible threats from the retribution to the people who leak the information without the cloak of anonymity, the Rolling Stone article apparently doesn’t rise to that standard. Jackie is not the only person that can lead the readers to the problem of campus rape the author tried to put spotlight on. Hence the legitimacy of anonymity in this story is worth questioning. Second, the Rolling Stone editorial team definitely has failed to verify the source’s motive before they promised anonymity. Though I hardly believe the Rolling Stone intended any wrongdoing in their decision-making process of promising anonymity, the failure ended up putting the reputation of the magazine in the harm’s way.

The lack of account from the perpetrators’ side is another violation of Code of Ethics, which requires journalists to “diligently seek subjects of news coverage to allow them to respond to criticism or allegations of wrong doing.” The entire debacle could have been avoided because they would have found out the other side of this dramatic gang rape story doesn’t even exist if the editorial team had ever tried to get the response from the “rapists” .

The failure of the Rolling Stone, while not acceptable, is at least understandable. There’re multiple extrinsic factors that has led to the final meltdown. Jackie’s account is so vivid, detailed that I doubt hardly anyone would presume it fake. What’s more, reporters and editors do face moral dilemmas especially when it comes to juveniles and victims of sexual crimes, and in this specific case, the miserable fact that campus rape has become a national issue across the campuses in the United States adds to the difficulty in striking a balance between the respect to the victim and the objectivity in news reporting.

All of this in mind, while multiple factors has contributed to the final meltdown, the mistake the Rolling Stone has made is in fact a serious one, and the journalistic practices leading to the mistake should be considered unethical due to the Rolling Stone’s failure to accurately assess the credibility of the source and to meet the minimum standard of objectivity in news reporting.

Source: SPJ Code of Ethics: http://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp

A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA: http://web.archive.org/web/20141120205928/http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/a-rape-on-campus-20141119

Talk to the Newsroom: The Use of Anonymous Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/09/business/media/09askthetimes.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&