…in the matter of the Sabrina Erdely story about bogus gang rape at UVA, the one that portrayed “Jackie” as victim extraordinaire. The verdict involved a finding of actual malice on the part of the periodical and Erdely:

In a lawsuit filed last year, then-UVA associate dean of students Nicole Eramo alleged that the article and interviews Ms. Erdely gave about her reporting cast the administrator as the callous villain of its tale and falsely asserted that she discouraged a student identified only as “Jackie” from taking her rape allegations to the police.

Key to the verdict against Rolling Stone itself was its delayed decision to retract the story, according to the jury’s verdict form.

This is the tale of a periodical and a reporter who loved their story so much they couldn’t let go of it when they should have, and who had no interest in using due diligence in researching it.

Here’s a statement from Rolling Stone after the verdict:

We deeply regret these missteps and sincerely apologize to anyone hurt by them, including Ms. Eramo. It is our deep hope that our failings do not deflect from the pervasive issues discussed in the piece, and that reporting on sexual assault cases ultimately results in campus policies that better protect our students.

Well, Rolling Stone, I have a suggestion to make. If you would like your reporting to result in campus policies that better protect students, it would help to report the facts rather than lies.

Erdely herself has made a sort of cottage industry from writing sensational articles about rape, and several of her previous pieces have been subsequently looked at with a more skeptical eye than before, in light of the UVA brouhaha. But these articles of Erdely’s were not merely about rape; her recurrent leitmotif was that the victims’ reports of rape were ignored or minimized by the relevant institutions in attempts at coverup. Erdely’s “Jackie” story fit the pattern, with its allegations against UVA administrator Eramo:

Sabrina Rubin Erdely is trying to build a narrative. The narrative, really, is not as much about rape qua rape. The narrative is that rape is widely ignored and/or condoned by people in authority within institutions that she dislikes (frats, the military, churches). Reporting that a rape has occurred is upsetting but not surprising to people ”“ so what makes these stories actual news stories is that they in each instance make the sensational claim that the rape was reported to people in positions of authority who either ignored the accusation or who actually punished the victim for reporting it.

Here’s an article about one of Erdely’s previous stories for Rolling Stone, one that involved sexual abuse by priests in Philadelphia. The following excerpt was written five years ago, long before Erdely’s UVA story came out:

The author of “The Catholic Church’s Secret Sex-Crime Files,” Sabrina Rubin Erdely, is not a religion reporter; she writes mostly about health issues. But she knows how to smear, and knows how to exploit stereotypes. As we will see, she is also dishonest…

I suggest you read the whole thing, but even more important to read would be this article about what happened later in the case (written in the fall of 2015). If you are familiar with the UVA/Jackie story, it should come as no surprise:

Daniel Gallagher is a slender 27-year-old with a wispy beard who is better known as “Billy Doe.” Under that pseudonym, he made national headlines in 2011 when he claimed to have been serially raped as a fifth- and sixth-grader at St. Jerome’s parish by two priests and a Catholic schoolteacher.

Gallagher subsequently became the Philadelphia district attorney’s star witness at two historic criminal trials. His graphic testimony helped convict three alleged assailants, as well as Monsignor William Lynn, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s former secretary for clergy, who was found guilty of endangering the welfare of a child. The monsignor became the first Catholic administrator in the country to go to jail for failing to adequately supervise a sexually abusive priest…

The Billy Doe rape story was so sensational it attracted the attention of crusading Rolling Stone writer Sabrina Rubin Erdely. She described Billy Doe in a 2011 story, “The Catholic Church’s Secret Sex-Crime Files,” as a “sweet, gentle kid with boyish good looks” who had been callously “passed around” from predator to predator..

Judging from [court-appointed forensic psychiatrist] Mechanick’s report, Billy Doe has as much credibility as Jackie.

There’s much more that’s occurred subsequently on some of those Philadelphia cases, and the legal machinations are ongoing. Some of the more recent developments can be found here.