Columbia: 'Systemic failures' led to retracted Rolling Stone article
Citing "systemic failures" and "problems of newsroom standards" within Rolling Stone, Columbia's journalism school on Monday said a since-retracted article about an alleged gang-rape at the University of Virginia failed to meet basic journalistic standards. The discredited story, which Rolling Stone pulled Sunday after releasing Columbia's scathing review, was the "collective fault" of the reporter, the editor, and the magazine's entire fact-checking department, the authors of the report said.
"We don't believe in this instance that [the alleged victim] Jackie was to blame," Sheila Coronel, one of the report's authors, said.
Speaking with The New York Times, Rolling Stone Publisher Jann Wenner seemed to cast blame on the subject, calling Jackie "a really expert fabulist storyteller," and adding, "there is something here that is untruthful, and something sits at her doorstep."
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