Rolling Stone magazine on Sunday withdrew and apologized for a discredited story about an alleged gang rape on a US college campus, publishing a review of the debacle that found “avoidable” failures in basic journalism practices.
An 8,000-word report into the article by the Columbia Journalism Review found lapses in journalism standards at the pop-culture magazine from start to finish of the purported expose on rape, which prompted a police investigation and sparked a public outcry when first published in November last year.
Investigators probing the allegations last month said they found no evidence to support the explosive claims of a violent gang rape at a college fraternity house in Virginia.
Questions were raised almost immediately after the article was published and Rolling Stone had all but retracted its story after apologizing in December last year.
The magazine, which has a reputation for investigative work, said it was wrong to have trusted the purported victim’s version of what happened in September 2012 at a University of Virginia frat house.
Despite the shrinking editorial staff at Rolling Stone, the review found the failures for the article were ones of judgement and not due to a shortage of resources.
The reporting is “a story of journalistic failure that was avoidable. The failure encompassed reporting, editing, editorial supervision and fact-checking,” the review said.
Journalists at Rolling Stone failed to identify problems and discuss them, according to the review.
The author of the article, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, issued an apology on Sunday, saying she “did not go far enough” to verify the story, according to US media.
The controversial article attempted to show a dramatic example of sexual assault on a college campus and the struggles victims face afterward, a problem at universities across the US.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
STUMPED: KMT and TPP lawmakers approved a resolution to suspend the rate hike, which the government said was unavoidable in view of rising global energy costs The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it has a mandate to raise electricity prices as planned after the legislature passed a non-binding resolution along partisan lines to freeze rates. Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers proposed the resolution to suspend the price hike, which passed by a 59-50 vote. The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) voted with the KMT. Legislative Speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT said the resolution is a mandate for the “immediate suspension of electricity price hikes” and for the Executive Yuan to review its energy policy and propose supplementary measures. A government-organized electricity price evaluation board in March
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has
China is mischaracterizing UN Resolution 2758 for its own interests by conflating it with its “one China” principle, US Deputy Assistant Secretary for China and Taiwan Mark Lambert said on Monday. Speaking at a seminar held by the German Marshall Fund, Lambert called for support for Taiwan’s meaningful participation in the international community at a time when China is increasingly misusing Resolution 2758. The resolution had a clear impact when it changed who occupied the China seat at the UN, Lambert said. “Today, however, the PRC [People’s Republic of China] increasingly mischaracterizes and misuses Resolution 2758 to serve its own interests,” Lambert said. “Beijing