Rolling Stone Magazine Found Guilty Of Libel With Malice In Rape Hoax Article

[Bandit]

Rolling Stone magazine and a journalist have been found guilty of defamation over a false article about a gang rape at the University of Virginia.

The $7.5m (£6m) lawsuit was brought by Nicole Eramo, an associate dean from the university, who said the article had cast her as the "chief villain".

The 2014 article, written by Sabrina Rubin Erdely, included the rape claim of an unidentified female student.

The magazine retracted the article in April 2015, citing inconsistencies.

The 9,000-word article, entitled A Rape on Campus, centred on the testimony of a student, referred to as "Jackie", who claimed to have been gang raped at a party held at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity's house in 2012.

An investigation by the Charlottesville Police Department had found no evidence that "Jackie" had been gang raped.

Nicole Eramo was in charge of overseeing sexual violence cases at the university when the report was published.

The amount she is due in damages will be determined at a later date.

The 10-member federal jury in Charlottesville found that Erdely was responsible for libel with actual malice.

They also found the magazine and its publisher responsible for defaming Ms Eramo.

Lawyers representing the journalist, the magazine and its parent company, Wenner Media, said that while the magazine acknowledged its mistakes it believed it had not acted with actual malice, the Washington Post reported.

In a statement, the magazine added: "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."

A report from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, commissioned by Rolling Stone, found flaws at every level of the magazine's editing process.

It described the article as "a story of journalistic failure".

Good.

[Roofus]

A guy I follow on Facebook said this:

Here's what I don't get..."Jackie" completely fabricated this tale of gang rape, destroyed the career of the journalist who wrote the story as well as the former dean who sued, cost Rolling Stone what will surely be millions of dollars in damages and ruined its reputation for journalism. She also set back the cause of those fighting campus rape immeasurably.

This all being the case, why are news organizations still protecting her identity with a pseudonym ("Jackie") as though she was a real victim of sexual assault?

[Bandit]

A lot of them still believe her or at the very least are taking a "it would be worse to question her" attitude. They have this idea that if they say "this was a mentally ill person who lied" it somehow means men will never believe another woman again. It makes no sense.

[Roofus]

Yeah, I got into an argument in that Facebook thread with a lady who still thinks it happened and she said I was disgusting for "automatically" saying she lied. There was nothing automatic about it. The party never happened. The guy doesn't exist. She lied.

[Bandit]

Women like her are why Donald Trump could become president.