Columbia Journalism Review has just published a long article about the Rolling Stone story that purported to expose the “rape culture” that exists on college campuses. Sadly, it is mostly off-target, argues Brooklyn College history professor KC Johnson in “It Could Have Been True, So Why Not Print It?”
Johnson observes first that instead of pounding home the obvious lesson that journalists need to make sure their stories are based on fact, the writers fret that this case might have a chilling effect on students who might write about campus sexual assault. Nor do they express any concern over the parties who are damaged by false accusations.
Later, he delivers the knockout punch:
“CJR also recommends that reporters “gain a deep understanding of the tangle of rules and guidelines on campus sexual assault.” I couldn’t agree more. The first step in this would feature a reporter actually describing for readers what the university’s procedures are since many readers doubtless assume, incorrectly, that actual due process exists when schools consider a felony accusation. Yet CJR doesn’t recommend that reporters take this obvious step. Instead, they urge looking at “Title IX, the Clery Act, and the Violence Against Women Act . . . directives from the Office of Civil Rights and recommendations from the White House.” In other words, all sources that accept as a given that a rape epidemic exists on college campuses. Notably absent from this list—defense attorneys or civil liberties organizations.”
Evidently, the authors of the piece, people who are supposed to be the experts in teaching young journalists, just can’t see the disastrous problems with the Rolling Stone story because they’re all trapped in the same belief system as Sabina Erdely and the editors of the magazine. The foremost lesson from this ought to be that journalists should check all of their preconceived notions before they investigate and write. Columbia Journalism Review blew that opportunity.