UVA Fraternity Announces Lawsuit Against Rolling Stone

I am often critical of the mainstream media because of its laziness and cowardice which in turn allows horrible things to happen - the Iraq War being perhaps one of the more recent examples of an avoidable disaster.  But the media can also ruin the lives of people through the same laziness and at times the bias of reporters who want the facts to be a certain way even if they do not support the reporter's agenda.  A case in point, the vicious and false Rolling Stone article from last fall that maligned both a fraternity at the University of Virginia and on a lesser scale the University itself.  Now that the story has been shown to be false, the targeted fraternity is announcing that it is filing a lawsuit against Rolling Stone for its libelous story.  Here are details from the Washington Post:

The University of Virginia chapter of Phi Kappa Psi announced Monday that the fraternity house will file a lawsuit against Rolling Stone, calling the magazine’s reporting that described an alleged gang-rape by some of its members “reckless.”

The lawsuit comes a day after Rolling Stone editors retracted a Nov. 19 story “A Rape on Campus,” that portrayed the chilling account of brutal sexual assault allegedly occurring in the Phi Kappa Psi house at U-Va. in 2012. A Columbia University report issued Sunday described significant lapses by the magazine’s staff while reporting the gang-rape allegations and the story’s writer, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, and the publication’s managing editor, Will Dana, apologized for the deeply flawed account. But the fraternity noted that Erdely did not apologize directly to the Phi Psi chapter at U-Va.

“The report by Columbia University’s School of Journalism demonstrates the reckless nature in which Rolling Stone researched and failed to verify facts in its article that erroneously accused Phi Kappa Psi of crimes its members did not commit,” said Stephen Scipione, U-Va. chapter president of Phi Kappa Psi. “This type of reporting serves as a sad example of a serious decline of journalistic standards.”

The chapter spent “130 days of living under a cloud of suspicion as a result of reckless reporting by Rolling Stone Magazine,” according to Phi Psi. A fraternity spokesman said that the chapter is considering expanding its lawsuit to include Erdely, the story’s author.

In March the Charlottesville police department detailed a months-long investigation that exonerated the fraternity and found there was no evidence to substantiate the sexual assault allegations described in Rolling Stone. Fraternity members told The Post in the fall that they knew within hours of the article’s publication that there were significant discrepancies in the account.

“Clearly our fraternity and its members have been defamed, but more importantly we fear this entire episode may prompt some victims to remain in the shadows, fearful to confront their attackers,” said Scipione. “If Rolling Stone wants to play a real role in addressing this problem, it’s time to get serious.”

In the interests of disclosure, I was a member of a fraternity at UVA and one of my children has friends who were members of the defamed Phi Kappa Psi chapter.