Content
Skip to Main ContentAccessibility Help
The Current

Rolling Stone campus rape story scandal a lesson to journalists

What began as a disturbing expose of one woman's traumatic ordeal at a fraternity house at an America university has evolved into apologies from the publication and criticisms over everything from journalistic blunders .... to insensitivity. Today, our Eye On The Media is asking about responsibility and transparency in the coverage of sexual assault....
CBC Radio ·
The Current22:00Rolling Stone campus rape story scandal a lesson to journalists - Dec 11, 2014
What began as a disturbing expose of one woman's traumatic ordeal at a fraternity house at an America university has evolved into apologies from the publication and criticisms over everything from journalistic blunders .... to insensitivity. Today, our Eye On The Media is asking about responsibility and transparency in the coverage of sexual assault.

The story in Rolling Stone is shocking. My initial reaction was numbness. But the numbness then turned to anger and a deep grief for the survivors.Teresa Sullivan, University of Virginia's president, speaking to reporters late last month.

The story Teresa Sullivan is describing was truly shocking. A young woman, known only as Jackie, had come forward to tell her story of being raped by seven fraternity brothers at an on-campus party.

It was an explosive story with immediate effects: police were called in and all fraternities suspended. But it's also become a radioactive story. That's because not only had Rolling Stone magazine agreed not to reveal the victim -- Jackie's -- real identity... the magazine had also agreed not to speak with the men accused of rape in its story.

That's a decision Rolling Stone editors have come to regret: Questions about the story's details continued to pile up until last week when the magazine formally retracted it.

Today, as part of our occasional >Eye on the Media series, we're looking at what reporters and editors can and should do when reporting on rape and sexual assaults.

Alyssa Rosenberg writes a blog about culture and politics for The Washington Post's Opinions section. She joined us from Washington.

As a journalist you always want to get at the details of a story from its many sides. That's especially so in stories of sexual assault, where both victims and the accused have so much personally at stake. But it can also be especially difficult to do in those very same cases.

To continue our discussion, we were joined by two guests with experience in the ethics of reporting sexual assault.

  • Kevin Donovan is an investigative reporter and editor at the Toronto Star.

  • Helen Benedict is a professor at the Columbia Journalism School and author of "Virgin Or Vamp: How the Press Covers Sex Crimes."


How well do you think the media covers stories about sexual violence? How far should reporters go in verifying accusations of rape?

Tweet us @thecurrentcbc. Or e-mail us through our website. Find us on Facebook. Call us toll-free at 1 877 287 7366.

This segment was produced by The Current's Shannon Higgins and Ines Colabrese.

More from this episode