USA TODAY COLUMN: …”It was too delicious a story,” Daniel Okrent, a former New York Times public editor,told American Journalism Review at the time. “It conformed too well to too many preconceived notions of too many in the press….”
In the current imbroglio, Rolling Stone’s biggest problem was its failure to try to interview the men that Jackie, the story’s protagonist, said had assaulted her. It did so, managing editor Will Dana said, at her request, given the sensitive nature of the material and her fear of retaliation. Again, you want to be sensitive to a rape victim. But to go with a completely one-sided story, particularly such an incendiary one, is journalism at its shoddiest.
In further explanation, Dana says Jackie raised no red flags with the magazine’s editors and fact-checkers before the piece was published. But that’s hardly a green light to accept her account wholeheartedly without any attempts to corroborate. (See Reagan, R., or the old journalism chestnut, “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.”) … (more)
