Friends of ‘Jackie’ Dispute Parts of Rolling Stone UVa Rape Story
Rolling Stone did not contact key friends of “Jackie,’’ the University of Virginia student at the center of a story about an alleged brutal gang rape, and misreported several aspects of her case, according to reports from The Washington Post and CBS News.
Last week, after a story in The Post contradicted several important details of Jackie’s narrative, Rolling Stone admitted that there were “discrepancies’’ in her story and apologized to readers for not fully vetting and fact-checking the piece.
More reporting from The Washington Post on Wednesday outlined issues not just with the details of Jackie’s story but with the broader point Rolling Stone’s report made about UVa’s campus atmosphere.
The crux of Rolling Stone’s story rested on author Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s analysis that friends and administrators at UVa responded callously to Jackie’s rape. Here’s what Rolling Stone reported happened when a traumatized Jackie approached three friends (their names had been changed):
Their other two friends, however, weren’t convinced. “Is that such a good idea?’’ she recalls Cindy asking. “Her reputation will be shot for the next four years.’’ Andy seconded the opinion, adding that since he and Randall both planned to rush fraternities, they ought to think this through. The three friends launched into a heated discussion about the social price of reporting Jackie’s rape, while Jackie stood beside them, mute in her bloody dress, wishing only to go back to her dorm room and fall into a deep, forgetful sleep. Detached, Jackie listened as Cindy prevailed over the group: “She’s gonna be the girl who cried ‘rape,’ and we’ll never be allowed into any frat party again.’’
Those friends told The Post that they had stayed with and cared for Jackie that night.
“It didn’t happen that way at all,’’ Andy, one of Jackie’s friends present that night, said.
Andy also spoke to CBS News on Wednesday night.
“The rape itself was obviously terrible, but then the response was ‘The friends don’t care, the administration doesn’t care, nobody cares,’’’ he said. “And I think that depiction is just false.’’
In addition, the friends said they were never contacted or interviewed by anyone from Rolling Stone.
Other “mounting inconsistencies’’ came up in The Post’s interviews with the friends; for one, the person Jackie blamed for the rape is not the name of any student at UVa, the friends and school officials said.
Another of Jackie’s friends, Alex Pinkleton, also criticized Rolling Stone’s reporting in an interview with CBS News.
“She was looking for a piece that would have easily been sensationalized,’’ Pinkleton said.
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