This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Bucknell chapter.

If you’ve taken a peek at any major publications in the past six months, you’ve probably seen quite a bit of conversation about Rolling Stone’s “A Rape On Campus” article. Published in November 2014, the article detailed a UVA student’s wincingly brutal account of a fraternity-related gang rape. While at first it initiated a nationwide conversation on sexual assault on college campuses, outside investigators soon began questioning the validity of the story and shortly after, proved its falsehood. As it turns out, Rolling Stone was unaware at the time of publication that the account was fabricated.

In response, Rolling Stone retracted the article. In order to fully address its apparent errors (and the considerable consequences of these errors), the magazine requested that Steve Coll, the acclaimed dean of the Columbia School of Journalism, conduct a report on exactly what went wrong with the coverage of this incident. Rolling Stone recently released this extensive report, spelling out its failings and shedding light on the underlying mistakes that led up to the public incrimination of many innocent people.

This “work of journalism about a failure of journalism” thoroughly follows the journalistic process of “A Rape on Campus.” It begins with the description of the phone call when reporter Sabrina Erdely first hears about Jackie, the subject of the article, and it ends with details about the very last steps of the article’s editing process. After reading the entire report, it is clear to see that “A Rape on Campus” is the result of the mistakes of not one journalist, but many. The reporter, her editors, and her fact checkers all repeatedly abandoned Rolling Stone’s methodology in order to achieve the best story possible. In the end, Jackie’s account of the story is the only one they obtained.

While this disaster is certainly not an example of proper journalism, it shouldn’t invalidate the rampant issue of sexual assault on college campuses. This incident is not telling of the fact that rape allegations are rarely fabricated (social scientists estimate that only 2 to 8 percent of all allegations are invented). Unfortunately, Rolling Stone did not achieve its original goal of “A Rape on Campus,” which was to capture the attention of the nation and coerce colleges and universities to take immediate and profound action on the issue of sexual violence. In fact, their plan may have backfired.

Last year, the National Review published an article entitled “The Rape Epidemic Is a Fiction,” and last month, a Fox News host made the claim that the Rolling Stone scandal proves that “there is war happening on boys on these college campuses.” However, statistics completely disprove such theories. The National Sexual Violence Resource Center asserts that between 20 and 25 percent of female college students will be raped during their college career. While most, if not all, colleges and universities also have a long way to go in terms of creating methods of prevention and response that are more appropriate and effective, Bucknell particularly has a lot of room for progress.

According to the National College Health Assessment administered four years ago, Bucknell’s rates of sexual touching without consent, sexual penetration without consent, and sexually abusive relationships all are higher than the national averages. This year, Professor Bill Flack found that “24 percent is the bare minimum percentage of women experiencing some type of sexual assault in their time at Bucknell.”

Rolling Stone’s intent with “A Rape on Campus” was genuine and pure. It was founded on truth and the sheer determination for social justice. As Charles Blow of The New York Times puts it, “In these cases, the error must be acknowledged and absorbed without distorting the mission.” Now that we have recognized Rolling Stone’s failure with this piece, let’s focus on the bottom line: we need to change the climate of sexual violence on campus, and we need to do it now.

What to Take Away From Rolling Stone’s Mistake in Journalism

We wanna slide into your DMs