Rolling Stone Reaction Part 2

According to CJR, Rolling Stone failed to fact check it's story thoroughly, failing to realize that Jackie's story was fictionalized before it was published. This was mainly due to their confidence in Jackie as a reliable source. In particular, they failed to confirm the identity of the man she accused of raping her.

I think the lesson that journalists should take from this is to never be completely trusting of an individual as a source. To take precautions against something like this happening, you should probably fact check with someone or something besides the reporter and the interviewee.

I think this story is a particularly complicated because the only person they could really rely on to tell the story was Jackie. She was the only one who experienced the event firsthand that wouldn't deny that it happened and she hadn't filed a police report. I think that this is is the fault of the reporter for not attempting to adhere to the policies necessary to protect the integrity of her magazine but also I don't really know what she could've done.