Reconsidering Rolling Stone's Reporting

NOTE (AND SPOILER ALERT): This is the second assignment involved the Rolling Stone article, "A Rape on Campus." If you have not done the first assignment, please find that post and respond to it before doing this one.


There are two avoidable failures, one was Rolling Stone's and is no longer avoidable.

The second is potentially yours but is quite avoidable if you do the assignment. :)

Read the CJR investigative review of the Rolling Stone reporting, publishing and retracting the article, "A Rape on Campus."

http://www.cjr.org/investigation/rolling_stone_investigation.php

This article is really, really long (12,000 words). Because I love my journalism student more than sleep, I spent the wee hours of the morning making an excerpted version of the article that you can access here. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9jt1jHLEQlINFdYWlRGbnRBbk0/view?usp=sharing

Feel free to read the full version. It's excellent, but you can get the gist by reading the shortened one. 

After reading one or the other, write a reflective response that answers these questions:

According to the CJR article, what did the Rolling Stone journalists do wrong in the writing, reporting, publishing and retraction of the story?

What lessons should journalists take from the experience?

What guidelines and practices should journalists follow so that the mistakes of this article are not repeated?

Should Rolling Stone change its procedures and practices or was this just an instance of journalists not practicing what their policies dictate that they should practice?