Rolling Stone retracts Virginia campus rape article

Rolling Stone has apologised and officially retracted an article about rape on the campus of a US university following an independent review, BBC News reported.

Managing Editor Will Dana apologised to readers and "all of those who were damaged by our story and the ensuing fallout".

The November 2014 article described a gang rape at a University of Virginia fraternity house in 2012.
A four-month police investigation found no evidence that the incident occurred.
However, police chief Timothy Longo said that did not mean "something terrible didn't happen" to the student known as Jackie.

The Columbia School of Journalism report, commissioned by Rolling Stone, described the article as "a story of journalistic failure".

Written by journalist Sabrina Erdely, the 9,000-word article A Rape on Campus relied on Jackie as the sole source to tell the story of an alleged rape at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity house.

Subsequent investigations by other reporters and Ms Erdely herself identified errors in the reporting of the piece.

The Columbia School of Journalism report said the magazine failed to use "basic, even routine journalistic practice" to verify the details after Ms Erdely failed to contact the alleged attackers.

"The failure encompassed reporting, editing, editorial supervision and fact-checking", and there were "systematic failures" at the magazine, the report said.

The report went on to suggest that the article had undermined work to stop sexual violence as it "spread the idea that many women invent rape allegations".