Rolling Stone editor quits on same day UVA frat brothers sue
Rolling Stone’s managing editor quit on Wednesday — the same day three University of Virginia fraternity brothers sued the magazine over a controversial article about a supposed gang rape at the school that was later debunked.
Will Dana had been at the helm of the magazine for 19 years, and had earlier offered his resignation to publisher Jann Wenner over the embarrassing story, but was allowed to stay on.
He’s now stepping down even though he doesn’t have another job and no successor has been named, sources told The Post, adding that his last day would be Aug. 7.
The three students are suing the magazine and Sabrina Erdely, the author of the article, “A Rape on Campus,” claiming the 2014 piece defamed the members of Phi Kappa Psi, Manhattan federal court papers state.
The debunked story detailed a 2012 gang rape of “Jackie,” a freshman who claimed she was invited to a Phi Kappa Psi function and then attacked and raped for three hours in a fraternity initiation ritual.
The story was retracted after it was established that there was no event at the fraternity’s house the night “Jackie” claimed she was attacked, and after huge holes in Erdely’s reporting were revealed.
Cops in Charlottesville, Va., also found no evidence to support the article’s claim of a sexual assault.
None of the three plaintiffs was named in the story, but each claims in the suit their names were quickly posted online, they were pestered by reporters, and their reputations have been permanently destroyed.
The plaintiffs — George Elias IV, Stephen Hadford and Ross Fowler — were all subjected to verbal attacks and harassment after the article was published, the suit states.
All three graduated in 2013. Elias and Hadford live in Virginia, while Fowler is from South Carolina.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment