Rolling Stone has updated a memo it posted to its site on Friday, addressing concerns about its recent bombshell investigation of campus rape.
In the original letter, published on Friday, Rolling Stone Managing Editor Will Dana apologized for apparent factual discrepancies in their report about an alleged gang rape at the University of Virginia. The magazine said that it had "misplaced" its trust in "Jackie", the student at the center of the article, who says that she was assaulted a fraternity party in 2012. Dana also admitted that the reporter, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, never tried to contact the accused rapists, at Jackie's request.
Many people lashed out at Rolling Stone on Twitter for blaming the alleged victim instead of taking full responsibility for reporting accuracy.
"This DOES NOT mean this woman lied about being raped - many victims have trouble recounting details of trauma," the Guardian's Jessica Valenti said of the jumbled facts. "What it does mean is that @RollingStone threw her under the bus to protect their own asses, after their own mistakes."
Rolling Stone responded to those criticisms by updating the letter on Saturday. In the new version, the magazine says that "these mistakes are on Rolling Stone, not on Jackie." The note also sheds more light into what went wrong and addresses a Washington Post report detailing some of the factual issues.
According to the Washington Post, "Drew" actually belongs to a different fraternity and when contacted by the paper, he denied knowing Jackie. Jackie told Rolling Stone that after she was assaulted, she ran into "Drew" at a UVA pool where they both worked as lifeguards. In its statement, the Phi Psi says none of its members worked at the pool in the fall of 2012.
Dana also issued a second apology on Twitter.
"We should have either not made this agreement with Jackie [to not contact the alleged assailants] or worked harder to convince her that the truth would have been better served by getting the other side of the story," he said. "That failure is on us – not on her."
CNN's Brian Stelter said on Sunday that Rolling Stone editors declined to appear on his show, Reliable Sources, because they were busy fact-checking the embattled article.
Jackie told the Washington Post that she stands by her story.