(PCM) An article that was published in Rolling Stone magazine about the alleged 2012 gang rape that occurred at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity at the University of Virginia was proven to be fabricated, was publicly discredited and retracted by the magazine, however the UVA fraternity doesn’t think that is enough and have revealed that they may actually decide to pursue a lawsuit against the publication.
Phi Kappa Psi released a statement in regards to the incident and the possible lawsuit which said “After 130 days of living under a cloud of suspicion as a result of reckless reporting by Rolling Stone magazine, today the Virginia Alpha Chapter of Phi Kappa Psi announced plans to pursue all available legal action against the magazine.” Rolling Stone has yet to comment on any pending legal action by the fraternity.
The news of the lawsuit comes just after Rolling Stone published a featured article that broke down the editorial processes that resulted in the initial articles publication in the first place. Back in December, the magazine issued a public apology and redacted the feature. At that time they also asked the Columbia University Journalism school to research what went wrong with the story. Their findings both blamed the writer and her editors for failing to properly verify the full story from the woman who claimed to be raped at the fraternity as a freshman.
In an additional statement, Phi Kappa Psi president Stephen Scipione states “this type of reporting serves as a sad example of the serious decline of journalistic standards”.
