Lena Dunham Reacts To Rolling Stone’s Rape Investigation Failure

Rolling Stone has come under fire for an explosive investigative piece into an alleged sexual assault that has been deemed ‘a failure of journalism’.

The 9,000-word feature ‘A Rape On Campus’ was originally published on November 19 2014 and detailed the account of a gang rape that supposedly occurred in September of that year at the University of Virginia.

Researched and compiled over six months, reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely relied heavily on the testimony of the alleged victim Jackie without fully corroborating her story, according to an independent report carried out by the dean of the Colombia School of Journalism.

Rolling Stone approached Dean Steve Coll who compiled the 12,000-word report that found the magazine failed in its ‘reporting, editing, editorial supervision and fact-checking’.

The exposé went viral when it was published last year and the subsequent retraction has garnered just as much attention.  The magazine officially retracted the story on Sunday after publishing the damning report in full on its website and has already provoked strong reactions from the online community.

‘Girls’ creator Lena Dunham highlighted one of the crucial issues that has emerged in the light of the scandal – the fear of sexual assault victims being shamed and discredited when they speak out against their attackers.

Dunham posted a screenshot of the report’s findings on Instagram with the caption: “Strength to every person who is afraid to report, feels unheard and alone. This failure on the part of one publication cannot not [sic] define or hurt you. You are loved.”

This sentiment was echoed in an opinion piece by a UVA student who was also a victim of sexual assault and was interviewed by Erdely for the original story.

Alex Pinkleton wrote an impassioned article for Time magazine of her ‘frustration by what effect this whole incident might have on efforts to educate the public about sexual assault on college campuses’.

“My greatest fear about the repercussions of this article is that someone who has been assaulted might have read the Rolling Stone article and believed that their peers would not support them and that the administration would do nothing about it, and so they might suffer in silence instead of coming forward and getting the resources they need.”

As with cases of sexual assault around the world, the low number of victims coming forward to report their assault means that it is difficult to get a clear picture of just how many women are raped on college campuses every year.

According to the US-based non-profit organisation One in Four, 25 per cent of college women report surviving rape or attempted rape at some point in their lifetime.

However, the US Justice Department estimates that 68 per cent of sexual assaults go unreported. Add to that the fact that just 2 per cent of rapists will serve jail time and it’s the perfect recipe for a culture that has ostracised and isolated so many victims of rape.

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