Evaluation of General Sources

This past year, there was a massive journalism controversy over an article written by a journalist from Rolling Stone Magazine. The article falsely accused the fraternity of Phi Kappa Psi, at the University of Virginia, of gang-raping UVA student 'Jackie' at a party. In addition to falsely accusing the fraternity of gang rape, the article accused UVA of doing nothing for the girl who, according to the article, reported the gang rape. 

The chilling story written by Rolling Stone that instigated further investigation of the event, was proven to be completely fabricated. To put it simply, it was a complete failure of journalism. It was not a factual report, but rather a fable that tarnished the reputation of the University of Virginia as well as Rolling Stone’s credibility and also fed the theory that women invent rape stories for attention.

Unfortunately, the original Rolling Stone article has been retracted and is no longer accessible. However, below I have analyzed two sources covering the same controversy...



Rolling Stone, Take #2:

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/a-rape-on-campus-what-went-wrong-20150405
Sheila Coronel, Steve Coll, Derek Kravitz (April 5th, 2015)

In this article, Rolling Stone reflects on it's errors in the previous article by hiring Steve Coll, the dean of the Colombia School of Journalism, to investigate where the writer of the previous article went wrong. In return for his investigation, Rolling Stone promised to print his article in-full (this article). Will Dana, the managing editor of Rolling Stone, described the article as a "piece of journalism, as Coll describes it, about a failure of journalism." In his article, Coll states that the failure of the article was avoidable, had Rolling Stone actually followed the journalistic process of researching, reporting, editing, and fact-checking. 

1. What is the URL? What does it's domain imply?
The website, Rolling Stone, ends with ".com" because it is technically a commercial website. The website doesn't necessarily have to make money for it to be considered a commercial website. If the website ended with ".edu" or ".gov" it might be recognized as being a more credible website, however, Rolling Stone is a very well known magazine in print and online. Apart from the UVA gang-rape scandal story, I have always considered Rolling Stone to be a credible source for information.

2. Can you identify an author for the information?
The author of the beginning of the article is a note from Will Dana, the managing editor at Rolling Stone. However, the rest of the article is written by Steve Coll, the dean of the Colombia School of Journalism. Both journalists are very credible sources for information.

3. Does the webpage provide information about when it was last updated? What sorts of links are on the page and do they still work?
The last updated date for the article is April 5th, 2015. The links in the article provide useful further information on what the article speaks about; one of the links even provides Jackie's complete testimony. All of the links attached to this article are updated and provide credible information. 

4. What is the text trying to accomplish?
Like I mentioned above, the article's purpose was to find where the author of the original article of Jackie's story went wrong. Rolling Stone hired Steve Coll to investigate the story further and write about his process as a journalism. The article was a journalist's critique on Rolling Stone's failure of journalism.

5. Are there graphics? What do they illustrate and why?
There aren't photographs in this article, and I'm glad. I think that the use of text from the original article of Jackie is illustration enough to the reader. Although there is a lot of text and it is not as aesthetically pleasing, the topic is serious and is more about the research and work that journalists require to write credible articles, so I think the lack of images was smart for this article. 

6. Does the source seem biased, one-sided, incomplete, or erroneous?
This article was not meant to be opinionated, but rather, find the mistakes from the original article and explain why they were mistakes. 

7. Does the source suggest avenues for further inquiry such as possible readings, research, or links? Does it cite reputable sources?
The article provides various links where further information is held. Additionally, all of the information and sources were properly cited and linked to the article. 




New York Magazine:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/12/everything-we-know-uva-rape-case.html
Margaret Hartmann (July 30th, 2015)

In New York Magazine's article on the Rolling Stone-UVA controversy, the article provides all the known information from the alleged rape in 2012 to now, in order. Throughout the article, New York Mag's article fills in all the missing information or corrects the false information that was provided in the original Rolling Stone article. The article also provides a short video clip of an interview with Ryan Duffin, a friend of Jackie's, who recalls the night of the alleged attack. Although Duffin does not know whether or not Jackie's story was true, he comments in the video that "it doesn't matter if it's true or not, because whether or not this one incident is true, there's still a huge problem with sexual assault in the United States."

1. What is the URL? What does it's domain imply?
Like Rolling Stone, New York Mag's domain ends with ".com" because it is also technically a commercial website. 

2. Can you identify an author for the information?
After researching the author by reading some of her other work and stalking her twitter, I have come to decide that she is a credible journalist. All of her articles provide several links to further information and are properly cited. Additionally, she is a senior editor for New York Magazine, so she must be pretty good at her job!

3. Does the webpage provide information about when it was last updated? What sorts of links are on the page and do they still work?
The article was last updated on July 30th, 2015. It is a more recent article that provides a full  set of organized information and facts from the UVA gang rape case. There are several links on the article that provide the reader with tons of further information on the topic and verify her article. 

4. What is the text trying to accomplish?
Because Jackie's UVA gang rape story has only become more and more complicated since the original Rolling Stone article was published, the point of New York Mag's article was to organize all of the facts and updated information in order by date.

5. Are there graphics? What do they illustrate and why?
There is one image of students walking on UVA's campus and a video of Ryan Duffin, one of Jackie's friends who allegedly spoke with her the night of the attack. The image may seem normal but if you think about the circumstances of the image, it is actually quite scary. The seemingly safe college campus of UVA could potentially be the same campus where Jackie was gang raped at a fraternity party. Additionally, in the video, Duffin brings up a good point about how whether or not Jackie's story is completely truthful, the issue of sexual assault is still a huge problem on college campuses. Both relate directly to the main focus of the text. 

6. Does the source seem biased, one-sided, incomplete, or erroneous?
No, like the Rolling Stone article above, this article is informational, not opinionated. It provides all the information that journalists have access to from the case. 

7. Does the source suggest avenues for further inquiry such as possible readings, research, or links? Does it cite reputable sources?
Yes, the author provides several links within the text and cites all of her sources properly. I had no trouble finding further information from this article.