I think the catastrophe started as soon as pen hit paper. This story wasn’t reporter all the way through.
Before the writing process can begin you have to ask yourself, “do I have every side of the story?”
The Rolling Stone had one side of the supposed events that unfolded that night — the woman, the victim. That was the main red flag for me. Before you can actually write a story, its important to make sure all the facts are straight because there are two sides to every story.
Rape is not something to be taken lightly, but there is always an opposite side to a rape accusation and if you don’t report it or at least make the attempt to, then you run into trouble down the line… like getting sued.
Jackie was the only point of reference for this story and anything Jackie said was taken as the events of that night. Elderly failed to realize that Jackie wasn’t the only one involved in the incidents of that night. It was just poor reporting on Elderly’s part.
Something else Elderly should have seen as a red flag was that “Jackie” didn’t give concrete details. He fact that her quotes were unconfirmed by the friend should tell you not to completely trust what “Jackie” said.
Overall it was just a poor job getting all sides of the story and making sure the facts were correct.