Author of fake Rolling Stone gang-rape article admits her 'mistake'
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Sabrina Rubin Erdely, the author of the discredited Rolling Stone article about an alleged gang rape at the University of Virginia, admitted under oath Thursday that she had made mistakes in her reporting.
Erdely was called to the stand because Rolling Stone is now being sued by U.Va. dean Nicole Eramo, who was negatively portrayed in the now-retracted article.
"It wasn't a mistake to rely on someone who was so emotionally fragile," Erdely said after being pressed on if she still felt the accuser in the article was emotionally unstable. "It was a mistake to rely on someone whose intent was to deceive me."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}After the story was exposed as a hoax, Erdely had been told by the publisher of Rolling Stone to write a "mea culpa" detailing her failings in reporting out the story of "Jackie," the woman who claimed to have been gang-raped. Buzzfeed's Tyler Kingkade, who has been in the courtroom during the trial, wrote that Erdely's mea culpa was never published. But in writing the mea culpa, Erdely actually reached out to people described in the article that she didn't contact while writing the original story.