UNITED STATES

Rolling Stone magazine settles with university fraternity

Rolling Stone’s disastrous and discredited campus rape story now has a price tag: US$1.65 million, after the magazine settled the defamation lawsuit filed by the University of Virginia fraternity at the centre of the 2014 blockbuster feature by Sabrina Erdely, which was retracted after key details in the story were called into question, writes Zach Schonfeld for Newsweek.

The article, which was published in late fall 2014, described an alleged brutal gang rape of a student named ‘Jackie’ at a University of Virginia fraternity. The story drew wide attention and triggered a police investigation, but it was officially retracted in April 2015 after Jackie's claims were called into question.

"The Virginia Alpha Chapter of Phi Kappa Psi fraternity has agreed to settle and dismiss its defamation lawsuit against Rolling Stone and Sabrina Erdely arising from the magazine’s publication of the November 2014 article, ‘A Rape on Campus: A brutal assault and struggle for justice at UVA’,” the fraternity said in a statement. The statement also said "a significant portion" of the settlement will be donated to organisations that work to prevent sexual assault and aid victims.
Full report on the Newsweek site