Rolling Stone isn’t known as a publication that makes stories up.

Thus, the magazine editors’ announcement that they were retracting a story about an alleged gang rape at the University of Virginia is a very big deal.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/12/05/rolling-stone-retracts-uva-story/19954293/

It’s the retraction that makes the story so interesting, to me at least.

A woman named “Jackie” reported that she had been raped by several men at a fraternity house party at the UVa campus in Charlottesville. Then her credibility came into question.

Her story didn’t add up. There was no party the night she said one occurred, the magazine found out.

Then came the announcement that the magazine was taking back what it reported.

A retraction is a very big deal in journalism.

Publications issue “corrections” all the time when they get facts wrong. They issue “clarifications” when the facts aren’t printed as clearly as they should be printed. A retraction? Well, that means the publication no longer stands by the story or the reporter who wrote it … or even the line editors who edited the story, looking for holes in it or places that need to be fleshed out.

Meanwhile, a university’s reputation has been tarnished. Students stood before the nation and apologized for what they described as a “culture of rape” at UVa.

Well, it now turns out that one student at the university has exhibited a “culture of lying.”