Trust, Rolling Stone and journalistic responsibility

This year's 10th annual Murrow Forum titled “Who Can You Trust in the 24/7 Multimedia News Cycle?” opened with comedic tones in the form of video references to "Friends" (1994-2004) and Michelle Bachman getting stumped on national television. However, this soon gave way to a much more serious conversation about the face of journalist and the way that we receive our media. The featured speaker was none other than George Stephanopoulos, a former White House communications director turned news anchor. While Stephanopoulos spoke to several hot-button issues that are currently circulating campus conversation, ranging from Hillary Clinton’s impending Presidential bid to Fox News’ loyal conservative base, the one point ironically absent from a talk about trust in the media just so happened to be directly related to college students -- Rolling Stone's now-discredited November story about the gang rape of a University of Virginia student.

There are few college students who haven’t heard of this story. There are many things that could be said about the Rolling Stone case. First, and above all else, the article erases the stories of survivors, many of whom struggle to combat the dangerous and disgusting tendency of society to silence their all-too-real trauma. That is the most damning of the ramifications of publishing this false story.

To look at things from a different angle, in the context of what we as the media can do when it comes to reacting to false news stories, there's another interesting aspect to the Rolling Stone piece. Breakthrough investigative pieces like this one that stem from an issue of public concern -- in this case rape on college campuses -- catch fire in the media quite easily and quickly become the dominant narrative on the case. So what happens when many of the facts start to unravel?

This is where Stephanopoulos’ words and the overall theme of the Murrow Forum become relevant; there was a profound point made by Stephanopoulos on switching between “soft” and heavy reporting. According to Stephanopoulos, when he signed on to do "Good Morning America" (1975 - present) he promised himself he would be authentic and never act.

Rolling Stone chose to break Stephanopoulos’ rule when they published a story that untruthful. Whether or not this came from outright deception on the behalf of the journalist, or insufficient editorial process, the fact that it was allowed to go to print without proper verification is inexcusable. As stated above, the Rolling Stone story serves to invalidate the experience of actual survivors and creates animosity toward a community of strong people who are often unfairly blamed for actions taken against them. The fact that this is the fault of journalists, who are meant to report the truth, is inexcusable.

Ideally, we should be able to rely on the news media to give us 100% authentic facts and fulfill their roles authentically, but this is not, and likely can never be, the case. Obviously this does not mean we should entirely boycott the news media, but what we should take away from all this is that unless we as a public are constantly criticizing and questioning what we read, we will never get the story straight. By doing so, we will push news sources to hold themselves to higher standards. But if everything is truly both "mass" and "niche" as Stephanopoulos said, then we need to be the "editors" -- or conscientious consumers -- of content.