Started nearly a half-century ago as a chronicle of 1960s counterculture, Rolling Stone established its journalistic credibility with provocative coverage of politics and current affairs.
《滚石》杂志此次面临的信任危机，暴露出媒体报道强奸等暴力题材时在事实核查方面的疏漏。哥伦比亚大学新闻与创伤中心的专家表示，更多记者应该接受关于如何采访受过心理创伤的人的培训，以保护他们自己和信息提供者。

While its cover remains coveted real estate for those looking to assert their pop-culture bona fides, writers like Matt Taibbi and Michael Hastings have influenced public perceptions in recent years on issues like the financial crisis and the war in Afghanistan — in the same way that celebrated predecessors like Richard Ben Cramer and Tom Wolfe had done in previous years.
从上世纪六十年代对反正统文化的记录开始，在近半个世纪的时间里，《滚石》杂志因为对政治和当下事件所做的争议性报道，从而建立起新闻公信力。虽然能上它的封面依旧是那些希望展现自己在潮流文化中占有一席之地的人垂涎不已的事情，但近些年来，马特·塔伊比(Matt Taibbi )和迈克尔·黑斯廷斯(Michael Hastings)这样的作者对公众在金融危机和阿富汗战争方面的看法，产生了很大的影响，继承了那些声名卓著的前辈，比如理查德·克拉默(Richard Ben Cramer)和汤姆·沃尔夫(Tom Wolfe)当年的风范。
The magazine seemed to have struck again last month with a vivid account of a young woman who said she was gang-raped at a University of Virginia fraternity party, a story that helped drive the national debate over the problem of sexual assault on college campuses.
上个月，这本杂志因为某年轻女子称自己在弗吉尼亚大学的兄弟会派对上遭到轮奸的生动描述而又火了一把，这篇报道推动了大学校园性侵犯问题的全国性讨论。
But late last week Rolling Stone found itself facing a crisis that threatened its reputation as a place for serious, significant journalism. Faced with reporting in The Washington Post that appeared to undermine crucial details of the accuser’s account, and a rebuttal of some aspects from the fraternity, the magazine published a note to readers on Friday saying that it had reservations about the article. It also acknowledged that it had erred in relying solely on the word of the accuser, named only as Jackie, and in agreeing not to try to contact the men she accused.
但上周晚些时候，《滚石》杂志却发现自己陷入了一场威胁到它作为一本严肃、重要杂志声誉的危机中。之前，《华盛顿邮报》的报道动摇了那位指控者叙述中的一些关键细节，兄弟会的一些当事人也作出了反驳，鉴于此，该杂志在上周五发表了一封致读者信，声称对那篇文章的态度有所保留。它还承认不应该对那位指控者——单名杰姬的女子——的说辞偏听偏信，不应该同意放弃接触那些她所指控的男性。
“I have serious questions about what happened, and I am at this point not ready to say what happened that night,” the magazine’s managing editor, Will Dana, said in an interview Friday. “There should never be a story in Rolling Stone where I feel that way.”
“对于真相我有着高度的怀疑，此刻我也不准备说那天晚上究竟发生了什么，”该杂志的执行主编威尔·戴纳(Will Dana)在周五的一个采访中说道。“我有那种感觉的报道，就不应该出现在《滚石》杂志上。”
With that, Rolling Stone found itself listed among a series of media crises in recent weeks, including The New Republic, where there were mass resignations, and First Look Media, the start-up that lost staff members and canceled a planned website after a dispute between journalists and managers.
因为这起事件，《滚石》杂志陷入了最近几周来的一系列媒体危机之中，其他还有《新共和》(The New Republic)杂志的员工大规模辞职风波，先睹传媒(First Look Media)这家初创企业在记者与管理层之间出现争议后，员工离职，原计划上线的网站也取消了。
Rolling Stone was harshly criticized by media critics for its journalistic lapses, and by women’s groups who said it set back the cause of encouraging sexual assault victims to come forward.
媒体评论人士对《滚石》杂志的新闻失检之举发起了猛烈的批评，而女权组织则声称，鼓励性侵受害者站出来的目标也因这件事受损。
Even the magazine’s apology seemed to backfire. The note to readers initially said that Rolling Stone’s trust in Jackie was “misplaced” — which some read as criticizing Jackie and undermining her story. This weekend, as it faced further criticism for that characterization, it quietly changed the note to say that it was “mistaken in honoring Jackie’s request to not contact the alleged assaulters to get their account.” It also said, “These mistakes are on Rolling Stone, not on Jackie.”
甚至连杂志的道歉似乎也造成了适得其反的效果。在致读者信的最初版本写道，《滚石》对杰姬的信任“给错了对象”——在有些人看来，这是对杰姬的批评，对她的经历的不信任。在过去的这个周末，由于对文字的批评来得愈加猛烈，杂志方面不声不响地对致读者信进行了改动，称“错误地信守了杰姬提出的不要与性侵嫌疑人进行接触的请求”。信中还说，“这些错误都由《滚石》杂志承担，不怪杰姬。”
In a post on Twitter, Mr. Taibbi said he, like others at the magazine, was “both mortified and sorry — for the public, for anyone affected, and for the source herself.”
在Twitter上的一篇推文中，塔伊比表示，自己与办公室的其他同事“都感到羞愧和抱歉——无论是对公众、对于因此事受到牵连的人，还是消息的提供者。”
Jann Wenner, a founder of Rolling Stone and its publisher, declined repeatedly to be interviewed, or to offer any comment. But in the interview Friday, Mr. Dana said the article stemmed from a feeling he and other senior editors had over summer that the issue of unpunished campus rapes would make a compelling and important story.
《滚石》杂志出版人、创始人之一詹恩·温纳(Jann Wenner)反复拒绝了采访和评论请求。但在周五的采访中，戴纳说，之所以有这篇文章，是因为他和其他高级编辑们在整个夏天都有的一个感觉，即逃脱惩罚的校园强奸案问题，可以拿来做一篇有意思的重要报道。
They decided to assign Sabrina Rubin Erdely, a contributing editor who has also written for GQ and The New Yorker, and who has been nominated for two National Magazine awards, according to her website. Ms. Erdely did not return calls and messages seeking comment. But she has said publicly that she sought out the right story, on the right campus, and that she found what she was looking for in Jackie.
他们决定任命萨布里娜·鲁宾·厄德利(Sabrina Rubin Erdely)来写这篇报道，根据她的个人网站提供的信息，作为一名特约撰稿人，她还给《GQ》和《纽约客》杂志撰稿，并且曾获得两次国家杂志奖(National Magazine award)的提名。厄德利女士没有回复关于评论请求的电话和短信。但她曾经公开表达过，自己在寻找发生在合适校园里的合适故事，后来她在杰姬身上找到了自己要找的东西。
The accuser appeared to be distressed, perhaps as a result of her trauma, according to a person familiar with the newsroom’s process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to describe sensitive events. She had repeatedly asked Ms. Erdely that those she accused of raping her not be contacted. When the magazine brought up the issue again later, she threatened to withdraw from the story.
据一位熟悉该编辑部流程的人士表示（因为话题敏感，此人要求匿名），指控者或许是因为受到精神创伤的缘故，显得非常痛苦。她反复要求厄德利女士不要接触那些她指控强奸她的人。在杂志后来再次提出这个问题的时候，她威胁要退出报道。
That concern, combined with a feeling that it should err on the side of sensitivity, persuaded the magazine to accept her wishes. “Sabrina had talked to quite a few other women who had said, ‘If you talk to me, you can’t go talk to my attacker,’ ” Mr. Dana said, and so it seemed like a reasonable request.
出于此种担忧，加之体恤对方的感受，杂志接受了她的要求。“萨布里娜采访了不少强奸案的受害者，她们都说过‘你要跟我谈，就不要跟施害者去谈’的话，”戴纳说道，所以这似乎也是一个合情合理的请求。
“These are hard stories to do,” said Bruce Shapiro, executive director of Columbia University’s Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, which focuses on the issues of reporting on violence and conflict. An engaged and empathetic reporter, he said, will naturally be concerned about potentially inflicting new trauma on the victim of a harrowing incident. “I do think that when the emotional valence of a story is this high, you really have to verify it.”
“这些报道很不好做，”哥伦比亚大学新闻与创伤中心（Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma，简称达德中心）的执行董事、关注暴力和冲突报道议题的布鲁斯·夏皮罗(Bruce Shapiro)说道。他指出，一名有同情心的全身心投入的记者，自然会关注痛苦的事情对受害者的心灵造成新创伤的可能性。“我也认为，当一篇报道的情感诱发力如此之高的时候，你真的得核清事实。”
Experienced reporters on the topic, he said, often only work with women who feel strong enough to deal with the due diligence required to bring the article to publication.
他说，报道该主题的资深记者们通常只与足够坚强的女人合作，她们要能应对文章发表所需的审慎调查。
The details of a heartbreaking conversation recounted in the story, in which Jackie tells her friends of her rape and is told that she should stay quiet, also came only from Jackie, Mr. Dana said. One of the friends declined to comment, and Ms. Erdely could not reach the others.
戴纳说，故事中提到的一个细节——杰姬告诉她的朋友们她被强奸了，朋友们告诉她应该保持沉默——也只是杰姬一人所述。其中一个朋友拒绝做出评论，厄德利女士无法与其他几个朋友取得联系。
The magazine faces some potential legal liability, said Eugene Volokh, a University of California, Los Angeles, law professor who also writes for The Washington Post. “Based on the facts as I have read about them in the media,” he said, “I would not have approved the publication of a story that names a fraternity, when there hadn’t been a call to the alleged rapists.”
加州大学洛杉矶分校的法律教授、也为《华盛顿邮报》撰稿的尤金·沃洛克(Eugene Volokh)表示，该杂志可能面临一些潜在的法律责任。“根据我在媒体上读到的一些事实，”他说，“我不会同意发表这样一个故事——它只提到一个大学联谊会，而没有致电被指控的强奸者。”
Ms. Erdely delivered a manuscript in September. When he first read it, Mr. Dana said, “I thought, ‘Are you sure?’ ” But he, other editors and fact-checkers felt that Jackie was credible, and the magazine’s lawyers had no problems with it, so the magazine ran it. After publication, Jackie seemed pleased, too, Mr. Dana said.
9月份，厄德利提交了报道的草稿。戴纳读完就说，“我在想，‘你确定吗？’”但是他和其他编辑以及事实核查者感觉杰姬是可信的，该杂志的律师们也没有对文章提出异议，所以文章就发表了。戴纳说，文章发表后，杰姬似乎也感到满意。
But others wrote that they had problems with the article, and with the magazine’s decision not to seek out the men accused. Mr. Dana said that, despite the barrage of criticism, Rolling Stone had not suspected that anything might be significantly wrong until late last week. The magazine said on Sunday that it had not identified specific problems in the article beyond the questions that had already been made public, but said it is investigating further.
但是有人写信来说，他们认为这篇文章有问题，认为该杂志决定不找出那些被指控的男人是不妥当的。戴纳说，尽管遭到很多批评，但是《滚石》直到上周末才怀疑可能真的出现了重大错误。周日，该杂志称，除了已公布的那些问题，该杂志尚未找出文中的具体问题，但是说它正在做进一步调查。
It is not clear what consequences Ms. Erdely and the article’s editor will face, if any, Mr. Dana said, and he has not made any specific decisions.
还不清楚厄德利和这篇文章的编辑会面临什么样的结果，如果有的话——戴纳表示，他尚未做出任何具体决定。
Mr. Shapiro, of the Dart Center, said the issue of corroboration in accounts of rape and other trauma is a common one. He says that more reporters should be trained in interviewing traumatized people, to protect both themselves and their sources.
达德中心的夏皮罗说，强奸等心理创伤的事实核查问题十分常见。他说，更多记者应该接受关于如何采访受过心理创伤的人的培训，以保护他们自己和信息提供者。
“It would be really unfortunate if the controversy around the sourcing of this story were to distract from the core and critical issue of sexual assault on college campuses,” he said, an issue with which Mr. Dana said he agreed.
“如果围绕故事来源的争议把人们的注意力从大学校园性侵犯这个重要的核心问题上转移走，那就太糟糕了，”他说。戴纳表示，他同意这个观点。
Mr. Dana said the magazine planned to do further reporting on the story, as it tries to determine the truth of what happened at the University of Virginia and rebuild its own journalistic reputation.
戴纳说，该杂志计划进一步报道这个故事，努力弄清弗吉尼亚大学事件的真相，重建自己的新闻声誉。
“Right now,” he said, “we’re picking up the pieces.”
“目前，”他说，“我们正在恢复正常。”