Rolling Stone finally begins fully reporting its rape story

Three students who came to Jackie’s aid on the night of her alleged attack have now put their names to their statements about the events, as a new story by the Washington Post notes. These folks were identified pseudonymously in the Rolling Stone story — as “Cindy,” “Andy” and “Randall.” It was difficult to determine from the magazine’s story just how much effort it had expended to secure input from them. The trio told The Post that they hadn’t spoken to Rolling Stone for the piece.

Until quite recently, that is. Two of them told T. Rees Shapiro that a “Rolling Stone reporter” had contacted them following a Post story this week. The other said she hadn’t heard from the magazine as of midday Friday. This news is at once incriminating and encouraging — the former because the magazine could have taken this step before publishing an execrable piece of journalism, the latter because it’s apparently trying to audit itself.

Is that “Rolling Stone reporter” Erdely? “No, it was somebody else,” Alexander Stock (“Andy” in the Rolling Stone piece) tells the Erik Wemple Blog.