Rolling Stone magazine, writer ordered to pay US$3m

Charlottesville, Virginia

A FEDERAL jury on Monday ordered Rolling Stone and one of its writers to pay US$3 million in damages to a University of Virginia administrator over a discredited article two years ago about a supposed gang rape at the university.

The jury in Charlottesville, Virginia, had already decided last Friday, after a two-week trial, that Rolling Stone; Wenner Media, its parent company; and Sabrina Rubin Erdely, the author of the article, were all liable for defamation in a case that centred on faulty reporting and a failure to apply basic fail-safes in editing.