UVa. Rape Article Writer, Editor Survive Rolling Stone Layoffs

Heads rolled in a round of layoffs at Wenner Media – but spared were a Rolling Stone magazine writer and editor involved in a debunked November 2014 story about a gang rape at the University of Virginia.

The media cuts, first reported by The Hollywood Reporter, affected employees on both the business and editorial sides of the publication, and at Us Weekly and Men's Journal as well.

Unaffected were Sabrina Erdely, who wrote the discredited story about an alleged 2012 gang rape at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, and Sean Woods, the deputy managing editor involved at the time, the Daily Caller reports.

Erdely is among those named in a $7.85 million libel suit filed last month by an associate dean of students at UVA.

The article, "A Rape On Campus," created an uproar at the Virginia school and sparked a national debate about sexual violence at U.S. colleges. Rolling Stone backed away from it in December and a Columbia Journalism Review report commissioned by the magazine found the story failed to follow basic journalistic safeguards.

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