Eramo v. Rolling Stone

University of Virginia administrator Nicole P. Eramo sued Rolling Stone LLC, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, and Wenner Media LLC for an article posted on Rolling Stone's website entitled "A Rape on Campus." The jury found Erdely liable for her reporting, and found that while Rolling Stone was not liable for defamation when the article was posted on November 19, 2014 because it had no actual malice then, appending an editor's note on top of the original page was a republication of the article, and the news site thus became liable only after that was done. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and eight media companies argued in support of the publishers' motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict that editor’s notes serve the public interest, and publishers should not be penalized for informing the public of developing information and explaining their newsgathering decisions when inaccuracies are discovered. The brief focused on the benefit of these notes to readers and stressed that the court should encourage appending these letters to the previously posted article because they set the record straight, and it only makes sense that in the realm of online reportage, the new information should appear on the original page.