One Of The Worst Apologies Ever

From the Washington Post:
Journalists are paid to be skeptical and to distinguish facts from assertions: Don’t get too close to your sources and check what they tell you.
Rolling Stone magazine, it appears, ignored both principles in its explosive story, “A Rape on Campus.”
The 9,000-word article about Jackie, a University of Virginia freshman who alleged a frat-house gang rape, was apparently fraught from the beginning with gaps in basic reporting. The story’s writer, Sabrina Rubin Erdely, as well as a phalanx of editors, fact-checkers and lawyers who massaged the piece before publication, accepted Jackie’s account without locking down key details that would have confirmed, or at least plausibly substantiated, her harrowing tale.
Instead, Erdely’s story, published Nov. 19 to a thunderous and mostly positive reaction, appears to have been fatally defective. Major details, including the name of the fraternity in question, are in dispute or have been exposed as false. Jackie’s allies have distanced themselves from her.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/how-rolling-stone-failed-in-its-story-of-alleged-rape-at-the-university-of-virginia/2014/12/05/169764a0-7cae-11e4-84d4-7c896b90abdc_story.html?tid=hpModule_1f58c93a-8a7a-11e2-98d9-3012c1cd8d1e
And from Rolling Stone’s story. 
And from the Rolling Stone:  In the face of new information, there now appear to be discrepancies in Jackie's account, and we have come to the conclusion that our trust in her was misplaced. We were trying to be sensitive to the unfair shame and humiliation many women feel after a sexual assault and now regret the decision to not contact the alleged assaulters to get their account. We are taking this seriously and apologize to anyone who was affected by the story.  https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/a-note-to-our-readers-20141205
So, some supposedly journalists and editors offer a half assed apology and ruined a lot of reputations including members of the frat house and another guy who was blamed for the rape that probably did not happen.
Unfortunately, there are many rapes and sexual assault that occur in the United States, but there are also a lot of false claims of rape and assault.
My feeling is that if there were a false claim of rape, the rape accuser needs to be brought up charges of filing a false police report.  That's only fair because if there is a false claim of rape, it can destroy a man and his reputation and in most cases his life and that is not fair to the man.
And the writer and editors of the Rolling Stone magazine need to be fired for only communicating with the accuser and not the accused.