In this day and age of blogs, social networks and other avenues of communication, fake stories and fictional news reports are popping up left and right.

Poor journalistic efforts are being accepted as facts and being circulated by curious readers that are unaware of the fabrications within these so-called “breaking news updates,” which are often published by independent news pages with questionable sources and credibility.

We often question these smaller, independent news reports, but we rarely think to question successful mainstream newspapers and magazines about their stories, especially not their sources.

For instance, Rolling Stone has recently come under fire for its fabricated story about a gang-rape on a college campus.

The University of Virginia, which is the setting of the story, is in the process of suing Rolling Stone magazine on the basis of fabricating a rape story that never occurred on the university’s campus. In the story, it was said that dozens of men were involved in the raping of a freshman girl at the Phi Kappa Psi house.

Where are the apologies from Rolling Stone? Where are the apologies toward the University of Virginia? Where are the apologies toward the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity? Because of this, the value and reputation of the whole university has been diminished.

The writer and editors of this story should be fired for ruining the value of the institution. The writer, whose name I will not mention, was better off taking a missed deadline than making up the story. Then again, this is probably not the first time this particular magazine, or any other outlet of mainstream journalism has created a great tear-jerking story that would maintain the interest and loyalty of many readers.

Business should always come first, right? This is the new mindset that has taken today’s world of reporting by storm. Here is their new goal: Write the most shocking and disturbing story that you can in a short period of time, even if you have to make it up.

The fact that a story was made up does not necessarily upset me, but the fact that representatives of Rolling Stone have yet to suffer consequences rubs me the wrong way. This is a prime example of why many people have issues with trusting today’s media.

Who in their right mind would take the time to create a full story about a gang-rape on a college campus without confirming the facts? What were the editors thinking? Were they aware of the fact that the story was false, or was the story too good to not be true?

This is extremely disturbing and makes me lose a lot of respect for Rolling Stone. Trust me. I am not the only one that feels this way about a well-respected magazine as its validity is questioned.