Will Dana will step down as Managing Editor of Rolling Stone early next month.
His exit from the magazine comes just months after a controversial article about a supposed gang rape at the University of Virginia was retracted.
“After 19 years at Rolling Stone, I have decided that it is time to move on,” Dana said in a statement Wednesday, according to The New York Times. “It has been a great ride and I loved it even more than I imagined I would. I am as excited to see where the magazine goes next as I was in the summer of 1978 when I bought my first issue.”
Dana’s last day will be Aug. 7 and he is not leaving for another job, nor has a successor been named.
Both Dana and Rolling Stone publisher Jann S. Wenner have been harshly criticized since a November 2014 article titled “A Rape on Campus” proved to be bogus.
Soon after publication, doubts were raised over the harrowing account of a woman named Jackie, who was allegedly assaulted at a fraternity house at UVA. Dana later acknowledged that there were discrepancies in her account and “our trust in her was misplaced.”
Police in Charlottesville, Virginia, said that after exhausting all leads that they found “no substantive basis” to support the article’s depiction of the assault.
In May, Rolling Stone and reporter Sabrina Rubin Erdely were both hit with a $7.5 million defamation lawsuit by the University of Virginia’s Associate Dean of Students, Nicole Eramo.
“I am filing this defamation lawsuit to set the record straight — and to hold the magazine and the author of the article accountable for their actions in a way they have refused to do themselves,” Eramo said in a statement.
Three former members of the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity at the University of Virginia filed another lawsuit against the magazine on Wednesday, for defamation and infliction of emotional distress, saying the magazine’s discredited article had a “devastating effect” on their reputations.