Kathryn Hendley, Alex Stock and Ryan Duffin—the three friends of Jackie’s who Sabrina Rubin Erdely falsely claimed discouraged from her calling the authorities—now tell the AP that they have all been contacted by Sabrina Rubin Erdely, who is “re-reporting” her original story.

All three say Erdely has since reached out to them, and that she has told them she is re-reporting the story. Hendley told the AP Erdely apologized to her for portraying her the way she did.

This is a bizarre idea for a number of reasons.

First, Rubin Erdely herself continues to refuse to talk to the press—or, as she said of the UVa administration, she is “stonewalling.” So she is a hypocrite.

And second—why on earth would anyone talk to her? (The AP story does not disclose whether the three friends agreed to be re-interviewed interviewed.) She revealed her profound political bias in her first article, as well as a fatal lack of professionalism. She might improve on the second part, but she’s unlikely to change the first. In fact, she might be even more invested in proving the point that, whatever happened to Jackie, there is a larger “rape culture” at the University of Virginia.

But most important, Rubin Erdely is deeply compromised by her original shoddy reporting, and she is now part of this story; it makes no sense for her to be a part of “re-reporting” it. What if she subsequently writes that Jackie made the whole thing up? That would obviously be to her benefit—and we couldn’t possibly believe it. Apologizing to Kathryn Hendley is a decent thing to do, but at this point, it’s also a way to fend off a lawsuit. Remember, Rubin Erdely called Hendley a “self-declared hookup slut queen” who told Jackie not to go to the authorities lest she (Hendley) never get invited to a fraternity party again.

However, Hendley told the AP that not only did she not say any of that, she had arrived with Stock to the picnic table only to have Jackie say she didn’t want her to be part of the conversation. She said she watched from afar while Stock and Duffin talked with Jackie.

Anything and everything that Sabrina Rubin Erdely reports on at UVa would now directly affect her; anything she might produce under such circumstances shouldn’t be trusted any more than her original article.

I suspect that Rubin Erdely is doing this on her own; if you’re Rolling Stone, there’s no way you want her making telephone calls and representing your magazine now. But then, Rolling Stone too says it is “re-reporting” the story. And Rolling Stone has done a lot of stupid things over the past few months.

By the way, “re-reporting” is not a common or even known term in journalism, and here’s why: You can’t “re-report” a thing, because as soon as you write about it the first time, you change it; the word suggests that a situation is static, but it is the opposite.

There’s at least one reporter—the Washington Post’s T. Rees Shapiro—down in Charlottesville trying to find out what really happened. Judging from what he’s printed, and from what I’ve seen of him on television, he seems like a serious guy; the TV interviewers keep trying to get him to speak beyond the scope of his reporting, and he keeps limiting his answers only to what he knows for sure. That’s smart—and responsible.

Rubin Erdely should let other reporters do the job at which she failed. Instead, she should be busy writing an apology—and, in my opinion, a resume.