Award winning German journalist Claas Relotius peddled fake news for Der Speigel.

Claas Relotius holds up his 2014 CNN journalist of the year trophy. Washington Post/EPA.

An award winning German journalist, Claas Relotius, has been exposed as a liar who made up the news. Washington Post.  Relotius had written a story about the small Minnesota town of Fergus Falls after the election of President Donald Trump. In the story he made up sources, libeled several individuals and accused the town of being racist. In an article posted on Medium, two local artists debunked the article point by point and accused Relotius of lying. 

In addition, the Guardian reports that Der Speigel found in 14 out of 60 cases articles Relotius lied. In addition to the false Fergus Falls report, Relotius lied about stories including topics as varied as the Mexican border, a Syrian refugee, Guantanamo Bay and Colin Kaepernick. One of his colleagues, Juan Moreano, who had worked with him on the Mexican border story discovered that two sources for the story had never met with Relotius at all. Moreano faced harassment and ridicule from his fellow journalists at Der Speigel until he ended up being vindicated. Relotius has resigned and blamed the lies on fear of failing. Der Speigel is investigating what went wrong and the incident has caused a diplomatic incident between the United States and Germany. 

My Comment:

If you read one source I posted above, make it the one on Medium. The authors are insufferable liberals, but they pretty much destroyed Relotius and his lies. Though I obviously disagree with them politically, I do extend a heartfelt thanks to them and journalist Juan Moreano. There is a huge difference between people who write something I disagree with and people who lie. Though they all may be liberals, Michele Anderson, Jake Krohn, and Juan Moreano are in the first category while Relotius is the 2nd. 

This is some over the top fake news that should have been so obvious that it should have never made it to print. It makes me wonder, don't editors check up on reporters? Or, conversely, was the leadership of Der Speigel in on the lie? Either way the readers of that publication, including myself, have been mislead. I have used Der Speigel as a source and now I have to wonder if I have spread some misinformation from them. If so I apologize, it is a weakness of this blog that I can't speak to sources directly and have to rely on journalists to do the leg work for me. 

I do think that this kind of thing is more common than people realize. I have read some articles on subjects I am knowledgeable and I have seen some pretty obvious fake news. Sometimes those are simply mistakes, but I have seen quite a few articles where I thought the journalist was lying. In many of those cases I couldn't prove it so it is a vindication when a journalist does get called out on something like this. 

I think it's clear that Claas Relotius was prejudiced and it affected his reporting. He had a belief about small town America and he wanted to convince people that everyone in Fergus Falls was a bunch of gun toting rednecks that were racist because that is what he saw them as. He had a story already in his mind and he changed the facts so they would better fit his beliefs. The truth never mattered to him.

I don't think I buy his excuse about the pressure getting to him. My guess is that he knew that reality didn't match up with what he believes politically so he decided to lie about it. I am sure he was partially motivated by greed and prestige but when it comes down to it I think this was about pushing an agenda. 

I do think it pays to assume that whenever you read any kind of journalism, even including this blog which hardly counts, you should assume that there will be mistakes, omissions and even possibly outright lies. I always try to read stories from multiple angles and when possible I look at primary sources. This helps me spot these mistakes and lies and made me much more well informed about the world around me. 

However, doing so has so lowered my opinion of journalism as a profession that I have more sympathy for criminals than I do for most journalists. There are a few of them out there that are actually doing their jobs correctly, mostly at the wire services, but the vast majority of them are only marginally better than Relotius.

It's to the point that this incident doesn't lower my opinion any lower than it could possibly be. Indeed, it actually improved it a bit since it showed that there are lines that even the media understands are too far. Perhaps Der Speigal is different than most American outlets, with some integrity left. I think if Relotius had worked at CNN, for example, he would have been promoted for these lies instead of punished for it.