Der Spiegel star reporter Claas Relotius fabricated stories for years

The German weekly Der Spiegel, one of the top-selling publications in Europe,🅰 is reeling from a scandal that revealed that a star reporter has reportedly faked stories for years𒁃.

Many of the faked stor𝔉ies written by Claas Relotius were centered in the United States or in the Middle East.

So far, Der Spiegel editors said Wednesday, they had found that Relotius “made up stories and invented protagonists” in at least 14 of the 60 stories examined so far. But they said the investigation is only beginning. The editors said they 𓆉were “astounded and sad” by the discovery, which they called “a low point in Der Spiegel’s 70-year history.”

And so far none of the other outlets that ran R🐻elotius’ work over the years have checked in. He had freelanced for Der Spiegel for years before joining full-time a year ago.

The German journalists’ union said it was the biggest fraud scandal in journalism since the “Hitler diaries” published by Stern magazine in Germany and Newsweek in the US in 1983.

It was reminiscent of past scandals in the US including the Jayson Blair snafu at the New York Times, the Stephen Glass scandal at the New Republic and the revoked Pulit🎉zer Prize won by Janet Cooke at the Washington Post.

In one article that came under intense scrutiny, Relotius spent three weeks living in Fergus Falls, Minn., in early 20ಞ17, purportedly to try to explain why voters in a typical Midwest town came to support Donald Trump for president. Michele Anderson and Jake Krohn found that many characters and anecdotes were fake.

“What kind of institutional breakdown led tꦗo the supposedly world-class Der Spiegel fact-checking team completely dropping the ball on this one?” they asked after it emerged t𝐆hat Relotius had been forced to resign.

The Der Spiegel editors originally said he “distorts reality” in the piece entitled “In a Small ꦿTown.”

Among the♊ many falsehoods 🙈Anderson and Krohn found, there is no sign in the town that reads, “Mexicans Keep Out.”

The Clint Eastwood film “American ﷽Sniper,” which Relotius claimed had been playing to sell-out crowds for two straight years in the local cinema, had not played there since February 20🔜15.

In one anecdote, he claims a town administrator carried a Berett♍a pistol on the job, had never seen the ocean and had never been with a woman.

The Fergus Falls writers produced a photo of that same administrator on a vacation trip to t𓂃he ocean with his longtime live-in girlfriend. The administrator said he owned no Beretta and never carried a weapon at work.

Another picture in the disputed article shows a man described as a “coal plant worker.” In reality, the picture is of a United Parcel Service worker who once ran the local gym. In another, Relotius has a picture of a Mexican woman whom he claimed owned a Mexican restaurant and suffered from kidney disease. In reality, sh𝕴e was a waitress in the restaurant owned by her sister- in-law but was never interviewed.

In another instance, he describes locals watching the Super Bowl — at a pizzaꦕ place that wasn’t open on the day of the game.

In another instance, he said a local diner had ♚windows facing t▨he coal power plant — when in reality the diner was underground with no windows.

Der Spi🐼egel said it 🦄was another one of its reporters, Juan Moreno, who co-authored a piece entitled “Hunters Border” with Relotius in November on a pro-Trump vigilante group said to be involved in hunting down illegal immigrants on the Arizona-Mexico border, who alerted it to sourcing problems. Moreno told editors he had been suspicious of the sourcing on the story all along and on a subsequent trip to the US, he contacted two of the subjects quoted extensively in the article by Relotius.

Both of the subjects said they had neve𒈔r spoken to Relotius꧙.

In an apology to readers, Der Spiegel acknowledged, “For three to four we𒁃eks, Moreno went through hell because colleagues and those senior to him did not want to believe his accusations at first.”

It said that Relotius rebuffed the accusations at first “until there came a point when that didn’t work anymore, until he finally ♓couldn’t sleep anymore, haunted by the fear of being discovered.”

As recently as this month, Relotius won Germany’s Reporter of the Year ꦕaward for a story about a young Syrian 🦋boy in which much of the sourcing has now been deemed suspect.

In 2014, he was named CN🌄N’s Journalist of the Year for an article that appeared in a Swiss magazine.

Among other stories that D𒐪er Spiegel discovered fabricated was an article in which he claimed to interview the parents of Colin Kaepernick, the former NFL quarterback who decided to kneel during the playing of the US national anthem before games to protest police brutality.

In his confession, according to the magazine, Relotius said, “I am sick and I need to get help.”

“It wasn’t because of the next big thing,” he was quoted as saying. “It was fear of failing. My pressure to not be able to fail g🦹ot even bigger the more successful I became.”