BERLIN — When one of Germany’s most long-standing and often-cited publications, Der Spiegel, pushed out a news alert Wednesday, the subject was its own failing. The magazine revealed that one of its star reporters, Claas Relotius, likely embellished his coverage and allegedly fabricated entire events for years, before resigning on Monday.
The winner of numerous journalism awards, including CNN’s “Journalist of the Year,” the European Press Prize and Forbes List of “30 under 30 — Europe: Media” award, the 33-year-old reporter had risen to quick fame in media circles and the public eye but had mixed fact with fiction and even spun whole tales for one of Germany’s most respected media companies.
One of Der Spiegel’s editors in chief, Ullrich Fichtner, described internal reactions using the words “shock,” “sadness,” and “appalling,” and wrote that the incident constituted the “low point in the 70-year history of Spiegel.”
The magazine, which recently introduced the slogan “No fear of the truth,” acknowledged in a piece published on Thursday that “we have many questions for ourselves.”
In his roughly 11-year-long career as a journalist, Relotius authored or co-authored 55 stories for Spiegel and three stories for its sister online publication, Spiegel Online. He also has written for other prominent German news outlets, including Cicero, Financial Times Deutschland, Welt, and Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
