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CNN Award Winner Outed as Fake News Journalist

While it sucks that Der Spiegel has had its very good reputation for investigative journalism sullied, the alleged Claas Relotius fraud should remind lazy readers to be careful in trusting any source of news and opinion without question and skepticism. Reader beware. Always look for corroborating sources. It is however puzzling how Claas Relotius got away with these fabrications for seven years without someone raising an alarm or complaining to Der Spiegel.

Very curious this.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.
 
Claas Relotius? Who?

From CNN:
"Relotius was not associated with CNN, he never worked for the company and never had anything published on CNN platforms."​

Is the "CNN Journalist of the Year" award a non-US thing? I can only find information about it in German.

Journalist of the year is a prize that is being given out by CNN in several parts of the world (Africa, South Korea, India, South America and German speaking lands).

Only stories about international issues are in line to get the award. There is a jury that awards this prize, the jury members now are:

- Hans Demmel, business leader from N-TV
- Franz Fischlin, moderator of the evening news on Swiss TV
- Frederik Pleitgen, CNN International correspondent from Berlin
- Stefan Plöchinger, head editor of Süddeutsche.de
- Ingrid Thurnher, moderator and editor by the ORF (Austrian TV)
- Dominik Wichmann, head editor from Stern magazine
- Kristin Zeier, head editor of "Der Deutsche Welle" English speaking radio and online services

And the guy was given his award for a story about Alzheimer in American prisons. A story he wrote for "Reportagen".
 
While it sucks that Der Spiegel has had its very good reputation for investigative journalism sullied, the alleged Claas Relotius fraud should remind lazy readers to be careful in trusting any source of news and opinion without question and skepticism. Reader beware. Always look for corroborating sources. It is however puzzling how Claas Relotius got away with these fabrications for seven years without someone raising an alarm or complaining to Der Spiegel.

Very curious this.

Cheers.
Evilroddy.

Sadly it happens. In the Netherlands one newspaper that suffered the same faith was "trouw" a newspaper started in the second world war as a resistance newspaper from Protestant Christian origin. The name Trouw translates to loyalty, as in loyalty and allegiance to god and country/royal family during the nazi occupation.

They had a journalist called Perdiep Ramesar, he was fired in 2014 when it was shown that he made fraudulent and fake news reports. He had written a report (used often by anti-Muslim sources/politicians/activists) about the Sharia Triangle in the Schilderswijk in the Hague (a part of a town with many immigrants/muslims). The article led to questions in parliament and several politicians visited the city but afterwards it was shown that none of the sources he claimed in the article actually existed. He had falsified the whole story. There was no Sharia Triangle at all. It was totally made up by him. Giving Muslims in the Hague a very negative image while there really was nothing at all that had happened there.

The newspaper fired him and started a long investigation which led to 126 articles he had written from their archives. The AD, a newspaper (the one I read) for whom he had worked previously also removed every single story from their archive from his hand.

As he was fired on the spot by the newspaper, the journalist disagreed and tried to get his firing stopped and retracted by going to court. The judge sided with the newspaper stating that there was no reasonable explanation that he could give for the non-existent sources for his story.

As you see, fraudulent journalists are possible and a reality.
 

It is much easier to lie about the US than it is to lie about something in Germany because that makes fact checking a story much easier. And what fun is it to report on great things, that is not news according to some. Serious journalism needs to be about serious subjects. And the article he won his award over was about Alzheimer in US prisons (or that is what I have so far read about it).
 
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