https://www.newyorker.com/news/dispatch/the-deep-pathology-at-the-heart-of-the-scandal-at-der-spiegel
Updated story from last month, but it is always entertaining to see how the New Yorker can so artfully display the irony of its own existence:
The reputation of Der Spiegel, perhaps the most prestigious magazine in Europe, rests in no small part on the esteem of its fact-checking department, which employs at least sixty people full time.
Staff at Der Spiegel learned last month that Claas Relotius, one of the publication’s star reporters, had invented characters, conversations, and other details in many of the dozens of stories he published in the magazine in the past seven years.
“We were all shocked and sad,” one reporter said. “It went to the core of how we understood our work. How could one single person be so harmful to all that we have been working on and pride ourselves on?”
Notably absent from this New Yorker piece, that reflects on how so many fake news stories could ever be published at such a highly esteemed magazine, is there an any mention of the possibility that false stories could be planted in the media for political purposes, or that a news magazine could ever be used to manipulate public opinion, regardless of any fact checking procedures that might be in place.
Oh, I forgot, just a few stories down in the New Yorker, there is an interview with a historian about her new book on truth and democracy (see attached highlight above).
https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-new-yorker-interview/does-democracy-need-truth-a-conversation-with-the-historian-sophia-rosenfeld