Claas Relotius

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Claas Relotius

Relotius in 2018

Born Claas-Hendrik Relotius

15 November 1985 (age 35)

Occupation Journalist (former)

Organization Der Spiegel

CNN’s "Journalist of the Year", 2014 (revoked)[1]

Awards
European Press Prize, 2017

Deutscher Reporterpreis [de], 2013, 2015, 2016 and

2018 (returned)[2]

Claas-Hendrik Relotius (born 15 November 1985)[3] is a German former journalist.

He resigned from Der Spiegel in 2018 after admitting numerous instances
of journalistic fraud.[4]
 Contents

 1Career
 2Fabrication of stories
 3See also
 4References

Career[edit]
As a freelance reporter, Relotius wrote for a number of German-language
publications, including Cicero, Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, Neue
Zürcher Zeitung, Financial Times Deutschland, Die Tageszeitung, Die
Welt, Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, Die Weltwoche, Die Zeit and Reportagen [de].[5]
In 2017, he became a staff journalist for Der Spiegel, which published almost 60
articles by Relotius since 2011.[6][7] For his detailed reporting, Relotius received
several awards, including the Deutscher Reporterpreis [de] on four occasions and as
recent as 2018.[4] Relotius' Reporterpreis 2018 award was for "Best Reportage",
delivered in Berlin in early December,[8][9][10] for a story of "unprecedented lightness,
density and relevance, which never leaves open the sources on which it is
based."[11] He was the German language CNN "Journalist of the Year" in 2014 for a
story written for the Swiss magazine Reportagen,[5][12] and won the European Press
Prize in 2017.[13] Reporting for which he was nominated or won prizes include articles
about Iraqi children kidnapped by the Islamic State, a Guantánamo Bay inmate, and
Syrian orphans from Aleppo who ended up as child slaves in Turkey.[14][15] In
2017, Der Spiegel sent Relotius to Fergus Falls for three weeks, Minnesota, to write
an article about Donald Trump supporters "to give readers better insight into
Americans."[16] These articles were all found to contain falsifications. [17] Relotius had
also faked interviews with the parents of NFL footballer Colin Kaepernick.[18]

Fabrication of stories[edit]
On 19 December 2018, Der Spiegel made public that Relotius had admitted that he
had "falsified his articles on a grand scale", inventing facts, persons and quotations
in at least 14 of his stories in Der Spiegel,[6][7] an event now being referred to
as Spiegelgate.[19] The magazine uncovered the fraud after a co-author of one of
Relotius's articles about a pro-Trump vigilante group in Arizona conducting patrols
along the Mexico–United States border, the Spanish-born Spiegel journalist Juan
Moreno, became suspicious of the veracity of Relotius's contributions and gathered
evidence against him.[20][6][21][22] About a year earlier, two residents of Fergus Falls,
Minnesota, Michele Anderson and Jake Krohn, suspected that Relotius' portrayal of
their hometown was inaccurate.[17] For example, Relotius lied about seeing a hand-
painted welcome sign by the city limits that read: "Mexicans Keep Out". [18] They
investigated on their own when efforts to contact Der Spiegel on Twitter came to
nothing.[23] They published their findings in a blog post on Medium, detailing 11 of
Relotius' most egregious falsehoods.[24] As Anderson put it, "In 7,300 words he really
only got our town's population and average annual temperature correct". [17]
Relotius' superiors initially supported him after he said the allegations made against
him were false.[25] They even suspected that Moreno was slandering him. However, in
the face of mounting evidence of Relotius' deceit, Özlem Gezer [de], the deputy head
of the magazine's Gesellschaft (society) section and Relotius' immediate supervisor,
confronted Relotius and told him she no longer believed him. The following day,
Relotius confessed, and Der Spiegel forced his resignation, calling him "neither a
reporter nor a journalist".[4] Relotius told his former colleagues that he was sick and
needed to get help. Der Spiegel left his articles accessible for the time being, with a
notice referring to the magazine's ongoing investigation into the fraud. [7] In the wake
of the scandal, Relotius returned four awards he received from Deutscher
Reporterpreis, and CNN revoked his 2014 Journalist of the Year award. [2] The
awarded article on an Alzheimer patient in a California prison was marked by
the Reportagen magazine as under investigation.[26] The issue of Der
Spiegel published on 21 December covered the Relotius case over 23 pages with a
plain orange cover.[27][28]
Richard Grenell, the US ambassador to Germany, wrote to the magazine
complaining about an anti-American institutional bias (Anti-Amerikanismus) and
asked for an independent investigation. [28][29] Grenell wrote that "These fake news
stories largely focus on U.S. policies and certain segments of the American
people."[30] American journalist James Kirchick accused Der Spiegel of long peddling
"crude and sensational anti-Americanism". [31]
The scandal was seized upon by critics of the mainstream media in Western
countries, and was described as a moment of crisis for German journalism. Leaders
of the German party Alternative for Germany (AfD) wrote that it confirmed their view
of the media as a "lying press" (Lügenpresse).[32]
On 23 December 2018, Der Spiegel magazine announced that it was filing a criminal
complaint against Relotius.[33] Relotius has been accused of embezzling donations
intended for Syrian orphans he claimed to have met in Turkey. Relotius appealed to
readers for donations, which were then paid into his personal bank account. [34]
Der Spiegel published the final investigation report in May 2019, concluding that "no
indications were found that anyone at DER SPIEGEL was aware of the fabrication,
helped cover them up or otherwise participated in them", while stressing the urgent
need for internal reform.[35][36]