COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW – 23/04/2019
Anna Altman
A little more than three months ago, Der Spiegel, Germany’s leading news magazine, was rocked by news that Claas Relotius, one of its star reporters, had fabricated much of his award-winning reporting for the magazine. Relotius, 33, had invented sources and stories from whole cloth, claiming to have met and interviewed people who either didn’t exist or who never spoke with him. A lot has happened since then: Relotius has been charged with embezzlement, for accepting donations on behalf of fabricated sources; Juan Moreno, the journalist who blew the whistle on Relotius’s dishonesty, plans to publish a book this fall on the events; and a film version of Moreno’s book is in the works.