(I'm sad to say that one cannot automatically post to the blogger post links to great videos or articles, I feel that it takes the ease and fun of reading for the reader and the ease for the poster). Thank you Google.
AS IT IS THE GERMAN TENDENCY to have a single noun for specific, even obscure concepts, there is a word for the relationship between a journalistic outfit and its readership. Leserbindung, the bond between reader and journalist, is the value that Der Spiegel, the German weekly news magazine, now finds itself desperately trying to salvage. The week before Christmas, Der Spiegel announced that it had a dishonest reporter in its midst. The week prior, the magazine’s editors became aware that one of its star reporters, Claas Relotius, 33, had fabricated award-winning stories about Turkey, Syria, Guantanamo, the US, and elsewhere. “We are deeply sorry about what has happened. We have a large readership which can now be forgiven for wondering if Der Spiegel should still be trusted,” writeSteffan Klusmann and Dirk Kurbjuweit, the editor in chief and the deputy editor in chief, respectively. As MEEDIA, the German media oversight publication, writes, “The damage that Claas Relotius has done to the Spiegel brand cannot yet be measured.”
Relotius’s deception came to light after he had worked for the magazine for some seven years, publishing close to 60 stories. In late 2018, he was assigned to co-author a story with Juan Moreno, a freelancer for Der Spiegel, that was published in November as “Jaeger’s Border.” The idea was to offer a dual account of the migrants making their way toward the Mexico-US border and the vigilante militants poised to receive them. Moreno quickly became suspicious: Relotius said he preferred to work alone; that his protagonist, a member of a militia known to refuse journalists, consented to have Relotius cover his violent, even criminal behavior, only to shy away from being photographed. Moreno spoke to Relotius, raising the possibility that Relotius had been lied to by his source, not imagining that Relotius had fabricated his work. Relotius ignored him and, in mid-November, as the story was about to go to press, Moreno relayed his concerns to his editors, who initially waved them away. Soon thereafter, Moreno, who was on assignment in Las Vegas, surreptitiously traveled to Arizona to meet Relotius’s supposed sources and found that they had never spoken to him. Only then were Moreno’s accusations taken seriously. READ MORE HERE.
