Real Fake News! Former CNN 'Journalist of the Year' Admits to Fabricating Stories

Nick Kangadis | December 20, 2018
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The term “fake news” is often overused and misused, but this next guy literally practiced it for years while receiving mountains of adulation from his peers. What he did should be the definition of “fake news.”

German “journalist” Claas Relotius has received multiple awards over the years for his journalism, including CNN’s “Journalist of the Year” in 2014 and earlier this month won Germany’s “Reporterpreis.” For those that don’t “sprechen sie Deutsch,” that means he was considered this year’s “reporter of the year” in Germany.

Well, Relotius might have to use those awards as paper weights, because he’s been found out to be a fraud.

As Breitbart reported, according to German magazine Der Spiegel:

Claas Relotius, a reporter and editor, falsified his articles on a grand scale and even invented characters, deceiving both readers and his colleagues. This has been uncovered as a result of tips, internal research and, ultimately, a comprehensive confession by the editor himself[…]

Claas Relotius committed his deception intentionally, methodically and with criminal intent. For example, he included individuals in his stories who he had never met or spoken to, telling their stories or quoting them. Instead, he would reveal, he based the depictions on other media or video recordings. By doing so, he created composite characters of people who actually did exist but whose stories Relotius had fabricated. He also made up dialogue and quotes.

Relotius, who has been an editor at Der Speigel for the past year and a half, admitted that “there are at least 14 articles in question that are at least in part fabrications.”

And the media wonders why none of us believe a word they say or write? Please. Relotius is a fraud and shouldn’t be allowed to call himself a journalist — even though true journalism is dead for the most part.

“Fake news” is real, it just isn’t always classified correctly.

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