[Guardian] The US government has waded into the scandal of the German journalist for Der Spiegel magazine who faked stories on a grand scale over years, calling it proof of "institutional bias" in the media against America.In a scathing letter to the magazine’s editors, Richard Grenell, US ambassador to Germany, claims the journalism of Claas Relotius, who resigned from the German news magazine last week, was symptomatic of anti-American bias across the mainstream media. "It is clear that we were the victims of a campaign of institutional bias," Grenell wrote to Der Spiegel, in a letter also seen by the daily newspaper Bild. He said he was aghast at the way "anti-American coverage" had been facilitated by the magazine.
Relotius had made many reporting trips to the US, and at least three of the resultant stories are now known to have been entirely or partly made up. They include an article published in March 2018 about a 59-year-old woman who travelled by bus around America to witness death row executions. It emerged last week that it had been completely fabricated.J
Earlier this year Relotius interviewed 99-year-old Traute Laufrenz, the last survivor of the anti-Nazi White Rose resistance group, in Charleston, but at least parts of the text and details of when the interview took place are also believed to have been made up.
Der Spiegel yesterday issued an unprecedented mea culpa, printing a plain cover in its trademark orange, with the words: "Tell it like it is. On our own account: how one of our reporters falsified his stories and why he was able to do so." Inside, over 23 pages, it details the drama surrounding the Relotius revelations, and praises his colleague Juan Moreno, who uncovered the scandal.
"This house is shocked," it wrote in a leading article. "What’s happened to us is the worst thing that can happen to an editorial team." It accused Relotius of "relying not on research but on his imagination". In a 10-page essay entitled "A Nightmare", the magazine offers an in-depth exposé of how the scandal came to light and the methods he used to cover up his tactics. Moreno, the journalist who revealed the scandal, is also given space to explain how he had come to the shocking conclusion that his colleague was fabricating material. Moreno started his own research against the will of Der Spiegel’s editors, and was almost fired over his repeated accusations, which his bosses at first did not want to believe.