Fake News

[SussexDon1inIreland]

German magazine Der Spiegel apologised to readers on Wednesday for publishing “invented stories” and content with “distorted facts,” identifying Claas Relotius, one of its reporters and editors, as confessing to the production of fake news.

For 71 years, Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine has prided itself on delivering high-quality journalism based on a simple premise: “Say it like it is.”
But now the prestigious Hamburg weekly has admitted publishing 55 articles by one of its journalists whose maxim was: say it like it isn’t.
Like the story of a Syrian teenager whose Damascus graffiti helped spark the brutal civil war – winner this month of Germany’s reportage of the year award. Or the Guantanamo prisoner who didn’t want to leave the US camp in Cuba. Or the small town in Minnesota with the “Mexicans Keep Out” sign.
Then there was the a recent five-page, 8,000-word article about Gayle Gladdis, a Bible-carrying American woman who takes the Greyhound bus to witnesses executions of strangers. “It was all perfect. Except it wasn’t true. None of it [was],” the magazine said.
Confronted by evidence of his deception, Relotius made a confession by degrees. But even that was problematic: he insisted he had interviewed the parents of the NFL player Colin Kaepernick, who staged protests by kneeling during the US national anthem, until their lawyer told the magazine: “This story has no basis.”
The news magazine admitted it is not sure how many of his 55 stories for it were inaccurate – nor is the journalist who has resigned after an internal investigation.Even the Guardian is covering this story!The Guardian reported:

[Claas Relotius] resigned after admitting to the scam. He had written for the magazine for seven years and won numerous awards for his investigative journalism.

…

Earlier this month, he won Germany’s Reporterpreis (Reporter of the Year) for his story about a young Syrian boy, which the jurors praised for its “lightness, poetry and relevance”. It has since emerged that all the sources for his reportage were at best hazy, and much of what he wrote was made up.

CNN awarded Relotius its 2014 “Journalist of the Year” award!!

Here's the apology from the German magazine

http://www.spiegel.de/international/the ... 44653.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[lesxdp]

Expected this to be about us signing a couple of top premier league players in January

[Woodleyclaret]

Eddie Howe leaving Bournemouth

[Falcon]

Der Spiegel are the ones making the very interesting allegations about the finances of certain football clubs aren't they?

[Bosscat]

Talking about fake news how about this in the Lancashire Blackbumegraph....

"Wardy is a little bit away, he's back on the grass working again. regular, not quite working with us, and Popey is getting on with it and getting stronger all the time," Dyche finished.

Tom Pope completed 90 minutes for the under 23s on Monday, this was his first in five months.

Who the Eff is Tom Pope......
What a complete shower of effluent pours from the pages of Lancashiees worst Rag.....

[houseboy]

Der Spiegel is one of a few publications in the world that is respected for it's dedication to honesty (The Washington Post and the New York Times are others) so this is a surprise. We have no equivalent in this country with the possible exception of the Independent, which used to be totally factual but having not read it for some time I don't know if that is still true. The Times, despite it's reputaion, is also surpisingly fairly 'unpolitical'.
At the other end of the scale there is the Sun, which is only any good if you like football and tits. It was one of the first rags to start 'making' the news instead of 'reporting' it.

[Imploding Turtle]

German magazine Der Spiegel apologised to readers on Wednesday for publishing “invented stories” and content with “distorted facts,” identifying Claas Relotius, one of its reporters and editors, as confessing to the production of fake news.

For 71 years, Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine has prided itself on delivering high-quality journalism based on a simple premise: “Say it like it is.”
But now the prestigious Hamburg weekly has admitted publishing 55 articles by one of its journalists whose maxim was: say it like it isn’t.
Like the story of a Syrian teenager whose Damascus graffiti helped spark the brutal civil war – winner this month of Germany’s reportage of the year award. Or the Guantanamo prisoner who didn’t want to leave the US camp in Cuba. Or the small town in Minnesota with the “Mexicans Keep Out” sign.
Then there was the a recent five-page, 8,000-word article about Gayle Gladdis, a Bible-carrying American woman who takes the Greyhound bus to witnesses executions of strangers. “It was all perfect. Except it wasn’t true. None of it [was],” the magazine said.
Confronted by evidence of his deception, Relotius made a confession by degrees. But even that was problematic: he insisted he had interviewed the parents of the NFL player Colin Kaepernick, who staged protests by kneeling during the US national anthem, until their lawyer told the magazine: “This story has no basis.”
The news magazine admitted it is not sure how many of his 55 stories for it were inaccurate – nor is the journalist who has resigned after an internal investigation.Even the Guardian is covering this story!The Guardian reported:

[Claas Relotius] resigned after admitting to the scam. He had written for the magazine for seven years and won numerous awards for his investigative journalism.

…

Earlier this month, he won Germany’s Reporterpreis (Reporter of the Year) for his story about a young Syrian boy, which the jurors praised for its “lightness, poetry and relevance”. It has since emerged that all the sources for his reportage were at best hazy, and much of what he wrote was made up.

CNN awarded Relotius its 2014 “Journalist of the Year” award!!

Here's the apology from the German magazine

http://www.spiegel.de/international/the ... 44653.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This is what ACTUAL fake news looks like. Not news we disagree with or just don't like, not news getting stories wrong but in good faith, not stories that require corrections, actual, completely fabricated journalistic fraud.

[Imploding Turtle]

Der Spiegel is one of a few publications in the world that is respected for it's dedication to honesty (The Washington Post and the New York Times are others) so this is a surprise. We have no equivalent in this country with the possible exception of the Independent, which used to be totally factual but having not read it for some time I don't know if that is still true. The Times, despite it's reputaion, is also surpisingly fairly 'unpolitical'.
At the other end of the scale there is the Sun, which is only any good if you like football and tits. It was one of the first rags to start 'making' the news instead of 'reporting' it.

The Independent isn't what it used to be. They've become sensationalist, clickbait bullshit and have been for a few years now.

The Guardian and the Times have a reputation for honest reporting. I can't think of a single story their hard news journalists have posted that is bullshit and the Guardian in particular has done some excellent investigative work in the past few years. Of course they have more of a leaning to looking at liberal issues, but their reporting is honest and fact-based and that's what matters.

[Imploding Turtle]

Der Spiegel are the ones making the very interesting allegations about the finances of certain football clubs aren't they?

Yep. But you can certainly trust that reporting because there's no way that an editor would allow such a story in such a major newspaper be printed without knowing everything about the sourcing, and even if he/she would, their lawyers would never allow it unless it was cast-iron guaranteed to be legit.

I haven't read too much about this fraudster's faked stories but I imagine his fake articles required little to no legal exposure which means if he has the editor's trust then disclosure of sourcing wouldn't be a major issue for the editor.

[houseboy]

The Independent isn't what it used to be. They've become sensationalist, clickbait bullshit and have been for a few years now.

The Guardian and the Times have a reputation for honest reporting. I can't think of a single story their hard news journalists have posted that is bullshit and the Guardian in particular has done some excellent investigative work in the past few years. Of course they have more of a leaning to looking at liberal issues, but their reporting is honest and fact-based and that's what matters.

I was going to mention The Guardian (or the Grauniad as it came to be known because of its frequent typos). It is very factual but as you say if it has a bias it is slightly left wing and liberal (in the true sense). A decent publication nonetheless. The Independent for me went slightly downhill when they launched the 'I' for people who are too lazy to read a proper report. To be honest of I was to buy a paper in this country (which given the internet is increasingly rare) it would still be one of those three. Nothing else comes close.

[LeadBelly]

I have to admit that I nowadays have little affection for Der Spiegel & think it's objectivity has declined much in the past few years (though I read it online regularly along with other German news sources). It is hugely pro-Merkel.

The first story that was discredited was about (now proved as fictitious) vigilantes on the US border with Mexico & a few others seem to centre on USA/Trump bashing (in line with Spiegel's general stance).

Christiano Ronaldo's lawyers will be pleased with the news given they're trying to discredit Der Spiegel stories about an alleged rape/cover up that CR has been accused of in the USA.

As per in the link in the OP, Spiegel say that the guilty journalist has written for quite a few other media organisations: Cicero, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung am Sonntag, the Financial Times Deutschland, Die Tageszeitung, Die Welt, Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, Weltwoche, Zeit Online and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.

Fake news indeed.

[Imploding Turtle]

I was going to mention The Guardian (or the Grauniad as it came to be known because of its frequent typos). It is very factual but as you say if it has a bias it is slightly left wing and liberal (in the true sense). A decent publication nonetheless. The Independent for me went slightly downhill when they launched the 'I' for people who are too lazy to read a proper report. To be honest of I was to buy a paper in this country (which given the internet is increasingly rare) it would still be one of those three. Nothing else comes close.

There's no rule that says a news publication has to be politically neutral, only that what they report are the facts and that they are presented without spin and in context.

It's a common and lazy criticism that certain news organisations are biased, as if that disqualifies the information they present, and it's criticism peddled mostly by right-wing organisations to sow distrust in the news. Fox News has done that expertly in the US for 20-odd years. Over here it's The Sun that takes up that role. A lot of their viewers/readers ONLY trust those sources of information which allows them to get away with saying pretty much anything they want. Think about it. What's the number-one complaint in both countries (US and UK) about "the media"? It's liberal, or it has a liberal bias. Right? It's always "the liberal media this..." and "the liberal media that..." yet, in both countries the most dominant news organisations are right-wing. The Sun and the Mail are easily the most read papers over here, and in the US where newspapers aren't really a national market it's the TV news companies that people rely on, and the dominant news channel over there is Fox News. Even the local TV news channels are dominated by Sinclair Broadcasting, another right-wing news corporation.

It's a pervasive myth that the media has a liberal bias, and it's also a myth that bias is disqualifying. Fox News is just as capable of doing as good a job as the Washington Post, or the Guardian, they just choose not to because there's more money in saying that immigrants make the US "dirtier".

[IanMcL]

Talking about fake news how about this in the Lancashire Blackbumegraph....

"Wardy is a little bit away, he's back on the grass working again. regular, not quite working with us, and Popey is getting on with it and getting stronger all the time," Dyche finished.

Tom Pope completed 90 minutes for the under 23s on Monday, this was his first in five months.

Who the Eff is Tom Pope......
What a complete shower of effluent pours from the pages of Lancashiees worst Rag.....

It's our way of ensuring a clean sheet!

[Bosscat]

I was going to mention The Guardian (or the Grauniad as it came to be known because of its frequent typos). It is very factual but as you say if it has a bias it is slightly left wing and liberal (in the true sense). A decent publication nonetheless. The Independent for me went slightly downhill when they launched the 'I' for people who are too lazy to read a proper report. To be honest of I was to buy a paper in this country (which given the internet is increasingly rare) it would still be one of those three. Nothing else comes close.

We buy our paper "not for the news" but because we like the crosswords and puzzles each day and for the TV sections etc.
Needless to say it isn't "The Grauniad" or the "The Independent".

We take "The Daily Express"

[Burnley Ace]

There are free puzzles on the internet!!

[LeadBelly]

Bosscat: I've come to dislike the Guardian's political stance but I still buy it Friday & Saturday because I think the crosswords/puzzles (+ sports & arts coverage) are the best & happy to pay the pretty big cover price.
It's a serious challenge to finish the Graun Saturday cryptic by the end of Monday.

[houseboy]

There's no rule that says a news publication has to be politically neutral, only that what they report are the facts and that they are presented without spin and in context.

It's a common and lazy criticism that certain news organisations are biased, as if that disqualifies the information they present, and it's criticism peddled mostly by right-wing organisations to sow distrust in the news. Fox News has done that expertly in the US for 20-odd years. Over here it's The Sun that takes up that role. A lot of their viewers/readers ONLY trust those sources of information which allows them to get away with saying pretty much anything they want. Think about it. What's the number-one complaint in both countries (US and UK) about "the media"? It's liberal, or it has a liberal bias. Right? It's always "the liberal media this..." and "the liberal media that..." yet, in both countries the most dominant news organisations are right-wing. The Sun and the Mail are easily the most read papers over here, and in the US where newspapers aren't really a national market it's the TV news companies that people rely on, and the dominant news channel over there is Fox News. Even the local TV news channels are dominated by Sinclair Broadcasting, another right-wing news corporation.

It's a pervasive myth that the media has a liberal bias, and it's also a myth that bias is disqualifying. Fox News is just as capable of doing as good a job as the Washington Post, or the Guardian, they just choose not to because there's more money in saying that immigrants make the US "dirtier".

So true mate. A publiucation is what it is and there is nothing wrong with being politically biased as long as that bias doesn't turn into lies. A great example in this country is the amount of coverage given to benefit cheats and how much they cost the economy, and yet there is hardly anything said about the vastly greater amount this country loses because of tax avoidance by the large corporations and wealthy individuals. Whilst benefit cheats are wrong and should rightly be exposed and dealt with very few of them (if any) could be described as wealthy, whereas tax avoiders/evaders are invariably wealthy and could actually afford to pay their dues, they just choose not to out of greed. The right wing press tends to support the tax cheats with arguments going along the lines of it's their money they should be allowed to keep more of it.

This is of course a generalisation but it highlights the problems that can come about due to 'biased' reporting. We should, of course, take into account the difference between bias and lies but it is a very fine line and some publications either don't know or don't care when they have crossed it.

[Falcon]

I use BBC News.

The reason being that my Facebook feed (until I unfollowed the individuals in question in a bid to rid my feed of politics) was full of both left-wing and right-wing types both saying BBC was biased against them. In my un-expert opinion, if they're p***ing off both sides then they're probably doing a decent job of staying neutral.

[Hipper]

What's the number-one complaint in both countries (US and UK) about "the media"? It's liberal, or it has a liberal bias. Right? It's always "the liberal media this..." and "the liberal media that..."

I'm not sure that's true. I often see stories about the right wing press, notably about the Daily Mail.

This is not about complaints but makes interesting, and perhaps predictable, reading.

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/ar ... newspapers" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I have to say that there are a lot of 'don't knows' in the answers. Presumably many of them don't read newspapers or don't care about bias.