CNN Journalist Of The Year Fired For Creating Fake News Stories

ABC News reported on the story.

Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine has fired Claas Relotius, an award-winning staff writer, after finding he fabricated and invented facts in many articles in recent years.

“Truth and lie are muddled in his texts,” Der Spiegel said.

Among the fabricated stories were articles about a wrongfully detained Guantanamo inmate, about children kidnapped by Islamic State, and about a woman attending the execution of a death sentence as a witness in the United States.

Der Spiegel said it had immediately terminated his work contract. Relotius, who is 33 years old and started writing for Der Spiegel in 2011, was not available for comment.

The magazine said Relotius’s senior editors confronted him after a fellow journalist at the magazine voiced suspicions…

“Claas Relotius acted with intent, methodically and with a high level of criminal energy,” Der Spiegel said, adding that he had written about and cited people he had never met or spoken to.

Relotius told his editors: “It was not about having the next big thing. It was fear of failing.”