Ex-Spiegel reporter Relotius gave a detailed interview.
Former Spiegel reporter Claes Relotius first publicly detailed his fake texts two and a half years after the news magazine’s fraud scandal broke. When asked how many of his 120 press texts were correct, he told Swiss magazine Reportagen: “After all I know about myself today, it’s probably very little.” He wrote “with the firm conviction that in the narrative form of a journalistic report, there will be no difference whether or not everything corresponds 1:1 to reality.” Relotius said he “obviously transferred a lot of responsibility, mostly to colleagues, but also to real people I wrote about.” He protested that he had no malicious intent while writing. “I didn’t want to hurt anyone by writing the wrong thing. I’m more than sorry for all that I did.”
Rilotius wrote incorrect reports, some of which contained invented scenes, conversations, and events. He was highly regarded as a journalist. The mirror worked neatly on the case. Other German editorial offices have also followed up on source checks.
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