It's worth considering the industry factors that contributed to this. Sub-editors and fact-checkers have been the first to go in the cataclysmic waves of layoffs journalism has been weathering for the past decade.

Der Spiegel was famed for their fact checking... with one problem. Their fact checkers evidently started with the assumption that their journalists weren't being deliberately deceptive. This combined with the journalist making up shit that flattered the preconceived cultural biases of the fact checkers (e.g. urban germans think that rural americans are backwards gun-toting hicks who believe the earth is flat) and it becomes clear that understaffing wasn't the real problem.

Actually there was another problem at Der Spiegel, cultural again; anybody who questioned the rockstars had their career thrown on the rocks. When Juan Moreno questioned the integrity of the fraud Class Relotius, Der Spiegel's editors didn't believe him, and thought he was just jealous of Relotius. So again, not a problem caused by understaffing.

>Their fact checkers evidently started with the assumption that their journalists weren't being deliberately deceptive.

People reviewing pull requests at our company also have to assume that programmers aren't being deliberately deceptive.

So what? Almost all of our working relationship, heck relationships period, are based on trust.

> "So what?"

Do you really need me to answer this for you? Did you miss the part where it failed in spectacular fashion and will haunt Der Spiegel's reputation for years to come? Not to mention god knows how many innocent people were defamed by this fraud over the years he was allowed to run wild by Der Spiegel's fact checkers.

This guy was publishing "too good to be true" articles for years and none of Der Spiegel's famed fact checkers noticed it. He was eventually uncovered by another reporter, not a fact checker, so to suggest that understaffing in the fact checking department is to blame is farcical.

Yeah it's bad. But the fact that we are talking about 'this guy' and not hundreds of people means it's not as widespread as you might think.

It's impossible to defend against, you have to trust your coworkers, or we'd be living in a police state where nothing can get done.

And yes I know of the other high profile cases at the NyTimes NewYorker etc.

The issue of contention was whether or not understaffing of fact checking departments is the cause of diminished trust in the news industry. I think I've refuted that hypothesis; we've got a newspaper famed for their fact checking department that has taken a hit to their credibility more severe than most other publications.

> The issue of contention was whether or not understaffing of fact checking departments is the cause of diminished trust in the news industry.

Sure, but people distrust things for irrational reasons all the time.

> CNN’s “Journalist of the Year” - who worked for Der Spiegel - was recently outed as having completely fabricated the majority of the articles

Of course he's going to win awards.

The rest of the journalists, who have to confine themselves to the much more difficult task of developing sources and researching facts, won't be able to compete with someone who just makes up fantastical stories out of thin air.

He was caught in the end, so what's the problem?

If you read up on how he was caught, it was pretty incredible - another journalist at Der Spiegel had to go on a personal mission, on his own time and at his own cost, to prove the guy was lying, and then nearly lost his job because the management couldn't accept it. The fact checking department had been hoodwinked for years despite some truly dubious and insane things that had appeared in his stories.

Yes, he got caught in the end. But he shouldn't have been able to publish such obvious nonsense for years on end. It's quite clear that Der Spiegel didn't catch him because he was telling them what they wanted to hear.

It's funny how this thread criticizes media for making up details to push a narrative while doing exactly that.

> as having completely fabricated the majority of the articles

This is about as fake news propaganda driven as it gets. Your source says "numerous articles" are having issues, not "the majority". The summary on his DE wiki page[0] so far indicates way less than half (aka "majority"). Also your claim those problematic articles are "completely fabricated" seems quite excessive as well. Feels a bit like you intentionally try to bend facts to fit your narrative...

I know journalism has its problems, but it is the best we have to keep the powerful in check.

It’s actually legislative checks and balances that keep the powerful in check.