> "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.