The following article reminds me of the notorious Washington Post feature on Jimmy the 8-year-old heroin addict. It was written by Janet Cooke and printed in the paper in the fall of 1980. The author won a Pulitzer Prize for her work, but a few months later the story began to unravel. It eventually emerged that the account was entirely fabricated, and Ms. Cooke had to return her prize and resign. Her name became synonymous with “fraudulent journalism”.
Nothing numbs the critical faculties of newspaper editors like the tear-jerking plight of the Puir Wee Bairns.
Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this article from Focus Online. The translator’s comments are in square brackets:
Four years after the Relotius scandal*
Doubts about the death of refugee girls: Spiegel takes its own article offline
Almost four years after the Relotius scandal, Der Spiegel again has a problem with some of its articles. There are doubts about the truthfulness of Spiegel reports from last August. Specifically, it is about a refugee girl who is said to have died on an island between Turkey and Greece.
Der Spiegel has now taken four articles about the case offline. Instead, the editors have published a statement under the respective URLs. Under the headline “Death trap EU border” of the original article from August 19th, 2022 it now says: “At this point there was an article about the fate of a group of refugees on the Greek-Turkish border river Evros in the summer of 2022. There are now doubts about the previous description of what happened at that time. We have therefore temporarily removed several posts on this topic from our website. We are reviewing our reporting and, once the research is complete, will decide whether or not to republish the articles in a corrected and updated form.” [Shouldn’t professional journalists research BEFORE they publish something? Or could it be, since this story fits the narrative, this isn’t done?]
Letter to Spiegel from Greek migration minister
As Medieninsider reports, there are not just doubts about the death of the girl. It is therefore unclear whether she existed at all. In one of the articles in question, the Spiegel reporter wrote accusingly, according to Medieninsider: “Now Maria is dead. She died at the beginning of August at Europe’s external border because the Greek authorities refused her any help. She had just turned five years old.”
According to Medieninsider, Greek Migration Minister Notis Mitarachi expressed doubts, which he also shared with Spiegel editor-in-chief Steffen Klusmann in a letter in September. According to Medieninsider, Mitarachi accused the reporter of the Hamburg news magazine of having acquired the information on the case from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) almost unfiltered. And most importantly, “From the facts and all photographic evidence, it is clear that there is no missing child, let alone a dead child.”
Spiegel wants to reconstruct research
Spiegel reporter Giorgos Christides, who researched the story in Greece, expressed his doubts at the end of August, according to Medieninsider. In a Twitter thread, he stated that he had spoken to the girl’s parents and siblings. Unlike politicians, he did not want to doubt them. Other people had also confirmed the girl’s existence, and there had also been affidavits to the investigating public prosecutor’s office. Apparently he left a request from Medieninsider unanswered. [OK, if this girl existed, then where is the body buried? No parent would just dump their dead child at the side of the road for the vultures, now, would they?]
At Spiegel the doubts are now being investigated internally. Medieninsider writes that an attempt is being made to reconstruct the research. But the investigation is difficult for various reasons, apparently also because the island is part Greek and part Turkish. A targeted campaign by the Greek government against the Der Spiegel journalist cannot be ruled out either.
Magazine promised improvement after the Relotius scandal
Either way, the matter is tricky for Der Spiegel. The newspaper’s credibility was severely damaged by the Relotius scandal. In addition, Der Spiegel had promised improvement after the fantasy reports of its star Claas Relotius. At that time, too, important control bodies within the magazine failed when it came to foreign reports. A Spiegel spokeswoman left a question unanswered from the Medieninsider as to whether the quality assurance had failed again. She repeated what Der Spiegel had already mentioned on its website and emphasized that the investigating ombudsman was part of the new control mechanisms.
Afterword from the translator:
Since the media no longer live from sales to paying consumers (readers, listeners and viewers), but are supported by the state through direct grants (GEZ) and advertising placed by ministries (e.g. on Corona), they no longer have to pay attention to letters to the editor or sales figures. The laws of the market have been suspended and given way to a monopoly on opinion. Whoever pays determines the music. What is reported is not what the consumers want to read, but what they should read and believe — as it is in consumer advertising, so it is in propaganda.
| * | Claas Relotius is a former “journalist” for Der Spiegel who was forced to resign in 2018 after numerous instances of fabricated stories were discovered in his published work. The most notorious example, a report on Trump supporters in Minnesota, was made up out of whole cloth. |
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English Translation of Udo Ulfkotte’s “Bought Journalists” Suppressed.
Udo Ulfkotte was a prominent European journalist, social scientist, and immigration reform activist. Upon writing Gekaufte Journalisten and becoming one of the most significant media industry and deep state whistleblowers in recent history, Ulfkotte complained of repeated home searches by German state police and expressed fear for his own life…
https://memoryholeblog.org/2017/07/31/english-translation-of-udo-ulfkottes-bought-journalists-suppressed/
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UDO ULFKOTTE’S DEATH
In a 2010 TV debate, Udo Ulfkotte rejected Muslim values and predicted that Islam’s entry into Europe would not be peaceful. After the broadcast, death threats poured in.
Now Udo Ulfkotte is dead
Published 15 January 2017 in Fria Tider
One of Germany’s most important journalists died on Friday, shortly after the publication of his new book Folkbildarna. This was the second book in an intended trilogy. A publicist feat that many tried to prevent but only a heart attack could put an end to.
Udo Ulfkotte was only 56 years old and Germany mourns one of the alternative media’s strongest and bravest publicists – a pioneer in the fight for freedom and for a better Germany.
Udo Ulfkotte knew the media from the inside. He had a doctorate in social sciences and was for many years a foreign correspondent for one of Germany’s biggest newspapers, FAZ, Frankfurt Allgemeine Zeitung. In this capacity, he spent several years in Muslim countries and got to know Islam from the inside.
Ulfkotte specialised in the Middle East, but as a journalist he visited more than 60 countries. He was a curious journalist, not one to report on conflicts from remote hotel rooms just to be on the safe side. He liked it best where the bullets whistle around his ears. He was fatally wounded several times, including in a poison gas attack during the Iran-Iraq war.
Udo Ulfkotte was well versed in how Muslims think and act. He listened to both secular Muslims and those who belong to the literalist faction of the supposed world religion. Perhaps it was because Ulfkotte knew what he was talking about that his cautionary reports met with such strong resistance in German journalistic circles.
Although Udo Ulfkotte was part of the media establishment, he was opposed by many fellow journalists. Moreover, when he started publishing books, relations with the crowd of traitors became even worse.
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In his book Bought Journalists, he shows in detail how the American occupying power used threats and bribes to get German journalists to spread slander, falsehoods and misleading news angles to German voters. The book was met by the media – with a full-scale advertising boycott. Thanks to civic footwork on social media, Bought Journalists became a huge success with hundreds of thousands of copies sold.
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After being banned from the media’s book publishing house, Udo Ulfkotte published a dozen well-documented books with the opposition Kopp Verlag. Despite his background, Udo Ulfkotte was never “fine-tuned” when it came to contacts with other pro-German alternative media.
In return, his book sales were supported by the entire German alternative right. Despite an official advertising boycott, the media are forced to note that several of Ulfkotte’s books have made it onto Der Spiegel’s “bestseller” list and generated substantial revenues. Udo Ulfkotte’s thoroughly researched non-fiction books will continue to contribute to the success of the German people’s struggle for freedom, democracy and a happier future for many years to come.
Udo Ulfkotte’s eventful career abroad made him relatively insensitive to the harassment he faced after his return home. After he took part in a major TV debate in 2010, calls for his murder began to circulate. Ulfkotte had argued that Germany should immediately stop forcing its taxpayers to spend money on immigrants unwilling to integrate. Unemployed Muslims, he argued, should be deported instead. Shortly after the televised debate, a reward was offered to anyone who could murder the uncomfortable debater. It is said that a national man fights until he dies and nothing the “new Germans” could come up with impressed the brave man, who published and debated continuously until his own death on Friday the 13th.
On the day of his death, the German lying media breathed a sigh of relief. Hatice Ince, an immigrant freelance journalist held in thrall by the rogue tabloid Der Spiegel, was the first to tweet, cheering the death of her fellow journalist. “The year is starting well, Ulfkotte is dead! Here’s to that!”. Once the starting gun was fired, the usual swarm of “gutmenschen”, (moralizing goons), ventured out to demonstrate their understanding of democracy, all in their normal style.
Now when Udo Ulfkotte is no longer alive, Europe has lost a courageous and important writer. Udo Ulfkotte held his cross high and never expected anything but the toughest opposition. A German proverb says “The more enemies, the more glory”. That is how he lived.
More about Udo Ulfkotte can be found at Anonymousnews.ru and on our German sister site Freie Zeiten.
Carl Lundström
carl@lundstrom.com
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Is the following Fake News(,) unfit to publish?
You deside.
Plandemic Indoctornation 1
https://swebbtube.se/w/5yJgdUZZHZRNFNxgen54eb
Plandemic Indoctornation 2
https://swebbtube.se/w/bCGkyLVhLgd1UQMViUBrzU
Plandemic Indoctornation 3
https://swebbtube.se/w/7CENfhGeqjLhcC27uimJBV
Pee wee brains will fall for anything.
Washington Compost?!
There should be a Pace Picante Sauce ad for that.
I wouldn’t pay four cents for emergency toilet paper from comrade kommissar Bezos.
Tear jerking Hallmark storyline tales are always faker than an $8 bill and meant for children.