Fictitious Joplin woman part of disgraced Der Spiegel reporter's creations

A story that appeared in German news magazine Der Spiegel in March appeared to profile a Joplin woman who practices what she preaches — in favor of the death penalty, the woman served states as an official witness to executions. 

The woman in the long, five-page story was given a false name, Gayle Gaddis, to protect her identity. That raised the question of whether anyone locally could identify her from reporter Claas Relotius' account.

As it turns out, no one could.

That's because she doesn't exist. Relotius made her up. 

The story of Gaddis is one of several that Relotius fabricated since 2011, according to a report from the magazine. Days after winning the 2018 German Reporter Prize, Relotius confessed to fabrications and falsifications in his work.

His employment contract was terminated, according to a report last week from the magazine. Der Spiegel has also announced it will pursue a criminal complaint against the disgraced reporter, according to a report from the New York Times. The criminal charge is based on a private donation drive set up to help two Syrian orphans he had profiled. According to Der Spiegel, only one of the orphans exists, and donations went into the reporter's private account. 

The U.S. Ambassador to Germany has thrown himself into the scandal as well: Richard Grenell has called for an independent audit of the publication, accusing it of anti-American bias, according to the New York Times. 

The story about Gaddis was one of several high-profile pieces Relotius submitted about American culture. A March 2017 article profiled the city of Fergus Falls, Minn. after President Donald Trump's inauguration. The article started with a description of a large sign at the city limits that said, "Mexicans keep out." 

The sign, like many of the stories and people in the article, were made up, according to a report from McClatchy News Service. 

"There's so little in the story that's factual," said City Administrator Andrew Bremseth. "There were people he totally created." 

The story that exposed Relotius' fakery was about a vigilante group in Arizona conducting patrols along the Mexican border. A co-author of that story sounded the alarm: According to Der Spiegel, co-reporter Juan Moreno risked his own job in order to re-report Relotius claims, saying that people who Relotius quoted had never met him. 

Relotius' reporting and subsequent firing have thrown a publication known for its well-respected fact-checking department into turmoil. In a lengthy explanation published on its site, it apologized to anyone who was falsely portrayed in any of Relotius' articles, to readers, industry colleagues, journalism schools and competition committees. 

"These revelations come as a deep shock to everyone at Der Spiegel — the editorial staff, the research and fact-checking department, the business side and everyone who works here. We are all deeply shaken," the magazine said. "The fact that Relotius had for years been able to slip through the vetting and fact-checking measures established over decades at Der Spiegel is particularly painful and it raises questions about internal structures here that must be addressed immediately."

When confronted, Relotius, 33, said he was pressured to fabricate based on a fear of failure.

An initial investigation found that Relotius took advantage of on-the-ground reporting of things that were difficult to independently confirm. Der Spiegel used the story of the fictitious Joplin woman as an example of the sorts of details difficult to confirm.

In "The Last Witness," Relotius claimed to have ridden the bus beside her, and wrote about how she got nauseated during long bus rides, and took deep breaths and clutched her fists in response. Relotius also wrote at length about a Bible, yellowed and dog-eared, open to the page of Leviticus where it says, "Whoever kills a man must be put to death."

An independent commission with people from outside the company will investigate. The falsified stories have been left up on its website, amended with editor's notes explaining the situation. And a second reporter was recently dispatched to Fergus Falls in order to submit a more accurate portrayal of the city Relotius had turned into a caricature.