What those crowing about Relotius demise aren’t pointing out is that he was fired and his awards taken from him by the same mainstream journalists they criticize. In mainstream journalism, there are consequences for falsifying your public claims and published work. His superiors at Der Spiegel took swift action when it was discovered and CNN removed his awards.

A thousand times, this! Conservatives love to point out stories like this as an attempt to discredit mainstream news, but if anything, this is evidence of the exact opposite. A reporter is caught making something up. Which is the more ethical thing to do? Fire him, publicly announce why, double check and amend stories they published, retract their awards, and then try to change your polices to lessen the chances of this happening in the future. Or, admit no error, secretly delete stories that might embarrass you, blame any criticism on your political enemies, and then cry persecution.

If Der Spiegel was *really* fake news, wouldn’t they pick the second option and not the first? Also, who found the fraud? They did. It’s not like Pam Geller’s intrepid nose for truth and tiring investigative work found it. Ironically, it’s the second option that Right Wing rags like Infowars, World Net Daily, Breitbart, and Newsmax do all the time. Of course *they’ve* never had a reporter fabricate or plagiarize something because they don’t respond to critics, don’t do internal investigations, and just cover up any embarrassments they can’t ignore. But sure, conducting active investigation into potential fraud and finding some is a sign *they* don’t care about the truth.

Judging from the history of the Bible Belt, for starters, their white evangelicalism must not fall within their own definition of ‘Christianity.’

If a million people believe a stupid thing, it’s still a stupid thing. And if millions believe a lie, it’s still a lie. Shame has officially died in this country.