Davids Medienkritik: Der Spiegel Scandal: Relotius' Inventions Simply Reflect The Anti-American Boogeyman His Editors Have Demanded for Decades

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the entire Spiegel-Relotius scandal is that the lies and fabrications that he fed to his editors back in Germany were not random in the least. They followed a precisely constructed blueprint of stereotypes nourished for decades by the anti-American editors and media and political elites in Germany.

Der Spiegel's Enemy Has Many Faces and One Name: "Amerika"

In a nutshell, the Relotius lies and fabrications reflected exactly the American boogeyman that has been sold to Germans for years now. We even put together a list of these stereotypes in 2008 - THIS IS NOTHING NEW - and they are still current today if you simply replace the word "Bush" with Trump".

Stereotypes most favored by Spiegel staff include:

Americans are overbearing war-mongers bent on global domination who falsely claim they are spreading democracy when they are just spreading McDonalds and trying to control more oil fields
Americans are heartless purveyors of capitalism, neglect the poor, and reject social safety nets
Americans are trying to spread their superficial bubble gum, Disney, Hollywood culture worldwide to the detriment of all indigenous peoples - including even the Germans
Americans are xenophobic racists
Americans are blindly patriotic, flag waving, USA-chanting, mind-numbed robots
Americans are militaristic gun nuts - everyone outside New York and Washington is packing machine guns
Americans are obese fast-food gluttons
Americans are hyper-religious Bible-thumping zealots who reject European humanism
Americans don't care about the rest of the world or the environment (if only they could be environmental champions like the Germans!)
Every current and recent military conflict involving the United States = Vietnam = quagmire = defeat
The death penalty - did we mention the death penalty?
Guantanamo - can we still talk about Guantanamo???

In fact, the reason that Mr. Relotius was not caught sooner is because his absurd contortion of reality was NOT absurd to his editors - it was a precise reflection of the "ugly America" that they have constructed and come to demand in an effort to maximize profit and keep readers supplied with their regular fix of resentment.

In a recently published article on Z-Man blog (via American Thinker), the author correctly notes that:

That's always the thing with these scandals. The media big shots always come off as if they have been insulted about their shenanigans being revealed. In this case, the other major media outfits are rallying to defend Der Spiegel. In the dreaded private sector, competitors are always quick to take advantage of the mistakes of a competitor. In the main stream media, the opposite is always true. They circle the wagons and begin lecturing the hoi polloi about the dangers of questioning the media.

That is the real cause of these scandals. For a long time, the mass media in the West has been a mono-culture. You can't have a career in the media if you don't hold all the right opinions. To call the media an echo chamber for the left is to understate the problem. The better analogy is a school of fish. Each individual just reacts to those around him, giving the effect of the school having agency as a whole. What looks like collusion is just the result of a uniformity of mind, experience and social class.

Now allow us to remind our readers of past Spiegel articles (view our complete archive here) - all of which should be investigated for inaccuracies and fabrications as well...

From 2010:

Der Spiegel Commentary: Obama Failing because of "Hate-Mongers, Gun Freaks and Tea Party Demagogues"

A wonderful and unbiased analysis by master Amerika Experte and Spiegel author Klaus Brinkbäumer as to why Barack Obama is no longer as popular as he once was - (complete with a photo gallery compiled to feed the deeply ingrained stereotypes and Feindbilder of the German left.)

Or 2008:

Der Spiegel Cover: "The Price of Arrogance: An Economic Crisis Changes the World" (Demeaning the Statue of Liberty has obviously become a favorite cover motif at DER SPIEGEL)

Case in point: When SPIEGEL attempted to exploit the current economic crisis with another decidedly anti-American cover and feature article with all the usual anti-American clichés designed to pander to the magazine's predominantly anti-American German readership, English-language readers spoke out. The headline quickly changed from "America's arrogance" to "Is America Arrogant?"

And let's not forget our 2005 write-up on the somewhat similar SPIEGEL "expose" on Kannapolis, North Carolina.

And now just finishing our tour of the tip-of-the-iceberg - let's not forget SPIEGEL's admission to Jeff Gedmin in 2004 that the anti-American stereotypes are editors "just trying to please our million readers." Gedmin's 2004 work "Mad About Us" is just as relevant now as at any time.

The examples go on and on and on.

Some things just never change...sad but true...