Mirror scandal: Form follows Function

The form is always the same in major Spiegel reports, dull and boring: the reports begin with the little girl on the side of the road, the old man on the bus, the teenager in the amusement park, the top manager in the fitness club.

These are places where one is normally alone, where a serious journalist has no business - but they are the Spiegel defaults. The editors-in-chief are obsessed with "personally affected people," with the ridiculous proof that Der Spiegel is very close to the people. It has to be "human" and intimate at the beginning of every report - no matter what huge geopolitical topic it may be.

It is a journalistic disease to always have to tell something "personal" in order to really prove to the reader how close you are exclusively and singularly to what is happening.

At best, these statements are based on hearsay and are meant to pay homage to the status of the journalist - how close you are to the powers that be.

Why am I writing this? Because I was not free of such vanity and supposed exclusivity either. The Spiegel scandal opened my eyes to how ridiculous such journalism is.

Der Spiegel exposed itself to ridicule not because it had a fraudulent journalist in its ranks, but because the editors-in-chief set ridiculous standards.

The principle is called "Form follows Function". The outer form of the text is not determined by the content, but by the self-imposed page line.

The top manager who takes out the trash in the morning and separates it neatly then goes to the chemical plant and negotiates with authorities about environmental regulations. Why can't we get straight to the point?

Why this insane requirement that every reportage must begin with consternation, intimacy and individuality? Where there are no intimate secrets, facts must suffice for once.

Eckhard Päckert from Berlin wrote a pointed and perfect letter to the editor of Der Spiegel:

"The special DNA of Spiegel shows from the very beginning the deliberate stylistic exaggeration of the factual into the essayistic-appealing. This aplomb can still be found in the finest textual ramifications of the reportages, right down to the captions.

Journalistic curiosity and a good portion of enlightening ambition, the unconditional driving forces of the profession, apparently enter into a vicious alliance with corruption and pathological craving for recognition in the case of Mr. Relotius, which led him to cross the hair-thin line of demarcation between purely factual and fiction, what is and how it could be even more real and believable."

The ex-Spiegel journalist Claas Relotius is to blame, but the causes lie with the Spiegel's page line and with human vanity. We are working hard in the E-3 editorial department and together with our editing/proofreading department to avoid such missteps.

However, should we ever cross the line and violate SAP community standards, I hereby invite any reader to put us in our place immediately. I can be reached at:

pmf@b4bmedia.net and +49/8654/77130-21.
Thank you!