Blizzard warnings in Northwest Minnesota, winter weather advisories across the state

MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all. 

Turn Up Your Support

Looking back now, it should have been obvious that Claas Relotius was ginning up his stories for the German magazine Der Spiegel, stories for which he won award after award until he was fired on Wednesday.

In 2017, he said he spent a month in Fergus Falls, Minn., getting to know the people who overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump.

If you spend a month in Fergus Falls, you don't need to make up stories about its people. And it's not like the people of Fergus Falls wouldn't notice.

“Claas Relotius committed his deception intentionally, methodically,” 

, claiming he made up dialogue in his stories with people he never talked to and “composite characters of people who actually did exist but whose stories Relotius had fabricated.”

He fabricated stories like Neil Becker, who works in a coal mine that doesn't exist in Fergus Falls. Neither does Neil Becker.

None of this would have been exposed if not for Michele Anderson and Jake Krohn, of Fergus Falls, who spent a year researching the characterization of their corner of paradise and the reporter who wanted to understand rural America, one small town at a time.

"There are only two things those writers seem to have concluded or are able to pitch to their editors — we are either backwards, living in the past and have our heads up our asses, or we’re like dumb, endearing animals that just need a little attention in order to keep us from eating the rest of the world alive," they wrote in their 

Medium.com article exposing the fraud this week.

Indignant Minnesotan is coming for all the state's haters

"There’s really nothing like this feeling — knowing that people in another country have read about the place I call home and are shaking their heads over their coffee in disgust, sharing the article on Facebook and Twitter, and making comments on the online article like 'creepy,' and 'these are the people who don’t believe electricity exists.'”

They ranked 11 of his lies, including the claim the sign to the entrance of town says "Welcome to Fergus Falls, home of damn good folks." It is. But it doesn't.

Here's Claas' description (translated) of the city administrator.

He got the age right. And where he went to school. And that he's a native of Fergus Falls. The rest? Lies.

No, the town is not obsessed with “American Sniper” (it played for one month in 2015, Anderson and Krohn said), the library is not a former kindergarten and there was never an iPad for beginners class, there are no armored doors at the town hall, there was no Super Bowl viewing party at the pizza shop. And on and on.

Anderson says she would've liked to have been in the article. But he blew her off when she tried to talk with him.

Don't 'Fargo' us, man

And that’s the thing: There were actually interesting things — true things — about the people of Fergus Falls that would've made his story sing.

Too late now, of course. Relotius is out of a job and his reputation is shot all the way to Pelican Rapids.

The article, however, lies and all, is still online.

Der Spiegel says it has added notes to Relotius’ articles, indicating they will not be changed until its investigation is completed. If there's one attached to the Fergus Falls article, one only sees it after one pays a buck-and-a-half to read it.

NewsCut

Bob Collins

Author

Looking back now, it should have been obvious that Claas Relotius was ginning up his stories for the German magazine Der Spiegel, stories for which he won award after award until he was fired on Wednesday.


German reporter messes with Fergus Falls. Now, he’s out of a job

Go Deeper.

Like this?