CNN awards journalists for good work with their Journalist of the Year award. One of the recipients, Claas Relotius, just got the boot for making up fake news for the German outlet, Der Spiegel. According to Fox News, he claims he fabricated the stories because he's "sick." Apparently, he feels that he needs "help" for what he did. However, it turns out he only got caught after another journalist noticed some discrepancies.

CNN mocked by former Governor Mike Huckabee

Over on Twitter, Mike Huckabee, a former Governor of Arkansas, USA, and father of President Trump's White House Press Secretary, Sarah Saunders, mocked CNN for awarding a fake news journalist.

He posted, "About right. World's most celebrated Fake News journalist who just made cr*p up out of thin air, was CNN's Journalist of the Year. Karma!"

Claas Relotius of Der Spiegel's not the first fake newsmaker

The journalist, award-winning or not, is not the first to ever make up stores. While he says he's "sick" and needs "help," over on Twitter, some people think that his fake stories are despicable. There's a growing intolerance for fake news since the American 2016 elections.

Historically, other reporters who invented news for the sake of a story included:

  • Pulitzer Prizewinner from 1981, Janet Cooke of The Washington Post. She fabricated a story called "Jimmy's World." It was about an eight-year-old addict. Unfortunately, it turned out such a strong heart-puller, people determined to track him down and help him discovered he never existed.

  • Jayson Thomas Blair resigned from the New York Times in 2003 after he was caught making up fake stories and plagiarising. In several of his articles, he claimed to have been in certain cities, interviewing people, when he hadn't even been there. He later wrote a book about his bipolar disorder. He was sick too, it seems.

Twitter reacts to fake stories by 'sick' journalist

Lots of the reactions about the journalist making up stories actually was directed at CNN.

Although not employed by them, people blame them for promoting a fake news writer. One of the reactions is shown in the following tweet:

Meanwhile, @NRP77 made a sarcastic comment, posting, "Isn’t telling good fairy tales a requisite for @CNN." Then along came the tweets from @KeithOlbermann who came up with a dodgy punchline suggestion.

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