Page-long reports about a blogger who won a huge following of awards for her impressive Shoah stories, but who was only using her imagination, are relative compared to the really important issues of the present. But like Hingst, the selfie media also know that business that "sells" as well as the Holocaust, indeed as all the "stories" surrounding the Second World War. Information is now structured according to SEO criteria: if it does, then woman, Shoah, blog, history, fake appear, my God, the click rates are soaring! Unfortunately, for many magazines, the currency of information has long since ceased to be democracy, but rather clicks, ratings and prices.
The Hingst case, like the Relotius case, could netherlands rcs data now be an opportunity to analyze media democracy as a deeply dysfunctional system. It could be an example of the fact that it is not the job of a magazine like "Spiegel" to direct the media hunt at a single person, even if that person has lied, but the job of quality journalism is to comply with the control of those in power.
But in recent years, some selfie media have become fixated on selfie stories and demeaning journalism against the small companies. It's easier: it's better to question the big companies than to research them carefully. Because investigations require knowledge, courage, money and good lawyers. It almost seems as if the "Spiegel" - as the Relotius case showed - can no longer afford or want to do this.