Always quick to track down what he saw as racist in other people, and especially in another medium, a German investigative magazine Der Spiegelsometimes referred to as “Gestapo of our time” (Franz Joseph Strauß) or “dirt sheet” (Willy Brandt), caught at his own game Significant events: Der Spiegel is the most widely read German weekly in the country after stern, its formidable rival, and has the distinction of being generally taken more seriously. It seems to have failed. And this is not the first time.

Back to the history of the magazine

Der Spiegel considered a centre-left weekly, both progressive and liberal. He published investigations that presented themselves as exhumed, with a search for the subject of explosives. Especially at this time of “buzz” in which we live. A number of Spiegel has 200 pages, every other page becomes an advertising page.

The magazine passed one million readers in 1990, dropping back to its current level of 700,000 readers. His story is filled with sensitive cases, which made him considered by many Germans as a paragon of press freedom. However, he himself, and often more recently, perhaps to counter the erosion of his readership, has been accused of unethical practices. Already, in 1977, Der Spiegel published an 11-year-old girl on the cover to illustrate her inward investigation “lolita”. The editorial staff would make a mea culpa on this… in 2013, admitting that they, along with other media, had contributed, under the guise of a sexual revolution, to the spread of pedophilia in Germany. Above all, Der Spiegel, in 2006, was dismissed in a case in which he accused dynasty publishers Demon Schauberg of enriching themselves on the occasion of the “Aryanization” of three properties belonging to a Jewish family. The publisher points out that these accusations are false.

Claas Relotius, the young reporter and counterfeiter

Closer to home, in 2018, the editors were forced to admit that one of their main collaborators, Claas Relotius, had falsified his articles for years, for example inventing facts that didn’t exist. However, this journalist has received many awards from the media system. A case that caused disturbance far beyond Spiegel. The magazine was forced to apologize to its readers.

See also: Claas Relotius, saint, fisherman, was ostracized from the media community

Touching new case Der Spiegel

This time, the cartoon published on the front page was controversial. Der Spiegel accused of racism. The accusations do not come from militant groups or German politics, but from a vast country: India. Critics from India targeted cartoons published by the Heap newspaper as India was demographically overtaking China, an event which occurred in the third week of April 2023.

The image, produced by Swiss cartoonist Patrick Chappatte, shows Indians in and on a battered train, worthy of a colonial-era train, one that is also overcrowded, a sort of image of a very poor country more than any other. train, China, this time with very high technology: a high-speed train reminiscent of the French TGV.

#racist
Soon India will surpass Germany in the global economy.
Though whole article praises India but one Cartoon is pure Racist @derspiegel @patrickchappatte https://t.co/KBqudZWZ5B

—Rohit Pandey (@I_m_rohit_13) April 25, 2023

India’s Deputy Economy Minister, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, reacted on Twitter by saying that this way of attacking Prime Minister Narenda Modi is a testament to a lack of intelligence. He also indicated that India’s economy will soon be bigger than Germany’s. Der Spiegel prefer not to comment. However, many Indian figures, including ruling party (BJP) vice president Baijayant Panda, have accused the weekly of fabricating “Bashing India, forgetting the Holocaust and giving credence to conspiracy theories about India”or even Kancha Gupta, adviser to the Minister of Information, accusing the weekly of racism, calling the representation of India by the German weekly ridiculous, without any relation to the realities of the country.

👋🏽#German this is so racist. @derspiegel Indian caricatures in this way bear no resemblance to reality. The goal is to show #India down and suck up #China.
It’s as bad if not worse than the racist cartoons in it @nytimes condemned the success of the Mars India mission. pic.twitter.com/z9MxcPQC7u

— Kanchan Gupta 🇮🇳 (@KanchanGupta) April 23, 2023

Kacha Gupta’s tweet takes no shortcuts: “This is very racist, Der Spiegel. Creating a caricature of India this way has nothing to do with reality. The goal is to take India down to suck up to China”.

Losing momentum, like all Western European press, Der Spiegel now basically makes money organizing trips for its readers. Destination ? Qatar. This did not prevent the magazine from criticizing this country during the football world cup. Hypocrisy goes full speed ahead.