The truth, the whole truth and ... well ...

MORE than one-third of vintage Scotch whiskies tested at a specialist laboratory centre have been found to be “modern fakes”, according to a shocking revelation this week.

Tests undertaken at the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre (SUERC) in East Kilbride confirmed that 21 out of 55 bottles of rare Scotch whisky were either fake or not distilled in the year declared.

The fake bottles could have been worth around £635,000 if proven real, claimed specialists.

All malt whisky samples which had been stated as dating from around 1900 or earlier were also found to be fake.

The SUERC used advanced radiocarbon dating techniques to reach its conclusions.

Researchers measured residual concentrations of a radioactive isotope of carbon present in the alcohol contained in each bottle in order to establish the ages of the whiskies.

The samples had been sent for analysis by whisky broker Rare Whisky 101 (RW101), which said it was responding to “growing concern surrounding the proliferation of fake whisky” in the secondary market.

The bottles had been selected at random from auctions, private collections and retailers.

And the national tipple was not the only fake product to be unmasked this week after a top European news magazine fired one of its star journalists after discovering that he had fabricated facts and sources in more than a dozen articles over a seven-year period.

Taking the concept of fake news to a whole new level, Claas Relotius, a reporter and editor, “falsified his articles on a grand scale and even invented characters, deceiving both readers and his colleagues”, Germany’s Der Spiegel said.

The startling revelation is a heavy blow to Der Spiegel, a 71-year-old publication that’s renowned for its quality journalism and read by hundreds of thousands of people in print and by millions online.

“I’m so angry, horrified, shocked, stunned,” the magazine’s deputy foreign editor Mathieu von Rohr tweeted. “Claas Relotius faked, he cheated all of us.”

After a colleague working with Relotius on a story in the US flagged suspicions about his reporting, Der Spiegel says it carried out an internal investigation. Relotius confessed that he invented entire passages for that article, and also falsified information in other stories.

Relotius, who resigned, said he was sick and needed help, a Der Spiegel spokesman told CNN.

His work had received awards from CNN, but a CNN spokesperson said: “Relotius was not associated with CNN, he never worked for the company and never had anything published on CNN platforms.”

Relotius first joined Der Spiegel in 2011 as a freelancer, and was hired as an editor a year-and-a-half ago.

Der Spiegel said the 33-year-old admitted to partial fabrications in at least 14 of nearly 60 articles he wrote for its magazine and website. That included making up dialogue and quotes and creating composite characters. The magazine warned that the number could be higher, and that other news organisations could be affected.

Forbes identified Relotius as a top reporter last year, including him on a “30 Under 30” list for European media.

Several major features Relotius wrote for Der Spiegel that were also nominated for or won journalism awards are now under scrutiny, according to the magazine.

Among them, “The Last Witness”, about an American who allegedly travels to an execution as a witness, “Lion Children”, about two Iraqi children who have been kidnapped and re-educated by the Islamic State, and “Number 440”, a feature about alleged prisoners at the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Der Spiegel is the latest prominent news organisation to be rocked by revelations of a high-flying reporter falsifying information.

In 2003, The New York Times discovered that one of its rising stars, Jayson Blair, had invented parts of his stories and stolen material from other news outlets. The scandal resulted in the resignations of Blair and the newspaper’s top two editors.

At The New Republic, Stephen Glass was considered a brilliant 25-year-old magazine writer, until he was unmasked as a serial fabricator and fired in 1998.