Not long after a German newspaper revealed that Germany’s popular Defense Secretary Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg had plagiarized his dissertation, he resigned from office, leaving international news media wondering about this political scandal. German news media had covered Guttenberg intensely, and often favorably, before the plagiarism scandal. Germany’s three leading news magazines Spiegel, Focus, and Stern paid more attention to Guttenberg than any other politician, featuring him in 10 cover stories during his time in the national political spotlight from 2009 to 2011. Using the theory that news carries myth, this textual analysis concludes that Stern and Focus cast Guttenberg in the narrative of the hero myth while Spiegel offered a more critical counternarrative. This study contributes to a growing literature of the use of myth through news and provides evidence for the meaning of journalism as ritualistic communication. On a practical level, it warns journalists not to oversimplify complex political issues.
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