Smokers' Haze Turns Hoax

So much for investigative reporting. The Hamburg newspaper allowed itself to be duped by a computer company manager, who had said that he fired three non-smokers because they threatened disruptions after asking for a smoke-free environment.

Now, the Hamburger Morgenpost says the story was a hoax, even though it made national and international news -- including, admittedly, on DW-WORLD.DE -- when it "broke" last week.

Stephanie Lamprecht, the journalist at the paper, said manager Thomas Joschko initially told her he had fired the three from his 10-person staff.

Likely thinking that where there's smoke, there's fire, Lamprecht jumped on the story.

"He said he's a chain-smoker himself and said he was tired of smokers being hassled so much," Lamprecht told Reuters news agency.

"He said he was on a pro-smoker mission," Lamprecht went on. She maintained that she had then checked some of the facts of his story last week after he called in his claim. She also discovered that he was indeed the registered owner of a small company in Büsum.

Hoax, or merely second thoughts?

Joschko apparently later admitted to the journalist that his original story was a hoax.

The culprit of the hoax could not be reached this week by Reuters for comment.

But Lamprecht has meanwhile tried to rectify the situation and get to the truth. She said that she drove 120 km (75 miles) from Hamburg to Büsum in northern Germany on Monday to try to confirm the story that has since become jaded.

She said her paper planned to publish an updated version of the story sometime this week.

Meanwhile, Lamprecht might just be thinking that she's gotten her fingers burnt badly enough that she's ready to switch occupations.