So the Danish daily #Politiken fired its senior cowboy photographer #JanGrarup.
Interestingly, it wasn't his claim to have fired a mortar shell at Russian soldiers in Ukraine that eventually cost him his job. Much rather, the reason for dismissal was that his self-proclaimed act of war (as well as some other episodes from his last frontline interview) had turned out not to be entirely factual. Tall tales of an old man debunked by fellow photojournalist Anastasia Taylor-Lind and his own fixers.
Former students of the Danish School of Media and Journalism, where Grarup occasionally served as a guest lecturer, will likely remember him for other male tales: sitting in the seminar room with his legs spread wide and a smug smile he'd brag about how he "did coke and fucked women" with certain intl. photo editors.
To the echoing question of why he had not already been fired for such and similar macho statements, we now know one possible answer: perhaps they just never turned out to be false.
chris grodotzki