He is called a "top German journalist" because writing bad stories about Germany sells and so he must be made important to make this a good story. In Germany he's actually one of the top (and few) journalists concerning stories about Russia and that's it... one obviously often criticised for his work and doing very litte else than covering Russia for quite some time.

Once upon a time (so up to 20 years ago) he however won some awards for documentaries, the last one being for the world-first tv interview with Snowden in Russia in 2014. (Also back then he was already asked about getting money from Russia for more favorable reporting -and denied it- so a decade ago people already knew what his "reporting" is actually worth.)

i dont consider the fact that he wrote books on Putin with a different take as the problem to him being a "top journalist". Germany suffers a lot from manufacturing consent and default attacks on credibility are a part of the problem.

It is more the fact that aside from interviewing and writing on Putin he hardly has any relevancy. I would expect a top journalist to be generally known and continually relevant.

panegyrical

New word acquired, ty.