Showing posts with label International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). Show all posts
Showing posts with label International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). Show all posts

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

“A remarkable feat of collaboration”: The incredible story of how the Panama Papers came to be; The Conversation via Salon, 4/6/16

Richard Sambrook, The Conversation via Salon; “A remarkable feat of collaboration”: The incredible story of how the Panama Papers came to be:
"The ICIJ has been criticised by some on social media for not putting all the material into the open for anyone to look through. For open media evangelists this would be the most transparent action to take. However, with such a huge trove of documents, any media organisation will want to ensure they act legally and responsibly – putting the material through an editorial and legal filter before publishing.
This is one of the defining differences between professional media and open data activists. In broad terms these are literally stolen documents – can news organisations justify publishing them in the greater public interest? Will undue harm to innocent figures be caused by open publication? The public interest seems clear in this case – but without knowing what else the documents contain it is hard to make a judgement about whether they should all be placed online.
The Panama Papers – like The Pentagon Papers in the 1970s, like Wikileaks Iraq War logs and like the Snowden revelations – lifts the lid on the activities of political and business elites in ways which will be discussed for many years to come.
They are also a rich example of how investigative journalism increasingly works in the age of big data and global media. We can expect to see more leaks, more international media collaborations and more reaction from governments trying to clamp down on embarrassing revelations."

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

What are the Panama Papers? A guide to history's biggest data leak; Guardian, 4/5/16

Luke Harding, Guardian; What are the Panama Papers? A guide to history's biggest data leak:
"The Panama Papers are an unprecedented leak of 11.5m files from the database of the world’s fourth biggest offshore law firm, Mossack Fonseca. The records were obtained from an anonymous source by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The ICIJ then shared them with a large network of international partners, including the Guardian and the BBC.
What do they reveal?
The documents show the myriad ways in which the rich can exploit secretive offshore tax regimes. Twelve national leaders are among 143 politicians, their families and close associates from around the world known to have been using offshore tax havens."