As the traditional media business model crumbles, leading to massive layoffs in newsrooms—with investigative journalism teams often among the first casualties—collaboration is becoming indispensable. Networks with few actual employees but the ability to pool expertise and spread the expenses of costly investigative endeavors across a wide range of partners are making vast and complex investigations possible.
This week revealed a remarkable example of one such effort. About 100 media outlets around the world—including Suddeütsche Zeitung, the Guardian, BBC, Le Monde, German broadcasters NDR and WDR, theMiami Herald, Univision, and many others—began publishing reports exposing a sprawling worldwide system of offshore companies that enable financial secrecy.
Collectively known as the Panama Papers, the reports were based on a leak of over 11.5 million records—perhaps the largest data leak in history. Spanning 40 years, from 1977 through 2015, the leak provides an unprecedented window into the money that flows through the dark corners of the global financial system.
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by Alan Rusbridger for CJR.
Two very big questions linger on—one about whether the very technologies Edward Snowden revealed are compatible with independent, inquiring reporting; and one crucial question about journalism itself, which could be boiled down to: “What is it supposed to be, or do?”
Continue reading.
Image: Wired
“We started Atlatszo in 2011 because the mainstream media in Hungary have become a tool of political and economic interest groups, and it is often not the journalists but the media owners and politicians who decide what can be published.
Commercial media companies become more and more cautious, journalists are forced to avoid sensitive topics. The result is a very limited freedom of the press in Hungary.
There are many taboos, many important stories that remain untold, and numerous corruption cases go undisclosed, even if there are whistleblowers who provide evidence.”
Read the full interview.
nprfreshair:
New York Times journalist James Risen could face prison for refusing to reveal his source for a story about a botched CIA operation intended to sabotage Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
Today he joins Fresh Air to talk about journalism, getting subpoenaed, and his new book Pay Any Price.
“You cannot conduct aggressive investigative reporting without confidential sources. Whistleblowers have to reveal things that can threaten their career or their livelihood because everything is secret and classified [and] in order to talk about almost anything important in national security or the war on terror, people have to take risks in order to tell the truth about what’s going on.
We as reporters have to be willing to provide confidentiality in order to receive that information and report on that information and tell the American people what’s really happening. If we don’t have the ability to maintain confidential sources and protect our sources, then people won’t be willing to talk to us and we won’t be able to find out what the government is doing.”
Photo Caption: A 4000-page petition with 100,000 signatories who support New York Times reporter James Risen sits on a step ladder before being delivered to the U.S. Justice Department August 14, 2014 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
thenationmagazine:
Our new issue is a really good one, we’ve got reporting from #ferguson, on the government’s vendetta against those who expose secrets and a lot more.
“A vibrant democracy is not possible without a free press. Our nation needs journalists who are willing – and able – to reveal facts that make the government uncomfortable.”
–
GARETH COOK, Pulitzer prize for Explanatory Reporting, 2005 / The Boston Globe
More Than a Dozen Pulitzer Winners Call on the Justice Dept to End its Pursuit of James Risen
“The answer to injustice is not to silence the critic, but to end the injustice.”
– Paul Robeson (via justinacuff)
“We do not allow the government to put a stamp on something and use its compulsive power to forbid any citizen to speak of it. Insiders with clearances face civil and criminal sanctions, but I never signed an agreement to keep the government’s secrets. Those are held on the people’s behalf, and there are times I believe it justified – even essential – to make them public.”
– Barton Gellman, Q&A on NSA Surveillance @ washingtonpost
Guardian launches SecureDrop system for whistleblowers to share files
SecureDrop platform allows sources to submit documents and data while avoiding most common forms of online tracking.
“Protecting sources is at the core of journalism, and as the Guardian’s revelations from the Edward Snowden documents over the last year have shown, it’s getting ever more difficult,” said Alan Rusbridger, the editor-in-chief of the Guardian.
“We’re pleased to be able to use the best technology available to make sure we’re doing everything we can to let sources talk to our journalists securely, and hope as many other outlets as possible do the same.”
fastcompany:
With the support of the American Civil Liberties Union, Google, Reddit, and other organizations, Reset the Net asks developers to add security features, such as HTTPS and SSL protections, to deter spying.
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