News

The Panama Papers: A New Face For Investigative Journalism

Story by Kristy Westgard
Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University

Video by Kat Lonsdorf
Medill News Service


The Panama Papers marked a shift away from the traditional lone wolf method of investigative journalism in favor of collaboration, a panel of journalists said Saturday.

Four journalists involved in the investigation spoke about their work in the panel “Panama Papers: Behind the Scenes,” a keynote event of the SABEW 2016 annual conference.

A network of 400 journalists from all corners of the globe joined together under the International Consortium of Journalists to unearth the stories hidden within what’s referred to as the “Panama Papers” — the largest data dump in history.

The investigation connects government officials, business moguls and even Hollywood stars to offshore shell companies created by Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. The findings sparked international protests that have ousted world leaders and elicited calls for further investigation.

“It really was something very unusual in journalism where the people you are normally competing with are now working with you,” said Kevin G. Hall, chief economics correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers and moderator for the event.

The consortium, a global network of investigative journalists created by the Center for Public Integrity, spearheaded the unprecedented investigation.

The ICIJ Panama Papers project was published April 3 after a tremendous and often mind numbing effort by journalists, ICIJ editor and writer Martha Hamilton said. The manpower required to make sense of 11.5 million documents containing four decades worth of records made cross-organization collaboration vital.

“It’s a brilliant model in many ways because we would travel and do things others wouldn’t do and contribute it to the larger project, ” investigative producer Alice Brennan said of her reporting team at Fusion, a news site that targets the millennial generation through a satirical and sometimes risqué coverage style. The organization produced a video that engaged the younger generation by using a porn star to explain shell companies. The video went viral with 3 million hits and informed a notoriously hard to reach audience.

Panama Papers
Will Fitzgibbon, a reporter with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, speaks about the collaborative work on The Panama Papers during a SABEW 2016 annual conference seminar Saturday. (Cassidy Trowbridge/ASU’s Walter Cronkite School)

To keep so many reporters connected, the ICIJ used OxWorld, a sharing platform traditionally used as a dating site. Through this platform, reporters from around the world had equal access to information. More importantly, reporters working alone in their region could communicate and receive much needed support from other journalists while covering transformative and sensitive topics.

“It was a real venue of camaraderie and sharing,” ICIJ reporter Will Fitzgibbon said.

Investigations have revealed nearly 320,000 offshore shell companies so far, but reporting efforts are ongoing. Panelists said resources would continue to be directed towards the investigation.

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