ICIJ uncovered $20 billion in offshore wealth linked to Vladimir Putin's associate
Jared Ryle · a16z Podcast | When Journalism Goes Global · Jan 2, 2019 · at 8:14
Gerard Ryle, Director of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), details the key findings from the Panama Papers leak regarding Russian offshore funds.
0:00 / 0:32exact quote · 32.0s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“Yeah, arguably the biggest story that came out of the Panama Papers was that we found about twenty billion dollars that was being funneled through offshore companies, That was linked to a guy in Russia who was the godfather of Vladimir Putin's child. And here was a guy who, you know, had no outside sign of wealth at all. He had never appeared on any radar with any of the intelligence agencies. He was never on any lists of people to watch. He played a cello in an orchestra in Moscow, and yet here he was, the owner of twenty billion dollars worth of money.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Jared Ryle
ICIJ's Russian reporters fled Russia before publishing their Vladimir Putin investigation
“I know our Russian reporters, before we published that story in Putin, had left the country. So when we published, they weren't there. They did go back afterwards. Journalists are putting their lives in danger in some cases.”
Synchronized global news drops force rival media outlets to drive story momentum
“I can tell you, when you publish simultaneously in 76 countries on the same day at the same time, it's like an explosion, you know, because then all of their rivals have to catch up, and so they're all jumping in, and you get this Great momentum on a story tha…”
Investigative reporting projects should be selected based on potential real-world impact
“And the third question, which is a little bit controversial again for journalists, is can we get a result from publishing the story? So if we publish the story about the potholes, Will the councils or whoever's responsible come along and fix it? Can we actuall…”
Mainstream journalists fail to use technology, relying on 50-year-old information-gathering methods
“But also go back to journalists are not making use of technology. They're not gathering information. They're not doing things in a smart way. They're still doing things the way we've been doing them for 40 or 50 years.”
Panama Papers data contained information relevant to the FBI's FIFA corruption probe
“While we were researching the stories, the FBI began to indict officials at FIFA, and of course we were seeing in the Panama Papers all of this information that would have been relevant to the FBI investigation”
ICIJ maintained Panama Papers secrecy by building a private online newsroom
“How we kept a secret was we basically built an online newsroom where all the journalists would go every day. And in this online newsroom, they were able to gather around the topics of interest. But that also allowed them a kind of a venting where if they found…”