|
It’s April 3, 2016, in Washington, D.C.
I’m sitting in a tiny, windowless office into which we’d managed to
squeeze two desks, three computers, a printer and, unusually, a cameraman
with a tripod that took up most of the free floor space.
I’d slept about two hours out of the past 72, hadn’t showered or shaved
in far too long, and I was eternally grateful that my colleague, Will
Fitzgibbon, had allowed me to appropriate the (brand new, unused!)
toothbrush from his desk drawer. In the four small adjoining rooms that
passed for our offices sat the handful of staff that comprised the tiny
ICIJ team, fielding frantic calls from our 100 global media partners and
tying off last-minute edits to a package of stories that we’d decided,
alongside more than 370 reporters around the world, to call the Panama
Papers.
It was relatively quiet, despite the undercurrent of nervous energy. I
don’t think any of us had the faintest idea that, from our humble, dingy
(and slightly noxious) offices, we were about to change the world.
We
published the Panama Papers at 2 p.m. Much of the next few
weeks was a blur. Our phones rang non-stop, and our office became a
never-ending carousel of reporters, colleagues, cameras and security
guards. We watched on tiny screens, all agog, as tens of thousands of
protesters filled the streets in Iceland, Pakistan, Malta, the U.K. and
elsewhere. We raced to keep up with a relentless onslaught of news, from
high-profile political resignations to armed police raids of legal
offices to lawmakers shouting their outrage and proposing urgent reforms
in various parliaments around the world. We lost track of the number of
times we had to repeat our findings into expectant microphones, and we
apologized endlessly to our neglected loved ones as we worked long into
every night, just trying to keep up.
And so we truly learned the full and awesome power of collaborative,
deep-dive investigative journalism.
Exactly five years have now passed, but still the Panama Papers continues
to be mentioned daily in news stories citing new laws, new
investigations, new scandals. It has
become shorthand for the sort of financial chicanery that is now
dissected and bemoaned in a more prominent, regular global conversation.
It is a touchstone for issues like economic inequality and injustice, and
it is a rallying cry for authorities, officials and activists trying to
put an end to malicious financial secrecy.
For ICIJ, the Panama Papers has become just one part of a
constantly-growing dossier of data-driven investigations that continue to
shine a light on the shadowy underbelly of the global economy. From
Luanda Leaks to the FinCEN Files, our investigations have empowered
governments and citizens alike to take action, to expose and punish
wrongdoing, close loopholes and begin to mend the broken systems that are
exploited by a wealthy and powerful elite.
This five-year anniversary is more than just a trip down memory lane. It
is a moment to take stock of what has changed since then and, perhaps
more importantly, what
hasn’t yet changed — and what can be done.
Over the course of the next month, in addition to keeping you up to date
with the latest news from all our investigations, we’ll be taking you
behind the scenes of five years of Panama Papers impacts, lessons and
insights. And we hope that, in doing so, we may also help you see the
far-reaching power of independent investigative journalism — journalism
that needs your support.
Together, we
can continue changing the world.
More from us soon,
Hamish Boland-Rudder
|
