
Süddeutsche Zeitung Became the Go-To Place for Leaks Like the Paradise Papers - sasvari
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-a-german-newspaper-became-the-go-to-place-for-leaks-like-the-paradise-papers
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ImaCake
One of the best things about learning German has been the access to German
news media. I find Suedeutsch Zeitung and a few others hold themselves to a
higher quality than almost any english newspaper I've read. It's good to see
english media take note!

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branchless
UK "journalism" is simply stunningly bad now. When I think back 20 years ago
the gap now is huge. I don't agree with the politics of The Telegraph but
leaving that aside its slide is so sad. They now run stories about characters
in TV programs as though they are actually real. All UK papers are now so bad
I'd advise not reading any, including the FT which is simply terrible. They
cannot die soon enough, the damage presently done by pandering to big bank
advertisers is huge.

I think if you re-incarnated and showed the editor of the Telegraph from 1950
the web-site, just the difference between the background colour of "sponsored"
stories versus actual stories, he'd blow his brains out. Never mind the actual
content.

Do German papers do this, mix paid and actual content and attempt to show the
paid as similar to real? Although this is nowhere near as bad as The Telegraph
following the instructions of disgruntled banker advertisers:

[https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/peter-
oborne/why-i-...](https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/peter-oborne/why-i-
have-resigned-from-telegraph)

~~~
jsmthrowaway
No mention of The Guardian? I have a pretty high opinion of their newsroom,
and donate regularly. They’ve been doing solid investigative work lately, even
on American topics.

~~~
psergeant
Big problem with the Guardian is not making clear enough visual
differentiation between their blogs — where anyone can write any old shit —
and their actual reporting and editorial

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cbcoutinho
How do you know the difference? Is it in the banner or the url?

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gsnedders
I think the only real way nowadays is whether /commentisfree/ appears in the
URL _and_ it isn't clearly marked as an Editorial.

I have a hypothesis that if the breadcrumb says "home › opinion" with no third
level then you're in CIF, but I have no real evidence that that is actually
reliable.

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f_allwein
Really glad Sueddeutsche Zeitung is getting international attention. They
traditionally were vastly important for the intellectual life in Munich (e.g.
many families had a subscription for the printed version and get it delivered
to their doors in the morning). They do do excellent jorunalism, including on
the local area around Munich. So, even though I have lived abroad, I am still
a paying subscriber.

Quality journalism is useful and great, as are the investigative projects they
have been engaged in. Moral? Do support quality journalism in your area if you
can.

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mschuster91
> Do support quality journalism in your area if you can.

And to be fair, the "clickbaiters" from Buzzfeed and friends also do some high
quality investigative pieces, financed by the mentioned clickbait. Makes me
wonder if this will be the future of journalism...

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Maarten88
Where do you think they will cut costs when their clickbait income disappoints
sometime in the future? Also, I think that given enough financial interest,
media businesses like that can be pressured into not publishing/investigating
something. They won't take on big financial interests, because in the end,
readers are their product, not their reporting.

So I sure hope that will not be the future of journalism.

~~~
mschuster91
> They won't take on big financial interests, because in the end, readers are
> their product, not their reporting.

That's the problem we have with nearly all media businesses these days. The
exception are the various public media institutions (eg NPR, BBC, ARD/ZDF)
because they do not depend on advertising, but they are subjected to pressure
by politicians in leadership positions...

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erikb
So what is the answer to the question how a German Newspaper became the go-to
place for leaks like the Paradise Papers? The article doesn't explain
anything. It just states what happened as a list of totally unrelated things.

~~~
michaelt
I once read an interesting article about a journalist who had reported on a
lot of corruption in FIFA.

He asked a question at a press conference to the effect of "there are a lot of
rumours you are corrupt, do you have any comment?" \- but his motivation to
ask that question wasn't that he expected a good answer. Rather, he was
advertising his interest in the story to anyone who had info they'd like to
leak. And just like that, he starts getting tips and leaked documents.

Süddeutsche Zeitung is in a similar position. By handling previous leaks well
they've advertised several things: (a) They have the knowledge to recognise
the importance of such documents, (b) they consider such content within the
remit of their paper, (c) they won't bury the story out of fear of the rich
and powerful (or on the advice of a risk-averse legal team) and (d) they can
do an adequate job of OpSec and source protection.

For a leaker, the choice between Süddeutsche Zeitung and Teen Vogue is
obvious.

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cyphunk
I'm not sure how one evaluates that they do good OpSec? Even firstlook failed
and accidentally got Reality Winner arrested. So how does one know? Personally
the question of OpSec gets more intense when A) I learn they let in a reporter
from the New Yorker in to do, well, basically it's a Cribbs episode. And 2)
when I learn that the group managing critical leaks is on the same floor as
everyone else. Could you please protect your sources at least as well as Apple
protects the Animoji release?

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haraldini
All great, but one thing to question is who influences the "International
Consortium of Investigative Journalists".

ICIJ was launched as a project of the Center for Public Integrity, which is
funded by i.a. The Carnegie Corporation of New York, The Rockefeller Brothers
Fund, the Ford Foundation and a host of globalist foundations.

[https://www.publicintegrity.org/about/our-
work/supporters](https://www.publicintegrity.org/about/our-work/supporters)

~~~
creaghpatr
Bingo, weaponized journalism from some very familiar names. Similar to Fusion
GPS.

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_jal
Have the raw dumps from either of the Paradise/Panama Papers been released?

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johannes1234321
No, and they won't. Reasons certainly include monopolization of the
information but also protection of the leakers and others. Protecting the
sources is one of the key things good journalism has to do.

~~~
mtve
some digital proof would be more convincing, like "at time X we got archive
with merklehash H of all documents
([https://opentimestamps.org/](https://opentimestamps.org/)), and this
information Y is from this source file hash F proved by this tree T".

~~~
johannes1234321
For proving what? - I haven't seen anybody that their reports are inaccurate.
The only possible critisicm might be that they maybe don't tell everything to
protect individuals. (Which I don't believe they do) But even there it won't
help if they publish everything as we can't have a prove it's everything.

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yAnonymous
I think this is more a decision for a country rather than a newspaper. A raid
on a newspaper like in England with the Guardian is pretty much unthinkable
here.

German newspapers are just as biased as those in other countries. Süddeutsche
is no exception.

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Certhas
Do you know newspapers in other countries? Having lived extensively in the UK
and in Germany I can not agree. Imagine BILD being a moderate high quality
newspaper.

Think I'm exagerating? Imagine BILD frontpage with constitutional judges
pictured and headline "Volksfeinde":

[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CwXwe6AXUAQsiCp.jpg](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CwXwe6AXUAQsiCp.jpg)

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caoilte
If they weren't so far lost they would stop to applaud the German peoples'
disdain for state surveillance. It makes Germany a safer base of operations
than the US or UK.

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heavenlyblue
Well, at least they don't try to bad porn over there.

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d2kx
As a Sueddeutsche Zeitung subscriber, yeah I am happy with them.

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danielovichdk
I do believe Germany has the best protection laws for keeping sources secret.
Not sure it says in the article. I haven't read it yet.

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thatsadude
Maybe that German paper is just an outlet of German secret service.

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davidad_
Did anyone else notice the claim that “The computers had never been connected
to the Internet,” followed in the next paragraph by “On another screen,
Obermayer opened iHub, the encrypted Facebook-like forum that the ICIJ created
to make collaboration easier across borders”? Something doesn’t add up here...

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nabla9
They have different computers. Some are not connected to internet, some others
are.

