Re: <nettime> 'responsible' handling of the Panama Papers

[John Young <jya@pipeline.com>]

So far Panama Papers have been infinitesimal, ldespite the humongous
bloviation: 184 files, 651 pages, about .0015% of the unsubstantiated
mad-dog frothing 11.5 Million.

Papers hosts claim all froth will not be released, to not madden the public,
not like an unspeakable gutter cur WL, but have not yelped how many
will be frothcoming nor when the residue will be disappeared by computer
error handover to government bounty rewarders (at 30% of the taxes
recovered - whistleblowing is top route to top and confidential).

400 shit and shinola Panama Paper withholderss could become Silicon
Alley millionaires by complying with an IRS-NGO secrecy agreement
like Greenwald, Taibbi and Cie by diverting attention from Omidyar-Bezos-Slim
bribing press hallelujah of wealth for fearless journalism and offshore Tor's
faux anonymity Panamanian sting.

Enlarged narrative confections of the itty-bitty evidence, lately jumped
on board by the New York Times by hyperbolized quoting the hosts in lieu
of demanding extensive proof and by sidebarring reports on a Nazi
(HT Mike Godwin) and a Latinista fabulist novelist for jesus-sakes, is quite
Roberto Bola?o, as if that is the last-call Magarita of sclerotic press 
losing
its rocks over big barrels of tequila.

"Panama Papers" must have been voted in over "Panama Channel" by
rigging the Big Box cash registers to exaggerate the value of faux verstand.

Cheers to your pooch, Ted

At 11:08 AM 4/7/2016, you wrote:

>Here's a mail I just sent to a list devoted to discussion of 'responsible data.'
>
>Cheers,
>T
>
>- - - - - - - 8< SNIP! 8< - - - - - - -
>
>Hi, all --
>
>I appreciate that a forum devoted to responsible 
>data is what it says on the tin, but I want to 
>question the reflexive assumption that 
>journalists' gatekeeping role is the most 
>responsible course of action in the case of the 
>Panama Papers. It may be the most *defensible* 
>and it may be the most *professional*, but a lot 
>of other freight can be smuggled in under labels 
>like that. That's basically what Mossack Fonseca 
>did: use anodyne language to mask activities 
>that -- to put it charitably -- benefited the 
>few at the expense of the many. And while it 
>would be grossly unfair to lump the 
>investigative journalists working on the papers 
>together with MF's staff, it is a *fact* that, 
>for the purposes of public access to the vast 
>majority of the documents, the actions of both 
>groups will have the same outcome. And that's a 
>material fact, because it is how many powerful 
>forces will exploit this leak to prevent another 
>like it from happening again -- for example, by 
>intimidating journalists into acting 'professionally.'
 <...>

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