What do you do if you had to figure out the information behind 11.5 million documents, verify it and make sense of it? That was a challenge that a group of journalists had to face late last year. An anonymous person calling himself John Doe had somehow managed to copy nearly 40 years of records of the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. This is one of many firms around the world that specialize in setting up accounts in offshore tax havens like the British Virgin Islands, for rich and powerful people who like to keep secrets.
Šta da radite ako morate da izvučete informacije koje se nalaze u 11,5 miliona dokumenata, da ih potvrdite i date im smisao? To je bio izazov sa kojom je grupa novinara morala da se suoči pred kraj prošle godine. Anonimna osoba koja se predstavila kao Džon Dou nekako je uspela da kopira podatke tokom skoro 40 godina panamske advokatske kancelarije „Mosak Fonseka“. Ovo je jedna od mnogo firmi širom sveta koje su specijalizovane za postavljenje računa u ofšor poreskim rajevima kao što su Britanska Devičanska Ostrva, za bogate i moćne ljude koji vole da čuvaju tajne.
John Doe had managed to copy every spreadsheet from this firm, every client file, every email, from 1977 to the present day. It represented the biggest cache of inside information into the tax haven system that anyone had ever seen. But it also presented a gigantic challenge to investigative journalism. Think about it: 11.5 million documents, containing the secrets of people from more than 200 different countries. Where do you start with such a vast resource? Where do you even begin to tell a story that can trail off into every corner of the globe, and that can affect almost any person in any language, sometimes in ways they don't even know yet.
Džon Dou je uspeo da kopira svaku tabelu iz ove firme, fajl svakog klijenta, svaki imejl, od 1977. godine do današnjeg dana. To je predstavljalo najveće skrovište unutrašnjih informacija iz sistema poreskog raja koje je iko ikada video. Međutim, to je predstavljalo i ogroman izazov za istraživačko novinarstvo. Razmislite o tome: 11,5 miliona dokumenata koji sadrže tajne ljudi iz više od 200 različitih zemalja. Gde početi sa tako ogromnim izvorom? Gde uopšte da počnete da pričate priču koja može da seže u svaki kraj sveta i koja može da utiče na gotovo svaku osobu na bilo kom jeziku, ponekad na načine koji im još nisu poznati.
John Doe had given the information to two journalists at the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. He said he was motivated by -- and I quote -- "The scale of the injustice that the documents would reveal." But one user alone can never make sense of such a vast amount of information. So the Süddeutsche Zeitung reached out to my organization in Washington, DC, The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. We decided to do something that was the very opposite of everything we'd been taught to do as journalists: share.
Džon Dou je dao informaciju dvojici novinara nemačkih novina „Zidojče cajtung“. Rekao je da ga je motivisala - citiram - „Količina nepravde koju će dokumenta otkriti.“ Međutim, jedan jedini korisnik nikada ne može osmisliti tako ogromnu količinu informacija. Stoga se Zidojče cajtung obratio mojoj organizaciji u Vašingtonu u Okrugu Kolumbija, Međunarodnom konzorcijumu istraživačkih novinara. Odlučili smo da uradimo nešto sasvim suprotno svemu čemu su nas naučili da radimo kao novinari - da delimo.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
By nature, investigative reporters are lone wolves. We fiercely guard our secrets, at times even from our editors, because we know that the moment we tell them what we have, they'll want that story right away. And to be frank, when you get a good story, you like to keep the glory to yourself.
Po prirodi, istraživački novinari su vukovi samotnjaci. Silno čuvamo svoje tajne, ponekad čak i od svojih urednika, jer znamo da će, u trenutku kada im kažemo šta imamo, želeti tu priču odmah. A da budemo iskreni, kada dođete do dobre priče, voleli biste da zadržite slavu za sebe.
But there's no doubt that we live in a shrinking world, and that the media has largely been slow to wake up to this. The issues we report on are more and more transnational. Giant corporations operate on a global level. Environmental and health crises are global. So, too, are financial flows and financial crises. So it seems staggering that journalism has been so late to cover stories in a truly global way. And it also seems staggering that journalism has been so slow to wake up to the possibilities that technology brings, rather than being frightened of it. The reason journalists are scared of technology is this: the profession's largest institutions are going through tough times because of the changing way that people are consuming news. The advertising business models that have sustained reporting are broken. And this has plunged journalism into crisis, forcing those institutions to reexamine how they function.
Nema sumnje da živimo u sve manjem svetu i da su mediji uglavnom sporo postajali svesni toga. Teme o kojima izveštavamo sve više prevazilaze nacionalni nivo. Ogromne korporacije posluju na globalnom nivou. Krize u oblasti zaštite životne sredine i zdravlja su globalne. Isti je slučaj i sa finansijskim prilivima i finansijskim krizama. Stoga izgleda zapanjujuće da novinarstvo toliko kasni da pokrije priče na zaista globalan način. Takođe je zapanjujuće da je novinarstvo bilo tako sporo da postane svesno mogućnosti koje donosi tehnologija, umesto da je se plaši. Razlog zbog kojeg se novinari plaše tehnologije je sledeći. Najveće institucije ove profesije prolaze kroz teške trenutke zbog izmenjenog načina na koji ljudi pristupaju vestima. Srušeni su reklamni modeli poslovanja koji su održavali izveštavanje. To je gurnulo novinarstvo u krizu, primoravajući te institucije da preispitaju kako funkcionišu.
But where there is crisis, there is also opportunity. The first challenge presented by what would eventually become known as the Panama Papers was to make the documents searchable and readable. There were nearly five million emails, two million PDFs that needed to be scanned and indexed, and millions more files and other kinds of documents. They all needed to be housed in a safe and secure location in the cloud. We next invited reporters to have a look at the documents. In all, reporters from more than 100 media organizations in 76 countries -- from the BBC in Britain to Le Monde newspaper in France to the Asahi Shimbun in Japan. "Native eyes on native names," we called it, the idea being, who best to tell you who was important to Nigeria than a Nigerian journalist? Who best in Canada than a Canadian? There were only two rules for everyone who was invited: we all agreed to share everything that we found with everybody else, and we all agreed to publish together on the same day.
Međutim, kada postoji kriza, takođe postoji prilika. Prvi izazov koji je postavilo ono što će postati poznato kao „Panamski papiri“ je postići da se dokumenta mogu pretraživati i iščitavati. Bilo je približno pet miliona imejlova, dva miliona fajlova pdf formata koje je trebalo skenirati i popisati, kao i milioni dodatnih fajlova i drugih vrsta dokumenata. Trebalo ih je sve smestiti na bezbednoj i sigurnoj lokaciji u oblaku. Zatim smo pozvali novinare da pogledaju dokumenta. Sveukupno, reporteri iz više od 100 medijskih organizacija u 76 zemalja - od Bi-Bi-Sija u Britaniji i novina „Le Mond“ u Francuskoj do „Asahi Šimbuna“ u Japanu. „Domaći pogled na domaća imena“, tako smo to nazvali, pri čemu je ideja - ko će vam bolje reći ko je važan za Nigeriju od nigerijskog novinara? Ko će to bolje uraditi za Kanadu od kanadskog novinara? Postojala su samo dva pravila za svakog ko je pozvan. Svi smo se složili da podelimo sve što smo našli sa svima ostalima i složili smo se da objavimo zajedno, istog dana.
We chose our media partners based on trust that had been built up through previous smaller collaborations and also from leads that jumped out from the documents. Over the next few months, my small nonprofit organization of less than 20 people was joined by more than 350 other reporters from 25 language groups. The biggest information leak in history had now spawned the biggest journalism collaboration in history: 376 sets of native eyes doing what journalists normally never do, working shoulder to shoulder, sharing information, but telling no one. For it became clear at this point that in order to make the biggest kind of noise, we first needed the biggest kind of silence.
Odabrali smo naše medijske partnere na osnovu poverenja koje je izgrađeno kroz prethodne manje saradnje, kao i na osnovu tragova koji su proizašli iz dokumenata. Tokom narednih nekoliko meseci, mojoj maloj neprofitnoj organizaciji od manje od 20 ljudi priključilo se više od 350 drugih novinara iz 25 grupa jezika. Najveće curenje informacija u istoriji sada je iznedrilo najveću novinarsku saradnju u istoriji, sa 376 pari domaćih očiju koje rade ono što novinari obično nikada ne rade, sarađuju rame uz rame, dele informacije, ali nikome ne govore. Jer je postalo jasno u tom trenutku da, da bismo podigli najveću galamu, najpre nam je potrebna najveća tišina.
To manage the project over the many months it would take, we built a secure virtual newsroom. We used encrypted communication systems, and we built a specially designed search engine. Inside the virtual newsroom, the reporters could gather around the themes that were emerging from the documents. Those interested in blood diamonds or exotic art, for instance, could share information about how the offshore world was being used to hide the trade in both of those commodities. Those interested in sport could share information about how famous sports stars were putting their image rights into offshore companies, thereby likely avoiding taxes in the countries where they plied their trade.
Da bismo upravljali projektom tokom mnogo meseci potrebnih za to, izgradili smo sigurnu virtuelnu redakciju. Koristili smo šifrovane sisteme komunikacije i izgradili posebno osmišljen pretraživač. Unutar virtuelne redakcije, novinari bi se okupili oko tema koje su se pojavljivale iz dokumenata. Oni koje su interesovali krvavi dijamanti ili egzotična umetnost, na primer, mogli su da dele informaciju o tome kako se ofšor svet koristio da se sakrije trgovina ovih roba. Oni koje je zanimao sport mogli su da podele informaciju o tome kako poznate sportske zvezde postavljaju prava imidža u ofšor kompanije, time verovatno izbegavajući poreze u zemljama gde se bave svojim poslom.
But perhaps most exciting of all were the number of world leaders and elect politicians that were emerging from the documents -- figures like Petro Poroshenko in Ukraine, close associates of Vladimir Putin in Russia and the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, who is linked through his late father, Ian Cameron.
Možda je najuzbudljiviji od svega bio broj svetskih vođa i izabranih političara koji je proizašao iz dokumenata - likovi poput Petra Porošenka iz Ukrajine, bliskih saradnika Vladimira Putina u Rusiji i britanskog premijera, Dejvida Kamerona, povezanog preko pokojnog oca, Ijana Kamerona.
Buried in the documents were secret offshore entities, such as Wintris Inc., a company in the British Virgin Islands that had actually belonged to the sitting Icelandic prime minister. I like to refer to Johannes Kristjansson, the Icelandic reporter we invited to join the project, as the loneliest man in the world. For nine months, he refused paid work and lived off the earnings of his wife. He pasted tarps over the windows of his home to prevent prying eyes during the long Icelandic winter. And he soon ran out of excuses to explain his many absences, as he worked red-eyed, night after night, month after month. In all that time, he sat on information that would eventually bring down the leader of his country.
U tim dokumentima bila su zakopana ofšor prava lica, kao što je „Vintris a.d“, kompanija na Britanskim Devičanskim Ostrvima koja je zapravo pripadala aktuelnom islandskom premijeru. Volim da govorim o Johanesu Kristjansonu, islandskom reporteru koga smo pozvali da se priključi projektu, kao o najusamljenijem čoveku na svetu. Tokom devet meseci, odbio je plaćeni posao i živeo od zarade svoje žene. Nalepio je ceradu preko prozora svoje kuće da bi se zaštitio od radoznalih pogleda tokom duge islandske zime. Uskoro mu je ponestalo izgovora da objasni toliko odsustvo dok je radio do premora, iz noći u noć, iz meseca u mesec. Sve to vreme je posedovao informaciju koja će na kraju oboriti vođu njegove zemlje.
Now, when you're an investigative reporter and you make an amazing discovery, such as your prime minster can be linked to a secret offshore company, that that company has a financial interest in Icelandic banks -- the very issue he's been elected on -- well, your instinct is to scream out very loud. Instead, as one of the few people that he could speak to, Johannes and I shared a kind of gallows humor. "Wintris is coming," he used to say.
Kada ste istraživački novinar i dođete do neverovatnog otkrića, kao, na primer, da se vaš premijer može povezati sa tajnom ofšor kompanijom, da ta kompanija ima finansijski interes vezan za islandske banke - što je upravo problem zbog koga je on izabran - pa, instinktivno vam dođe da vrištite veoma glasno. Umesto toga, kao jedan od malo ljudi sa kojima je mogao da govori, Johanes i ja smo razmenjivali neku vrstu crnog humora. „Vintris se približava“, imao je običaj da kaže.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
(Applause)
(Aplauz)
We were big fans of "Game of Thrones."
Bili smo veliki obožavaoci „Igre prestola“.
When reporters like Johannes wanted to scream, they did so inside the virtual newsroom, and then they turned those screams into stories by going outside the documents to court records, official company registers, and by eventually putting questions to those that we intended to name. Panama Papers actually allowed the reporters to look at the world through a different lens from everybody else.
Kada su novinari poput Johanesa hteli da zavrište, to su činili unutar virtuelne redakcije i pretvarali su te vriske u priče tako što su iz tih dokumenata krenuli ka sudskim zapisima, zvaničnim registrima kompanija, i tako što su na kraju postavili pitanja onima koje smo planirali da imenujemo. „Panamski papiri“ su zapravo omogućili reporterima da sagledaju svet iz različite perspektive u odnosu na sve ostale.
As we were researching the story, unconnected to us, a major political bribery scandal happened in Brazil. A new leader was elected in Argentina. The FBI began to indict officials at FIFA, the organization that controls the world of professional soccer. The Panama Papers actually had unique insights into each one of these unfolding events. So you can imagine the pressure and the ego dramas that could have ruined what we were trying to do. Any of one of these journalists, they could have broken the pact. But they didn't. And on April 3 this year, at exactly 8pm German time, we published simultaneously in 76 countries.
Dok smo istraživali priču, nevezano za nas, u Brazilu se dogodio veliki politički skandal podmićivanja. Novi predvodnik je izabran u Argentini. Ef-Bi-Aj je počeo da podnosi tužbe prema zvaničnicima saveza FIFA, organizacije koja kontroliše svet profesionalnog fudbala. „Panamski papiri“ su zapravo imali jedinstveni uvid u svaki od tih događaja koji su se odvijali. Dakle, možete zamisliti taj pritisak i drame ega koji su mogli uništiti ono što smo pokušavali da uradimo. Bilo koji od ovih novinara mogao je da prekrši sporazum, ali nisu. Tako smo 3. aprila ove godine, u tačno 8 sati po vremenu u Nemačkoj, ovo istovremeno objavili u 76 zemalja.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)
The Panama Papers quickly became one of the biggest stories of the year. This is the scene in Iceland the day after we published. It was the first of many protests. The Icelandic prime minister had to resign. It was a first of many resignations. We spotlighted many famous people such as Lionel Messi, the most famous soccer player in the world. And there were some unintended consequences. These alleged members of a Mexican drug cartel were arrested after we published details about their hideout. They'd been using the address to register their offshore company.
„Panamski papiri“ su ubrzo postali jedna od najvećih priča godine. Ovo je prizor u Islandu dan nakon što smo objavili. Bio je to prvi od mnogo protesta. Islandski primer je morao da dȃ ostavku. Bila je to prva od mnogo ostavki. Usmerili smo pažnju na mnoge poznate ljude kao što je Lajonel Mesi, najpoznatiji fudbaler na svetu. Bilo je i nekih nepredviđenih posledica. Ovi navodni članovi meksičkog narko-kartela uhapšeni su nakon što smo objavili detalje o njihovom skrovištu. Koristili su tu adresu da bi registrovali svoju ofšor kompaniju.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
There's a kind of irony in what we've been able to do. The technology -- the Internet -- that has broken the business model is allowing us to reinvent journalism itself. And this dynamic is producing unprecedented levels of transparency and impact. We showed how a group of journalists can effect change across the world by applying new methods and old-fashioned journalism techniques to vast amounts of leaked information. We put all-important context around what was given to us by John Doe. And by sharing resources, we were able to dig deep -- much deeper and longer than most media organizations allow these days, because of financial concerns.
Ima neke ironije u tome šta smo mogli da uradimo. Tehnologija, internet, koja je srušila model poslovanja, omogućila nam je da preosmislimo samo novinarstvo. Ova dinamika proizvodi jedinstvene nivoe trasparentnosti i uticaja. Pokazali smo kako grupa novinara može uticati na promenu širom sveta primenom novih metoda i staromodnih tehnika novinarstva na veliku količinu procurelih informacija. Stavili smo u suštinski važan kontekst ono što nam je dao Džon Dou. Razmenom sredstava bili smo u mogućnosti da kopamo dublje, mnogo dublje i duže nego što većina medijskih organizacija ovih dana dozvoljava, iz finansijskih razloga.
Now, it was a big risk, and it wouldn't work for every story, but we showed with the Panama Papers that you can write about any country from just about anywhere, and then choose your preferred battleground to defend your work. Try obtaining a court injunction that would prevent the telling of a story in 76 different countries. Try stopping the inevitable.
Bio je to veliki rizik i ne bi funkcionisalo kod svake priče, ali sa „Panamskim papirima“ smo pokazali da možete pisati o bilo kojoj zemlji sa gotovo bilo sa kog mesta, a zatim odabrati bojno polje koje želite da biste odbranili svoj rad. Pokušajte da dobijete sudsku zabranu koja bi sprečila objavljivanje priče u 76 različitih zemalja. Pokušajte da zaustavite neizbežno.
Shortly after we published, I got a three-word text from Johannes: "Wintris has arrived."
Ubrzo nakon što smo objavili, dobio sam poruku od tri reči od Johanesa: „Vintris je stigao.“
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
It had arrived and so, too, perhaps has a new era for journalism.
Stigao je, a možda je stigla i nova era novinarstva.
Thank you.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)
Bruno Giussani: Gerard, thank you.
Bruno Đusani: Džerarde, hvala ti.
I guess you're going to send that applause to the 350 journalists who worked with you, right?
Pretpostavljam da ćeš uputiti taj aplauz 350 novinara koji su radili sa tobom, zar ne?
Now, a couple of questions I would like to ask. The first one is, you'd been working in secrecy for over a year with 350-something colleagues from all over the world -- was there ever a moment when you thought that the leak may be leaked, that the collaboration may just be broken by somebody publishing a story? Or somebody not in the group releasing some information that they got to know?
E, sad, hteo bih da ti postavim par pitanja. Prvo je - radio si u tajnosti tokom više od godinu dana sa 350 i nešto kolega sa svih strana sveta - da li se ikada pojavio trenutak kada si pomislio da bi curenje moglo procureti, da bi se saradnja mogla srušiti time što bi neko objavio priču, ili time što bi neko ko nije u grupi pustio neku informaciju za koju bi saznao?
Gerard Ryle: We had a series of crises along the way, including when something major was happening in the world, the journalists from that country wanted to publish right away. We had to calm them down. Probably the biggest crisis we had was a week before publication. We'd sent a series of questions to the associates of Vladimir Putin, but instead of responding, the Kremlin actually held a press conference and denounced us, and denounced the whole thing as being, I guess, a plot from the West. At that point, Putin thought it was just about him. And, of course, a lot of editors around the world were very nervous about this. They thought the story was going to get out. You can imagine the amount of time they'd spent, the amount of resources, money spent on this. So I had to basically spend the last week calming everyone down, a bit like a general, where you're holding your troops back: "Calm, remain calm." And then eventually, of course, they all did.
Džerard Rajl: Usput smo imali niz kriza, uključujući to da, kada se nešto veliko dešava u svetu, novinari iz te zemlje hoće odmah da objave priču. Morali smo da ih smirujemo. Verovatno najveća kriza koju smo imali desila se nedelju dana pre objavljivanja. Postavili smo niz pitanja saradnicima Vladimira Putina, ali umesto da odgovori, Kremlj je zapravo održao konferenciju za štampu, osudio nas i osudio celu tu stvar kao, pretpostavljam, zaveru sa Zapada. U tom trenutku, Putin je mislio da se radi samo o njemu, Naravno, mnogi urednici širom sveta bili su veoma nervozni zbog ovoga. Mislili su da će priča isplivati. Možete da zamislite količinu vremena koju su proveli, količinu sredstava, novac koji je potrošen na ovo. Tako sam u suštini morao da provedem poslednju nedelju smirujući sve ostale, pomalo kao general, dok zadržava svoje čete: „Mirno, ostanite mirni.“ Zatim su se na kraju, naravno, svi smirili.
BG: And then a couple weeks ago or so, you released a lot of the documents as an open database for everybody to search via keyword, essentially.
BĐ: Zatim ste pre par nedelja ili tako nešto objavili mnogo dokumenata kao otvorenu bazu podataka koju svako može da pretražuje pomoću ključnih reči, u suštini.
GR: We very much believe that the basic information about the offshore world should be made public. Now, we didn't publish the underlying documents of the journalists we're working with. But the basic information such as the name of a person, what their offshore company was and the name of that company, is now all available online. In fact, the biggest resource of its kind basically is out there now
DžR: Mi snažno verujemo da osnovne informacije o ofšor svetu treba da se obelodane. Nismo objavili dokumenta u osnovi toga koja pripadaju novinarima sa kojima radimo. Međutim, osnovne informacije kao što su ime osobe, kakva je bila njena ofšor kompanija i ime te kompanije sada su dostupne na internetu. U stvari, najveći resurs svoje vrste je u suštini dostupan tamo.
BG: Gerard, thank you for the work you do.
BĐ: Džerarde, hvala ti na tvom radu.
GR: Thank you.
DžR: Hvala tebi.
(Applause)
(Aplauz)