Comment by johansch | Hacker News Reader

Comment by johansch | Hacker News Reader

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I found this in an NPR morning show:

http://onpoint.wbur.org/2016/04/05/panama-papers-global-corr...

The part I have transcribed below starts at 23:29.

Tom Ashbrook (NPR host): "Gerard, why weren't there more american papers, more american news organizations involved in this investigation - New York Times not part, Washington Post ... not part of it - why not, Gerard?"

Gerard Ryle (Director of the ICIJ): "We found it very difficult to get major US newspapers or organizations to collaborate. I guess they feel that they are big enough on their own, they don't need to do this, whereas we found it much easier outside the US to get people to listen to this new way of working. And that's really,... it's been driven by necessity."

Tom Ashbrook: "Was it because you weren't prepared to share all the data with these papers?"

Gerard Ryle: "No, that's not the issue at all. We were absolutely prepared to share everything from day one. What we want them to do though is join the investigation with us and with our colleagues around the world and go on a journey together. So it's not like go at the very end and give them a fully made story - we make the stories together as we go along."

This contrasts quite a bit with:

http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/04/04/why-no-big-...

'Because The Times was not a part of the global consortium and was not aware that the story was coming, it needed some time to get its own story going. “We didn’t know these documents were out there and being worked on,” he said.

“We didn’t have access to the documents, and that is a very big issue,” he said. But Mr. Purdy said he hoped, and had good reason to believe, that that would change soon.'

I don't read it as a contrast. The ICIJ is apparently saying "we didn't gave them access, because they had no interest in cooperating with us". So NYT's statement that they didn't have access, seems accurate.

As for "we didn't know": it's unclear on which level the ICIJ communicates with newspapers, but it makes sense that happens on a managerial level, not editorial. So it's not that surprising to me that a NYT editor would be unaware of the documents.

The more interesting part to me, is why the editor expects the situation to "change soon". Has management reversed course now that they see how big the story is getting, or are the reporters/editors up in arms because they were blindsided by management?

Your link goes on to say, in a paraphrased quote corroborated by the NYT: "we approached them in the past for a similar story, and they didn't want to be involved in such a large collaborative effort, so we didn't bother this time around"

The NYT can't turn up their noses when they were invited to my birthday party last year, then complain when they don't get invited to my much cooler party this year.

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