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International Consortium of Investigative Journalists

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58-535: The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Inc. ( ICIJ ), is an independent global network of 280 investigative journalists and over 140 media organizations spanning more than 100 countries. It is based in Washington, D.C. , with personnel in Australia, France, Spain, Hungary, Serbia, Belgium and Ireland. The ICIJ was launched in 1997 by American journalist Charles Lewis as an initiative of

116-555: A fortune. The investigation showed how dos Santos and her husband, Sindika Dokolo , built their empire taking advantage of many secrecy jurisdictions. In September 2020, the ICIJ along with BuzzFeed News published leaked documents from the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) that describe suspicious financial transactions across multiple global financial institutions. On October 3, 2021,

174-401: A joint operation, from 1 April 1956 under the name Nord- und Westdeutsche Rundfunkverband (North and West German Broadcasting Federation – NWRV). NDR and WDR launched separate television services for their respective areas in 1961. On 1 December 1956 NDR started its third radio channel, NDR3 (from 1962 to 1973, it was operated jointly with Sender Freies Berlin ). In 1958 Han Koller became

232-566: A number of media organisations. In March 2023, the ICIJ published Deforestation Inc., a nine-month investigation into greenwashing practices pertained by major environmental auditing firms. The investigation was conducted in collaboration with 39 media partners from 27 countries worldwide. In November 2023, ICIJ and 68 partners reported on the financial network which supports the regime of Vladimir Putin . The roughly 3.6 million leaked documents were obtained variously via Distributed Denial of Secrets , Paper Trail Media  [ de ] , and

290-584: A regional station for the north, NWDR Nord (later to become NDR2), and a regional station for the west, NWDR West (later WDR2). That same year, NWDR became a founding member of ARD , a joint organisation of all German regional broadcasters. The NWDR also played a founding role in launching 625-line television in Germany, starting broadcasts on 25 December 1952. In February 1955, North Rhine-Westphalia decided to establish its broadcaster, whilst Hamburg , Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein continued with

348-512: A repository of information on companies registered in tax havens. It uses machine-learning techniques to analyze data. The ICIJ also provides advice on the use of other public databases, as well as research assistance to partner journalists. The ICIJ's collaborative journalism model has been described as a new departure for global journalism that embraces collaboration. ICIJ's cross-border collaboration, involves more than 140 newspapers, television and radio stations, and online media organizations, and

406-529: A separate TV channel for Berlin in 1992, called B1, later SFB1, now RBB Fernsehen . In 1977, Gerhard Stoltenberg , the minister-president of Schleswig-Holstein unilaterally cancelled the NDR-Staatsvertrag , the governing contract of NDR. This caused a discussion on how to organise broadcasting in the North German region. In 1980, NDR signed a new contract with the three Länder, changing

464-700: Is a public radio and television broadcaster , based in Hamburg . In addition to the city-state of Hamburg, NDR broadcasts for the German states of Lower Saxony , Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and Schleswig-Holstein . NDR is a member of the ARD organisation. In 1924 broadcasting began in Hamburg, when Norddeutsche Rundfunk AG (NORAG) was created. In 1934 it was incorporated into the Großdeutscher Rundfunk ,

522-495: Is a form of journalism in which reporters deeply investigate a single topic of interest, such as serious crimes, racial injustice , political corruption , or corporate wrongdoing. An investigative journalist may spend months or years researching and preparing a report. Practitioners sometimes use the terms "watchdog reporting" or "accountability reporting". Most investigative journalism has traditionally been conducted by newspapers, wire services , and freelance journalists. With

580-520: Is a man or woman whose profession is to discover the truth and to identify lapses from it in whatever media may be available. The act of doing this generally is called investigative journalism and is distinct from apparently similar work done by police, lawyers, auditors, and regulatory bodies in that it is not limited as to target, not legally founded and closely connected to publicity." Early newspapers in British colonial America were often suppressed by

638-442: Is called Datashare. It is free and open source. Datashare was developed by ICIJ together with Swiss university École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne . In 2021, Datashare was improved to make 11.9 million records (2.9 terabytes) available to more than 600 journalists. Also in 2021, the ICIJ's technology team built a new open-source platform, Prophecies, to make data fact-checking more efficient. ICIJ's public Offshore Leaks Database

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696-452: Is in part funded by the limited sale of on-air commercial advertising time; however, its principal source of income is the revenue derived from viewer and listener licence fees . As of August 2021, the monthly fee due from each household for radio and television reception was €18.36. These fees are collected not directly by NDR but by a joint agency of ARD (and its member institutions), ZDF , and Deutschlandradio . NDR currently provides

754-723: Is marked by transparency and peer scrutiny. The stories that result from the collaboration are published simultaneously around the world and made available to readers free. The ICIJ is funded by donations. Financial supporters of the project include the Adessium Foundation , the Bertha Foundation, the National Endowment for Democracy and the Open Society Foundations . ICIJ's collaborations have received several awards, including

812-725: Is the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) launched in 1997 by the Center for Public Integrity which includes 165 investigative reporters in over 65 countries working collaboratively on crime, corruption, and abuse of power at a global level, under Gerard Ryle as Director. Working with major media outlets globally, they have exposed organised crime, international tobacco companies, private military cartels, asbestos companies, climate change lobbyists, details of Iraq and Afghanistan war contracts, and most recently

870-641: The Washington Post , SonntagsZeitung , The Indian Express , Süddeutsche Zeitung and NDR to produce an investigative series on offshore banking . They reported on government corruption across the globe, tax avoidance schemes used by wealthy people and the use of secret offshore accounts in Ponzi Schemes . In June 2011, an ICIJ article revealed how an Australian businessman had helped his clients legally incorporate thousands of offshore shell entitles "some of which later became involved in

928-493: The British Zone of occupied Germany, the military authorities quickly established Radio Hamburg to provide information to the population of the area. The British Control Commission appointed Hugh Greene to manage the creation of public service broadcasting in their Zone. On 22 September 1945, Radio Hamburg became Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk (North-Western German Broadcasting), the single broadcasting organisation of

986-431: The Center for Public Integrity , with the aim of exposing international crime and corruption. In 2017, it became a fully independent organization and was later granted 501(c)(3) nonprofit status. The Panama Papers were the result of a collaboration with the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and more than 100 other media partners, with journalists spending a year sifting through 11.5 million leaked files from

1044-485: The Kuhn Brothers and Barney Wilen . Some of these have been released since 1987, while the older ones only exist as rare bootlegs , sought after by many Jazz aficionados. On 4 January 1965 NDR, Radio Bremen and Sender Freies Berlin (SFB) began a joint "third channel" television service, Norddeutsches Fernsehen , later Nord 3 and N3 . Since December 2001, this service is called NDR Fernsehen . SFB started

1102-582: The Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). They contain confidential information from financial services companies, mostly with connections to Cyprus , and show that country to have strong links with high-up figures in the Kremlin, some of whom have been sanctioned. The investigation purports to show "how 67 of the 105 Russian billionaires on the 2023 Forbes World’s Billionaires List used financial services firms on

1160-606: The Panama -based law firm Mossack Fonseca . It culminated in a partial release on 3 April 2016, garnering global media attention. The set of confidential financial and legal documents included detailed information on more than 14,000 clients and more than 214,000 offshore entities, revealing the identities of shareholders and directors including noted personalities and heads of state —government officials, close relatives and associates of various heads of government of more than 40 other countries. Süddeutsche Zeitung first received

1218-783: The Panama Papers and Paradise Papers . The investigative Commons center opened in Berlin , Germany in 2021 and houses the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights , Forensic Architecture , and Bellingcat . An investigative reporter may make use of one or more of these tools, among others, on a single story: Organizations, Publications and People Norddeutscher Rundfunk Norddeutscher Rundfunk ( pronounced [ˈnɔʁtˌdɔʏtʃɐ ˈʁʊntfʊŋk] ; "Northern German Broadcasting"), commonly shortened to NDR ( pronounced [ˌɛndeːˈʔɛʁ] ),

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1276-703: The Panama Papers in 2016, which had 11.5 million confidential documents. In total, the ICIJ won nine awards for the Pandora Papers including the Overseas Press Club of America 's Malcolm Forbes Award for international business reporting and the WAN-IFRA North American Digital Media Award. In February 2022, the ICIJ published the Ericsson List, an internal investigation into corruption inside

1334-543: The White House Correspondents’ Association . ICIJ also received an Honourable Mention award at the 2022 Allard Prize for International Integrity . The ICIJ organized the bi-annual Daniel Pearl Awards for Outstanding International Investigative Reporting . The award is currently not being awarded. GuideStar , a nonprofits evaluator , gave the ICIJ a "Gold Seal of Transparency" in 2019. Investigative journalism Investigative journalism

1392-538: The 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting .  Their work to uncover financial secrecy was nominated for the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize . In 2021, the ICIJ also won a News Emmy along with PBS Frontline for its Luanda Leaks investigation and was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist for the FinCEN Files. In 2022, the ICIJ was awarded the Katharine Graham Award for courage and accountability by

1450-919: The British Zone. The state of Bremen , while surrounded by the British Zone, was given to the United States as part of the American Zone . A separate broadcaster was established for this state, Radio Bremen . However, Radio Bremen and NDR cooperate in certain programmes and stations. In 1948, the Control Commission transferred the Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk (NWDR) to the control of the constituent Länder ( Hamburg , Lower Saxony , North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein ). At first, NWDR had just one radio station, later known as NWDR1. In 1950, it introduced

1508-678: The German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung obtained millions of leaked files known as the Paradise Papers, regarding tax havens , related to the Bermuda-based offshore specialist Appleby . The files were shared the ICIJ and later the media. They revealed that many of the tax havens used by Appleby are in the Cayman Islands. In November 2018, the ICIJ published the Implant Files, the first global investigation into

1566-469: The ICIJ began publishing 11.9 million leaked documents (comprising 2.9 terabytes of data) that came to be known as the Pandora Papers. The ICIJ described the document leak as their most expansive exposé of financial secrecy yet, containing documents, images, emails and spreadsheets from 14 financial service companies, in nations including Panama , Switzerland and the UAE , surpassing their previous release of

1624-594: The ICIJ won 11 awards for the Implant Files. In July 2019, the ICIJ published the Mauritius Leaks , a datajournalistic investigation about how the former British colony Mauritius has transformed itself into a financial centre and tax haven. A whistleblower leaked documents from a law firm in Mauritius to the ICIJ, providing insight in how multinational companies avoid paying taxes when they do business in Africa,

1682-782: The ICIJ, the McClatchy Company , and the Miami Herald won the Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for the Panama Papers. In total, the ICIJ won more than 20 awards for the Panama Papers. From 2008 to 2011, the ICIJ investigated the global tobacco industry, revealing how Philip Morris International and other tobacco companies worked to grow businesses in Russia, Mexico, Uruguay and Indonesia. The ICIJ partnered with The Guardian , BBC , Le Monde ,

1740-590: The Middle East, and Asia. In November 2019, the ICIJ revealed classified Chinese government documents leaked by exiled Uighurs, dubbed the China Cables which prove mass surveillance and internment camps of Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in China's Xinjiang province. In January 2020, Luanda Leaks revealed how Angola's richest woman, Isabel dos Santos , used a network of Western advisors to amass

1798-555: The Radio Bremen area under the title Radio Bremen Text . On 1 April 1989, NDR introduced its fourth radio service, NDR4. This service was later renamed NDR4 Info and since 2 June 2002 has been known as NDR Info . The station is a news and information service for the whole NDR region. On 1 January 1992, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in former East Germany joined NDR as the fourth state in the organisation, where it replaced Fernsehen der DDR and Rundfunk der DDR . The area receives

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1856-518: The Swedish multinational networking and telecommunications company Ericsson . It detailed corruption in at least 10 countries. Ericsson has admitted "serious breaches of compliance rules". In July 2022, the ICIJ published the Uber Files, a leaked database of Uber 's activities in about 40 countries from 2013 to 2017. The documents were leaked to The Guardian , and shared with the ICIJ and

1914-407: The U.S. since the 1980s has been accompanied by massive cuts in the budgets for investigative journalism. A 2002 study concluded "that investigative journalism has all but disappeared from the nation's commercial airwaves." Non-commercial journalism has increasingly stepped-up to work on this growing need for in-depth investigations and reporting. One of the largest teams of investigative journalists

1972-803: The UK newspaper, The Guardian . Based on the Panama Paper disclosure, Pakistan Supreme Court constituted the Joint Investigation Team to probe the matter and disqualified the Prime Minister Nawas Sharif on 28 July 2017 to hold any public office for life. The ICIJ and Süddeutsche Zeitung received the Panama Papers in 2015 and distributed them to about 400 journalists at 107 media organizations in more than 80 countries. According to The New York Times , [T]he Panama Papers reveal an industry that flourishes in

2030-492: The United States. The Enablers Act, included in the annual defense bill, was first proposed shortly after ICIJ's Pandora Papers investigation exposed widespread exploitation of lax financial disclosure rules in the U.S. Governments have recovered more than US$ 1.36 billion in taxes as a result of the Panama Papers project alone, and some continue to collect lost tax revenue. In 1997, the Center for Public Integrity began creating

2088-759: The authorities for their investigative journalism. Examples include Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick and Benjamin Franklin's New England Courant . Journalists who reported on the doings of the British authorities would later contribute to revolutionary sentiment in the run-up to the American Revolution ; one prominent example was the Boston Gazette , contributed to by Samuel Adams among others. American journalism textbooks point out that muckraking standards promoted by McClure's Magazine around 1902, "Have become integral to

2146-489: The character of modern investigative journalism." Furthermore, the successes of the early muckrakers continued to inspire journalists. The outlook for investigative journalism in the United States was improved by the 1960s with the Freedom of Information Act and New York Times Co. v. Sullivan . The invention of the photocopier also offered an assistive tool to whistleblowers . The growth of media conglomerates in

2204-460: The consortium. By 2000, the ICIJ consisted of 75 investigative reporters in 39 countries." In early November 2014, the ICIJ's Luxembourg Leaks investigation revealed that Luxembourg under Jean-Claude Juncker 's premiership had turned into a major European centre of corporate tax avoidance . In February 2015, the ICIJ website released information about bank accounts in Switzerland under

2262-416: The decline in income through advertising, many traditional news services have struggled to fund investigative journalism, due to it being very time-consuming and expensive. Journalistic investigations are increasingly carried out by news organizations working together, even internationally (as in the case of the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers ), or by nonprofit outlets such as ProPublica , which rely on

2320-527: The existing joint system. To this end, the NWDR was split into two broadcasters, Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR) in the north and Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) in North Rhine-Westphalia. NDR continued to operate out of Hamburg. The split was effective from 1 January 1956, although the radio station NWDR1 remained a joint operation with regional opt-outs. The NWDR television service also remained

2378-415: The gaps and holes of international finance. They make clear that policing offshore banking and tax havens and the rogues who use them cannot be done by any one country alone. Lost tax revenue is one consequence of this hidden system; even more dangerous is its deep damage to democratic rule and regional stability when corrupt politicians have a place to stash stolen national assets out of public view. In 2017,

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2436-420: The identities of shareholders and directors which included government officials, close relatives and close associates of various heads of government of more than 40 countries. Because of the leak the prime minister of Iceland, Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, was forced to resign on 5 April 2016. By 4 April 2016 more than 100 media organisations had participated in analyzing the documents, including BBC Panorama , and

2494-407: The international movement of oil, guns and money." In April 2013, a report ( Offshore Leaks ) disclosing details of 130,000 offshore accounts, some of which conducted international tax fraud. In early 2014, the ICIJ revealed that relatives of China's political and financial elite were among those using offshore tax havens to conceal wealth. In July 2019, the Mauritius Leaks showed how Mauritius

2552-700: The island to hide their wealth and keep it out of reach from Western sanctions". The investigation was initiated by ZDF , Der Spiegel and ICIJ, and involved more than 270 journalists from 69 media companies worldwide, including the political journal "frontal", the Washington Post , the Guardian , the Austrian Der Standard and the Swiss research network Tamedia . In the course of the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers investigations, ICIJ

2610-669: The main NDR radio and television stations, plus the regional NDR 1 Radio mV , which has subregions based in Schwerin, Rostock, Neubrandenburg and Greifswald. In October of the same year, SFB in Berlin stopped relaying the Nord 3 television service in favour of its own Berlin 1 TV channel. On 4 April 1994, NDR introduced N-Joy Radio (known simply as N-Joy since 2001), a radio station aimed at 14 to 29-year-old listeners. On 3 October 1997, NDR3

2668-477: The medical device industry that tracked the harm caused by medical devices that have been tested inadequately or not at all. It took a year to plan and another year to complete. ICIJ partnered with 252 journalists from 59 media organisations in 36 countries to examine how devices are tested, approved, marketed and monitored. Anchoring the probe was an analysis of more than 8 million device-related health records, including death and injury reports and recalls. In total,

2726-494: The musical director of Hamburg's NDR Jazz Workshop , which became a popular radio broadcast. Numerous names in Jazz performed on these broadcasts including; Dave Brubeck , Kenny Clarke , Lucky Thompson , Wes Montgomery , Johnny Griffin , Oscar Peterson , Ben Webster , Sahib Shihab , Carmell Jones , Lee Konitz , Cecil Payne , Slide Hampton , Phil Woods , Jazz Composers Orchestra , Howard Riley , Barry Guy , John Surman ,

2784-566: The national broadcaster controlled by Joseph Goebbels 's Propagandaministerium , as Reichssender Hamburg . In 1930, NORAG commissioned the Welte-Funkorgel – a large theatre organ custom-built by the firm of M. Welte & Sons to meet the specific acoustic requirements of radio broadcasting – and installed it in their radio studio (today the world's oldest such facility still in use) on Rothenbaumchaussee 132, Hamburg, where it continues to be played, now maintained by volunteers. In

2842-499: The pattern of broadcasting and creating new regional services. NDR1 was divided into three independent radio stations from 2 January 1981: NDR2 and NDR3 (now NDR Kultur) continued as regional stations. These regional services were further subdivided with opt-outs for specific areas. NDR 1 Niedersachsen established regions based around Oldenburg-Ostfriesland-Bremen-Cuxhaven, Osnabrück-Emsland, greater Hanover, Braunschweig-southern Lower Saxony and northern Lower Saxony. NDR 1 Welle Nord

2900-549: The released data from an anonymous source in 2015. After working on the Mossack Fonseca documents for a year, ICIJ director Gerard Ryle described how the offshore firm had "helped companies and individuals with tax havens, including those that have been sanctioned by the U.S. and UK for dealing with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad ." The ICIJ helped bring about the Corporate Transparency Act in

2958-558: The service remains with Radio Bremen. As the organization responsible within the ARD consortium of German public-service broadcasters for overseeing the country's participation in the Eurovision Song Contest , NDR staged the 56th annual contest which was held in Düsseldorf on 10–14 May 2011, outside their broadcasting area. NDR's studios in Hamburg are in two locations, both within the borough of Eimsbüttel :

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3016-643: The support of the public and benefactors to fund their work. University of Missouri journalism professor Steve Weinberg defined investigative journalism as: "Reporting, through one's own initiative and work product, matters of importance to readers, viewers, or listeners." In many cases, the subjects of the reporting wish the matters under scrutiny to remain undisclosed. There are currently university departments for teaching investigative journalism. Conferences are conducted presenting peer-reviewed research into investigative journalism. British media theorist Hugo de Burgh (2000) states that: "An investigative journalist

3074-644: The television studios are in the quarter of Lokstedt while the radio studios are in the quarter of Harvestehude (though they are called "Funkhaus am Rothenbaum"), a little closer to the city centre. There are also regional studios, having both radio and television production facilities, in the state capitals Hanover , Kiel and Schwerin . The facility in Hanover is now called the Landesfunkhaus Niedersachsen . In addition, NDR maintains facilities at ARD 's national studios in Berlin . NDR

3132-545: The title Swiss Leaks : Murky Cash Sheltered by Bank Secrecy, which published information on 100,000 clients and their accounts at HSBC . In February 2017, ICIJ was spun off into a fully independent organisation, which is governed by three committees: a board of directors, an Advisory Committee, and the ICIJ Network Committee. ICIJ was granted nonprofit status from US tax authorities in July 2017. In 2017,

3190-712: Was being used as one such tax haven. In 2022, ICIJ partnered with the Washington Post to investigate the role of registered agents in Wyoming such as Registered Agents Inc. to enable scams and financial crimes. In 2016, the Süddeutsche Zeitung received a leaked set of 11.5 million confidential documents from a secret source, created by the Panamanian corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca . The so-called Panama Papers provided detailed information on more than 214,000 offshore companies, including

3248-585: Was challenged to learn about and implement various technologies to manage international collaboration on terabytes of data – structured and unstructured (e.g. emails, PDFs) – and how to extract meaningful information from this data. Among the technologies used were the Neo4j graph database management system and Linkurious to search and visualize the data. The data-intensive projects involved not just veteran investigative journalists, but also demanded data journalists and programmers. ICIJ's research platform

3306-491: Was relaunched as Radio 3 , produced in co-operation with Ostdeutscher Rundfunk Brandenburg. At the end of 2000, SFB joined Radio 3. This arrangement lasted until ORB and SFB merged on 1 January 2003 and started its own classical and cultural network. NDR3 became NDR Kultur on 1 January 2003. On 1 November 2001, NDR and Radio Bremen launched a joint radio station, Nordwestradio , to serve Bremen and northwestern Lower Saxony. This service replaced Radio Bremen 2 and control of

3364-497: Was subdivided with studio centres in Flensburg, Heide, Norderstedt, Lübeck and Kiel. Roughly around 1983–1984, The Most Mysterious Song On The Internet (now known as "Subways of Your Mind") was recorded from NDR2. On 30 September 1988 NDR introduced a Teletext service on its N3 television channel. Originally called Nordtext , it became NDR Text on 2 December 2001. The Teletext service also offers information for viewers in

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