of journalism. you have people there from every part of the world and they are all talking about the same project and it s a very forceful feeling and we re like a big family and we come in to talk and we trust each other. and i could not believe when i worked in the first one of these that nobody had kind of tried to get a head start on the rest. and that s because you know that you are just going to have so much more impact when you do it together. it s an international firestorm, and it only works that way because we do it together. and there were moments when information started leaking out because the people we were writing to were trying to get ahead of the game on all these projects and try to get their side out before we published. and i remember gerard, who s a director of icij, like a sort of general at the front of his troops saying hold, hold,
yeah, for sure. and i think the challenge of stories that confirm i what people already knewl is that they can sometimes shrug because they re not surprised. - that said, i think there sl a real series of icij leaks, of which is the latest - and biggest, they have caused a bunch of legal action, at least in the states. i i mean, the us, the congress, in pretty large part due - to the fincen files, made it much harder to operate through anonymous shell companies. i that is a real- meaningful advance. and actually the relationship between tonnes of people i reading and getting excited about story and legislative i or law enforcement action, i it s not always totally linear, right? like sometimes you have one reader, but it s the right- reader, it s the chairwoman of the committee, so. - margot, from your perspective, do you think this will lead to real change?
the project takes. we weren t going to ready to publish it before the summer, so we are looking at autumn. so we had to pick the best timing for autumn. ben smith from the new york times, i mean, that s the pandora papers, but you ve had your own expose of sorts this week, and for listeners who don t know, tell us what is ozy media and how did you come to be writing about it? you know, i think i shouldl premise this by saying that as high stakes and global. and really kind of important as the pandora papers were, this is like the lowest stakesj story in the history of media. and i actually think that i that is maybe part of why people liked it so much- and it is sort of a challenge. i worked on the previous icij, the fincen files, it is hard i to get people to engage with those stories, - whereas the story i m - about to tell people really love to engage with, which was about a media company in california that presented itself on the inside - and as the leading millennial- media comp
well, you are already seeing in the us that lawmakers are pushing an anti corruption bill called the enablers act, which is exactly to do with the fact that icij and its hundreds of partners and reported public interest issues, which involve notjust the dirty money of individual people, but dirty money which is facilitated across borders by people in suits, the lawyers, the bankers, the pr firms. and, yeah, that s already happening, so the impact is there. and often, you know, this is a reminder, as everyone has said, of things we suspected were happening anyway, but clearly this kind of publication helps to actually improve things. and all your hard slog has been worth it, is an aspect of that. alexandra, last word to you. do you think that all these revelations actually will change things? well, i think this was absolutely a week that
who s a director of icij, like a sort of general at the front of his troops saying hold, hold, hold and then charge. and you all go down the hill together. let s get to that. i ve seen you describe the whole process is being like bashing at a giant pinata, that kind of idea, which i think is a lovely image. but in terms of the timing of publication, you know, you ve got some conservative party donors and co chair ben elliott, all had their financial activities raked over. as publishing in the week of the conservative party conference. that s notjust sheer luck, is it? well, it depends. that worked out well for the guardian, and we are a really important partner in these investigations because our website is free to access and it s very widely read. and we put a lot of effort into these. so, we have some influence over the timing, but it s also to do with how long