So what is the answer to the question how a German Newspaper became the go-to place for leaks like the Paradise Papers? The article doesn't explain anything. It just states what happened as a list of totally unrelated things.
It seems pretty clear that there is a reason why they got the leaks - they paid attention:
> Obermayer told me that his source for the Panama Papers, whom he refers to as John Doe, had tried to get the attention of several large international outlets, including a U.S. paper, before he got in touch with him. “The leaker didn’t say, ‘Here’s the biggest leak in history, are you interested?’ ” Obermayer said. The first documents that John Doe offered him were not journalistically compelling, at first glance. But Obermayer recognized that they had come from Mossack Fonseca, which he knew operated in extreme secrecy. “I thought, If somebody has obtained data from inside Mossack Fonseca, this could be really interesting,” he said. Knowing the implications of the firm’s name, Obermayer speculated, may have been why he ended up with the Panama Papers.
I once read an interesting article about a journalist who had reported on a lot of corruption in FIFA.
He asked a question at a press conference to the effect of "there are a lot of rumours you are corrupt, do you have any comment?" - but his motivation to ask that question wasn't that he expected a good answer. Rather, he was advertising his interest in the story to anyone who had info they'd like to leak. And just like that, he starts getting tips and leaked documents.
Süddeutsche Zeitung is in a similar position. By handling previous leaks well they've advertised several things: (a) They have the knowledge to recognise the importance of such documents, (b) they consider such content within the remit of their paper, (c) they won't bury the story out of fear of the rich and powerful (or on the advice of a risk-averse legal team) and (d) they can do an adequate job of OpSec and source protection.
For a leaker, the choice between Süddeutsche Zeitung and Teen Vogue is obvious.
I'm not sure how one evaluates that they do good OpSec? Even firstlook failed and accidentally got Reality Winner arrested. So how does one know? Personally the question of OpSec gets more intense when A) I learn they let in a reporter from the New Yorker in to do, well, basically it's a Cribbs episode. And 2) when I learn that the group managing critical leaks is on the same floor as everyone else. Could you please protect your sources at least as well as Apple protects the Animoji release?
This is not true. There are quite a number of reasons to be found in the article. They are just not listed for you using bullet points.
E.g.:
Focus on investigative journalism - << After publishing the Panama Papers, in 2016, Krach declared Der Spiegel’s monopoly on investigative journalism in Germany over. Part of this push, he said, arose from the need to secure the future of the paper. “The only strategy to survive in the long run in this very complicated and economically difficult environment is that we have to differentiate ourselves from others, so that people can find in our newspaper something they cannot find anywhere else,” Krach said.>>
And then further arguments: Success with the Panama papers, etc. etc.
They have them because they published the Panama Papers before. They had them because they recognised the name of a secretive law firm and took the John Doe seriously, which other organisations had not.
Joking aside: Probably because they did a good job with the Panama Papers. So it's a mix of strategic investment in investigate journalism and a bit of luck.
Actually they do a pretty bad job. Most of the stuff they have is only available to subscribers [0] (Watch out for SZPlus). This topic is too big to put it behind a paywall, but in Germany the whole thing is already out of the focus of MSM. [1] (CTRL-F : Paradise)
> but in Germany the whole thing is already out of the focus of MSM
because in Germany the coalition bartering takes precedence at the moment (where, like the election of the catholic Pope, every tiny signal is massively amplified to keep the buzz going), and it doesn't exactly help that Trump spews out new nonsense every other day, and the neo-nazis from the AfD can be counted upon to do the same if there is nothing newsworthy at the moment...
And the AfD is actually a major part of the problem - they have shifted the discourse from "ultra rich vs poor" to "everyone against Muslims/refugees" pretty successfully and that's shame enough.
Not to give the AfD (German right wing 'tea party') any benefits, but the necessary discussion of social allocation of income and such is one that is buried under crap news in Germany as a long standing tradition.
Your analysis is on the point, but I believe that the AfD is more of a symptom and not much of a cause.
Precisely. Most Germans still remember how the socialist GDR failed, and seem to infer from this that anything that is not neoliberalism is bound to fail (or, alternatively, a pipedream of some delusional leftist students that's not worth trying).
At its best, the New Yorker presents well thought-out pieces with an artistic flair. At the worst, you get this kind of "action painting with words" nonsense which adds up to nothing and goes nowhere. I wouldn't mind if they at least added a link at the bottom to some actual information, with a a little note saying, "Oops, sorry we disappeared up our own bungs again!"
