When the Hollywood movie ‘Spotlight’ won the Best Picture award at the 88th Oscar Awards gala, I was the only one who predicted it winning almost a month before, while my colleague’s favorite was the Revenant for the best picture Oscar. Still I was the only one who was completely content in the selection of the best picture after the announcement of the final result while my fellow workers were showing discontent and resentment over the decision.
I knew the Revenant movie was a good thrilling drama that showed the agony of a father for his son’s untimely death and revenge from his friend. But the Spotlight motion picture presented an awesome story. It was the story that became people’s voice in 2001 because it truly mattered to them. Breaking the silence is always a good breaking story that is vociferous, disruptive for a devil to be ashamed.
Yes! Breaking the silence over tormenting, abusing, and violation of human being rights is the biggest service done by investigative journalists from around the world. Everywhere investigative journalists work on the same meditation no matter what color, cast or nationality. They face dangers like being threatened to be stopped or killed for their commitment to truth to bring to the world. They work undercover painstakingly so that their anonymity must remain intact; obscured in finding out the real facts hidden in the dark side of human society.
The Watergate scandal, Contra Cracked cocaine scandal, Pentagon Papers as well as Julian Assange’s Wikileaks, and priest’s child abuse scandal in US are just few of many happenings around the world in the investigative journalism era.
In the modern age of communication where we have already seen Edward Snowden and Julian Assange orchestrate leaks, the Panama papers are the biggest spilled beans in the golden history of investigative journalism. The story of a Panamanian law firm has revealed the elite’s tax havens to the world.
This gargantuan collection is all due to Washington DC based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) who pulled off the biggest whistleblower ever.
It began in late 2014 when an anonymous source made passive contact to the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung reporter Bastian Obermayer and via encrypted chat started to provide him the first tax leak.
Like any leak in the past, this mega leak will certainly keep causing ripples around the world for a long time. The question is that leaks are always leaked from the west which is all about east or third world countries. This make it more dubious when one thinks muse over such documents and its facts.
Panama leaks are the result of a dedicated and untiring effort of investigative journalists in a golden era of investigative journalism yet we live in an obscure world full with conspiracies and atrocities that makes me form the opinion – I can smell a rat….
