Is there any information in there about Americans that would alter the course of the Presidential election? And if so—what is it/ who is it?

that would alter the course of the Presidential election?

As far as we know - no. But: we are still digging.

What data, in your opinion so far, has been the least reported on by mainstream media that has the largest consequences?

We think the most important stories of the leak got the attention they deserved. At least as far as we can see. But of course we can't overlook all the published stories in nearly 80 countries. Do you think there is a story that the media should have reported more on?

When you guys saw the scope of what you were uncovering, did you worry that releasing information against powerful people would cause you issues?

Of course we were and still are worried. But we know that Germany is a pretty safe country for journalists. We are more concerned about our colleagues in other regions of the world, like Russia, Africa, Latin America...

Thank you for your work.

I am wondering if you are planning to release the raw data ? If you black out private data ( passports, bank accounts ), you are probably not interfering with the privacy of those people.

Thank you for your question! We are not going to release the raw data and we have valid reasons to do so. The source decided to give the data to journalists and not, f.e., to Wikileaks. As journalists, we have to protect our source: We cant guarantee that there is no way for someone to find out who the source is with the data. Thats why we cant make the data public.

And as responsible journalists we also stick to certain ethical rules: You dont harm the privacy of people, who are not in the public eye. Blacking out private data is a task, that would require a lifetime of work - we have eleven million documents!

How did you decide which other news organisations to work with on the story? What was it like knowing about it for a year before anything was released?

How did you decide which other news organisations to work with on the story?

It took us quite some time to decide on that and we made these decisions together with the ICIJ. To trust the partners was extremely important for us. Thats why ICIJ firstly contacted partners we had already worked with.

It was less important for us how big the news outlet is. What mattered more was their expertise, their willingness to cooperate and their awareness for security issues. We also tried to have journalists from a lot of different countries on our team to make this a global project.

What was it like knowing about it for a year before anything was released?

Sometimes almost bizarre and often difficult. We work at a daily newspaper - to work on a story for that long amount of time was quite extraordinary. We almost didnt write anything in the last year!

And at the same time we were not able to talk about our work at all. Not with friends, not with co-workers, not with family. People even made fun of us cause we had to be so secretive.

At christmas, Bastians sister even joked if he was allowed to reveal his cookie recipe or if that was a secret as well...

(Bastian and Frederik)

so when will you release the cookie recipe...

Sorry, some things have to be kept as a secret.... (Bastian)

Any idea why there are practically speaking no high profile Americans subject to the panama papers leak? Do we suspect there is another company out there they must be using? Do we suspect any one specifically of harboring them? Or, are there americans subject to the panama leak most haven't heard of?

Mossack Fonseca did not focus on american clients, as they told AP recently.

Still, there were hundreds of Americans in the documents, but we did not find as many "high profile" ones as in other countries.

Which celebrity involved shocked you the most? Also, how deep is Lionel Messi in trouble?

Also, how deep is Lionel Messi in trouble?

There is already a court case against Messi. The hearing was postponed after the Panama Papers got published because we found another shell company that Messi was involved in. So the prosecutor is going to look into that. So Messi was in trouble even before the PP, but the new revelations definitely didnt help him. But of course we dont know what the official prosecutors are going to decide.

How does working on such a secretive project impact your personal lives? for instance what do you tell someone when they ask how your day at work has been, or what you've been working on.

We tried to be vague. And we tried to make our work sound as boring as possible, so that no one wants to ask anymore questions. It worked most of the time.

What's the most ridiculous thing you've found so far?

We had a really good laugh when we found out that Mossack Fonseca addressed some of his very secretive clients by code names like "Winnie Pooh" or "Harry Potter".

Sth like that: "I refer to a meeting with Harry Potter"

Hilarious!

Hi,

I have a few questions for you:

1. Does anyone else besides yourselves have a full copy of that data (eg the other 100 media organisations/400 journalists?), if so how would you stop one of them leaking the data to the world?
2. I had wondered about the legitimacy of that data. Obviously some of it must be good otherwise we wouldn't have seen people resign over the leaks etc. How can you verify the authenticity of each article/document? How would we know if one of the stories that came out was fabricated or incorrect?
3. Finally, how did you agree who was getting which stories or have you split the data up between everyone? If so how did that work? Did some media outlets think they should get more or better stories etc?

Thanks!

Edit: Missed 2 words!

We cant comment on your first question since it concerns the safety of our data. And we already answered question two in a comment above.

Finally, how did you agree who was getting which stories or have you split the data up between everyone? If so how did that work? Did some media outlets think they should get more or better stories etc?

Really important question! All partners had access to the whole data-set. There was no division of stories or documents. Every journalist was free to report an anything they wanted. We also talked openly about our findings and shared them with each other.

Great work by your team.

Can you speak a little about your technology and how you are actually parsing through 2.6TB of data?

Technically speaking the leaked data is unstructured, that means we had different file types - mails, .tiff and .jpg, .pdf,... - and the data had to be indexed systematically in order to make searching possible. Further, it was important to make pictures (scanned passports, contracts with signatures!) searchable. It's called OCR, optical character recognition. We at Süddeutsche Zeitung used the software Nuix (Thanks Nuix!). Further, the ICIJ set up a new database for all our partners. I think the most important thing was to enable all 400 journalists to search through the documents easily. They were also able to use "batch searching" techniques - so the journalist put names on a list and ran it through the data. I remember the day when ICIJ announced that nearly all the documents are searchable: That day we and our international partners had lots of great findings. (Vanessa)

Fair play to you and all your colleagues for sharing this info with the world. My question is: when this information was given to you initially, what was your reaction? Were you worried it was all false and how difficult was it to verify the information? Thanks!

We were thrilled and skeptical at the same time. But we were able to verify the parts of the data we reported on through various sources, f.e. court documents, public registries, former leaks and in the end also interviews.

How do you deal with the people saying that this whole leak was plannend by western media to hurt Russia?

We got over eleven million documents with thousands of stories in it. Why would someone leak this huge amount of data if he wants only a certain story to be published? He couldnt even be sure we would find this particular story!

"He." "He" couldn't even be sure we would find this particular story.

That narrows the whistleblower down to only 3.5 billion people. Get on the case, Reddit!

We typed too quickly. Our bad. To be precise: He, she, it or they.

At the peak, how many people have had to dig through the source material to find things?

It started with just the two of us, Bastian and Frederik. In May 2015 we were around 40 people worldwide and at the end of the year almost 400 people. And these were only the people who worked with the data itself. Each news outlet had a lot more staff that was working on different aspects of the story - like design, publishing or reporting on the ground, researching different aspects. (Bastian and Frederik)

How do you keep such a large story/break so quiet, especially with 400 people intimately digging through these documents? Absolutely fascinating!

It really is fascinating! We are actually astonished how well it worked. We were quite sure that a couple of stories would leak before the official publishing date. That didnt happen. So I guess most of us sticked to the most important rule of our project: Shut up and encrypt.

a lot more staff that was working on different aspects of the story - like design, publishing or reporting on the ground

How informed were they? How did you brief the designers, for example? Was ist along the lines of "So, we need a nice graphic with Putin, the Icelandic PM, and a football player... Messi would be good."?

At a certain point everybody involved with the project - such as the graphic designer Peter Hoffmann - had to use PGP-encryption. Imagine how difficult it was to educate an online-team that is used to save everything to top-secret Google drive ;). But we knew about the importance of the visual approach, thus we had to give them a general overview of the stories. (Vanessa)

I understand you used Nuix to process, index, and analyze the 11.5 million documents totaling 2.6 terabyte of data. Carl Barron has stated that the initial indexing of the material started in September of 2015 and took about 2 weeks (https://youtu.be/31suMWkgdo4?t=1m45s), and journalists started then with their work to “connect the dots”. What other software did you use? What was your working procedure with hundreds of collaborators? Was every journalist free to follow their own lead? What rules were set / incentives provided for journalists to put work into the project and prevent free-riding?

The ICIJ has a great data unit and they are specialized in building searchable databases for all the partners. You should take a look at this presentation about the ICIJ's "leak refinery": https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1eBFXwm24frHZAbBgKXLPkxH4o2NEWJlDHQJA6_I4784/edit#slide=id.p

Thanks for doing this and your work. On the TV show Lanz you mentioned that Edward Snowden broke the news before you could. Do you know who of your colleagues told him and if him tweeting about it was an accident?

We don't have a clue. But as a former NSA-employer, Snowden certainly has his methods. ;)

Are you worried in any way about your future careers?

Happy cake day!

And no, we are not really worried about our future careers. Is there any reason we should? Is there anything we don't know??? If yes, please tell us!

Do you know why SZ newspaper was chosen in particular as opposed to say Wikileaks?

We dont want to speculate. But obviously the source wanted the data to be handled by journalists.

1. As investigative journalists, is there data or information that you do not understand, and require knowledge of basic finance in order to sort through the Panama Papers?
2. What are your reactions regarding countries that are cracking down on news about Panama Papers?

As investigative journalists, is there data or information that you do not understand, and require knowledge of basic finance in order to sort through the Panama Papers?

Of course we didnt unterstand everything at first sight. But whenever we struggled with certain details we contacted external experts, f.e. for money laundering, tax planning or sanctions.

How much more do you think is lurking in the dataset that you haven't discovered yet? Or, how are you thinking about this problem of determining when you're "done"?

Great question! This is the biggest downside of the project: We will never be done. Ever!

Seriously, we don't know what stories are still in the data-set. We will continue to use the data-set, for example when some people are becoming of public interest that haven't been before.

Firstly - thank you for taking questions and putting together this AMA.

The implications that the Panama Papers are exposing are obviously serious and HUGE. Public confirmation of widespread abuse in terms of powerful players keeping finances in tax havens is sort of like exposing that the monster under our bed is real (REALLY REALLY REAL), with first hand proof.

1. Now that we the public is (somewhat)aware, what do you think is the next step to punish/prevent abuse going forward and the possible fallout of these released documents?

2. In your opinions, where does tax evasion and money laundering compare among other serious criminal charges?

Now that we the public is (somewhat)aware, what do you think is the next step to punish/prevent abuse going forward and the possible fallout of these released documents?

We are journalists, not politicians. But we do think that the offshore industry needs to be tackled. It is our opinion, that we need worldwide registers of beneficial owners. This would be the most important step to end the misuse of anonymous companies.

It is great to see that legislators around the world are pressuring panama to be more open and transparent. And the same time it is not only about Panama. It is about tax havens around the world and by the way - there are some in the US as well!

How are you balancing requests from official investigators with the confidentiality of your source? I assume you have gotten tons of requests for insight from officials investigating people and organizations mentioned in the documents. They likely want evidence other then your articles but giving them full access or even revealing the source to them might harm the journalistic work exposing these people and may even reveal the source. Especially since many of these documents could be presented as official evidence in court.

We are not giving out any documents to any authorities. But we published and are going to publish certain documents to proof our stories.

How do you react regarding the accusations that you would release the informations in a way that important and influential people in the western countries would not be burdened at all or - at least - not at first? Do the leaks just contain fewer information about people in western countries?

There are countries we found more cases in than in others. Often this is correlated to the corruption index: There are countries with more corruption and shell companies are a typical instrument to hide such dubious activities. But if you look at Malta, Great Britain or Iceland you can see that also Western governments are struggling a lot with the revelations of the Panama Papers.

Did you get contacted by intelligences services in order to negociate and to hide some of the info?

No, because they didn't know about it beforehand. At least we hope that's the case.

We have been contacted afterwards but we do not cooperate with Intelligence Agencies.

Thank you really for your work! How did you coordinate the work with the other 400 journalists?

We had a secure forum to share findings and discuss them. We also met up a couple of times, in Washington, Munich, Lillehammer, Johannesburg and London. These meetings were really important to build up the trust we needed to work together so closely.

These meetings were also great, cause we were not able to talk about our work with anyone else. Finally someone to talk to!

To coordinate the work, we set up project groups who were focusing on certain aspects of the Panama Papers. Like Fifa or Russia.

We communicated a lot with each other, also via encrypted E-Mails or chats.

What advice can you give someone hoping to get into investigative journalism, and where do you see the field going from where it is now?

Learn data journalism and combine it with investigative skills.

Data journalists get hired. (for a reason)

How did you search for high profile names?

We created long lists of politicians, CEOs and other persons of public interests. Then we threw those lists into our data-set.

But in the beginning the research was also led by personal interests. Like me, looking for anyone from Bayern Munich. Sadly, I didn't find anybody (Bastian)

Vielen Dank für dieses AMA, und die hervorragende Arbeit mit den Panama Papers. Waren die meisten Dokumenten auf Englisch? Da so viele Journalisten aus unterschiedlichen Ländern daran gearbeitet haben, wie wurden Übersetzungen gehandelt?

Die meisten Dokumente waren auf Spanisch oder auf Englisch. Da sich in unserem Team Journalisten mit 20 verschiedenen Muttersprachen befanden, konnten wir uns sehr gut gegenseitig helfen. Darüber hinaus haben wir auch extra jemanden eingestellt, der gut Spanisch kann.

//

In what languages were the documents? How did you handle translations?

Most documents were in English or Spanish. Since our team consisted of so many people who had 20 different mother tongues, we were able to help each other out a lot. And we also especially hired someone who is able to speak Spanish.

I think I may already know the answer to this, but did you ever consider involving any international intelligence agencies such as the CIA to aid in your investigation? If not, why?

We don't work together with Intelligence Agencies. Ever.

Hi, guys great Ama, my question is. Is it true that not all names will be released? Are there more ecuadorians besides the ones currently in you page?

Some days ago ecuadorian president Rafael Correa said great things will come out of this, now will see who is who, probably talking about his opposition who mostly are bussiness men and bankers and next year we have elections so it will be important to know who can we trust.

The ICIJ will release a public database in May. It won't be the 2.6 TB of documents, but they will publish a list with companies, shareholders and clients. (Vanessa)

What are your favorite pizza toppings?

We ate a lot of pizza in the last weeks and months and therefore are perfectly qualified to answer this question!

Spicy salami Bastian

Bruschetta Vanessa

Frederik is already gone but we know for sure he hates gyros on his pizza.

I am from Egypt, part of the Middle Eastern region. Were there any media, news or journalistic organization that you trusted and worked with within Egypt or the middle east for the Panama papers research?

Let me rephrase the question. Were any organizations from Egypt or the Middle East considered but the conclusion or trust wasn't satisfactory?

Me being part of this region and always hearing about corruption, I've always wondered how our media, whether Egypt or Middle East collectively is seen, globally.

Especially since some of the Panama papers have direct impact on our region.

Thank you and keep up the great work.

Yes, we worked with ARIJ - arab reporters for investigative journalism.

They are great!

At the moment we are planning a story about the involvement of Middle East Leaders, btw.

Do you guys see your work ending up in a movie, just like Academy Award Winner Spotlight? Would you like it to end up in movie?

That depends on the movie and who would play me. (Bastian)

Does Goldman Sachs have any input on day to day at the paper?

Goldman Sachs does not own Süddeutsche Zeitung, neither directly nor indirectly. Read this: http://panamapapers.sueddeutsche.de/articles/5710e4e0a1bb8d3c3495bb80/ (Vanessa)