Facts and fiction: ICIJ website endorses The News story

Ahmad Noorani replies with proof: must read

Senior reporter challenges critics to point out a single point contrary to ICIJ website; critics of exclusion of PM’s name from the lead story of the ICIJ didn’t read facts and actual story of The News; updates are still present on journalists body’s website

ISLAMABAD: Objections are being raised to The News story about the exclusion of Prime Minister’s name from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ (ICIJ) lead story on Panama Papers but so far no one has been able to put forward a single point in the story which was contrary to what the ICIJ has itself clarified on its website. Mostly the objections are being raised without reading The News story and the ICIJ clarification and updates available on its website.

Mostly, the fundamental objection raised is that The News wrongly attributed an apology to the ICIJ while issuing its clarification in regard to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. A representative of ICIJ is also found to be upset over this.

The fact however remains that The News story did not say anywhere that ICIJ had tendered any apology. It simply quoted what the ICIJ clarification and updates said and are still present on its website.

Some journalists and politicians have criticized The News story which based on four changes made by ICIJ in its lead story on Panama Papers including clarification present on ICIJ website removing name of the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif as controller or owners of the offshore companies.

The criticism was made on basis of an email response of an ICIJ member. Apparently, ICIJ team in Washington was tactfully trapped by informing them that an Urdu version of story implied that ICIJ has apologized on inclusion of the name of the Prime Minister. This was factually wrong. Following are the facts which were completely ignored while making this criticism.

1- ICIJ leaked huge data of documents retrieved from a Panama-based law firm known for facilitating people to set up offshore companies. The data contained information about hundreds of thousands of offshore companies which was analysed and examined by the dozens of journalists attached with ICIJ across the world. While releasing offshore companies data relating to some important personalities, mostly public office holders of different countries, through its journalists across the world on April 3, 2016, ICIJ also ran two major stories on its official web www.icij.org.

2- Regarding Pakistan, the documents leaked by ICIJ named as “Panama Papers” never contained name of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif as owner of any offshore company though his two sons and a daughter was shown as beneficial owners of four different offshore companies. Same fact was reported and was even highlighted in headlines of the story filed by ICIJ Pakistan member Umar Cheema and carried by The News and Daily Jang on April 4, 2016.

3- While Pakistan’ prime minister was never named in Panama Papers as owner of any offshore company and his name was only mentioned in reference to his children, the main stories reported by ICIJ on its official web declared in categorical terms that there are “offshore companies controlled by Prime Minister of Pakistan” and that “name of Pakistani Prime Minister is in the data”. 

4- As this was not a factual position and Panama Papers’ available with ICIJ never declared Pakistan’s prime minister as owner of any company, ICIJ realized this fact and clarified the same on April 21, 2016 by taking following steps: —

i)- ICIJ deleted the sentence from its lead story on ‘Giant Leak of Offshore Financial Records Exposes Global Array of Crime and Corruption’: “offshore companies controlled by Prime Minister of Pakistan” (Image-1)

ii)- ICIJ deleted the sentence from its lead story “Current and former leaders in the data include prime ministers of Iceland and Pakistan…” (Image-1)

The above sentence has now been modified after deletion of the name of the Prime Minister of Pakistan as follows: — 

“Current and former world leaders in the data include the prime minister of Iceland, the president of Ukraine, and the king of Saudi Arabia” (Image-2)

iii)- ICIJ issued clarification under its lead story describing details of offshore companies of around 15 world leaders and their families. The clarification only clarifies about Pakistan Prime Minister. The web-link of story  is: — https://panamapapers.icij.org/20160403-panama-papers-global-overview.html

It reads: Clarification: Due to an editing error, a sentence in an earlier version of this story implied that the prime minister of Pakistan controlled an offshore company that appeared in the Panama Papers files. It is his children who control the offshore companies.

iv)- ICIJ updated visualizations of Sharif family by stating: —

“Hasan and Hussain Nawaz Sharif's visualizations were updated on April 21, 2016.”

The statement is still present on ICIJ web-Link:

https://panamapapers.icij.org/the_power_players/ (details appear after clicking on picture of Sharif family)

5- After monitoring these changes, having screenshots of previous versions of the story and ICIJ clarification and UPDATE NOTE still present on their web, The News reported only these facts without adding any additional point in the story on April 27, 2016. As nothing was reported in addition to what was already present on ICIJ website so no more details or versions from ICIJ were required. The exact sentences on ICIJ website were reproduced in the story. The News story also carried text of a letter from a government member to ICIJ. At any point in The News report, neither it was reported that ICIJ has apologised nor any impression of this kind was given.

6- However, after publication of The News & Jang story, some media persons in Pakistan initially mocked the contents of the story and then shared an image of an email response from Gerard Ryle, who lead ICIJ team in Washington DC, on the social media stating that The News was misleading and wrongly implied that ICIJ has apologised for including name of Prime Minister in its data.

7- As a matter of fact, this was a strange twist of describing things and events. Neither The News reported that ICIJ apologized nor the issue was about inclusion or exclusion of Prime Minister’s name from “DATA” and instead the issue was about “exclusion of Prime Minister’s name as controller of offshore companies” from “ICIJ lead story on Panama Papers on its official website – as described above in form of 4 points.

  8- If some member of ICIJ has responded to email of some journalist, should he report it without going through contents of The News story and the clarification, updates still present on ICIJ website and compare them to find out exact difference? If a professional journalist was reporting an email response of somebody, shouldn’t he clearly tell people as to what exactly The News reported was wrong and most importantly what actually was not said or present on ICIJ website but was reported? Shouldn’t a professional journalist ask more questions to ICIJ about response in email if he/she failed to find out any difference between what ICIJ clarified and updated on its web and what was reported by The News? Simply taking a statement from somebody and reporting it without even examining facts relating to issue was certainly not a good approach. One may disagree with the positioning of the news but whether removal of name of the prime minister from major stories of the organization which unearthed such a big scam was not a story? The name was there as controller of companies. The screenshots are present and shown. Now name as controller or owner of the companies has been removed. It’s a story. If it was not, at least a journalist is supposed to point out exact points which were wrong. Those who are asking whether it was scoop or making allegations of a pro-government story must read April 12, 2016 story authored by this correspondent titled “Sharif family to answer questions about assets before commission” to clear their minds. The April 23 story titled, “Musharraf got Rs20m on retirement, bought Rs400m flats in London, UAE” and the April 27 story titled “Top auditor’s report says something different about PTI’s Tareen” quoting official documents from different countries also needs attention.

One needs hard work and cross-checking of facts to reach out to the truth. Same was missing in comments of some journalists. I challenge all these journalists and politicians criticizing my story by quoting an ICIJ member to take the details of the matter to Press Counsel of Pakistan or to any other national or international body of the professional journalists to ascertain whether the four changes made by ICIJ including issuing a clarification about name of Prime Minister -- professionally makes a news story or not?

Such a journalist body should also decide whether after making four changes in the story and issuing a clarification about name of Prime Minister, the ICIJ member could professionally term The News story as ‘misleading’ while the story only quoted what has been clarified by his organization itself on official web.

Such a journalist body should also decide whether the journalists who got an email response from an ICIJ member should have reported it without comparing The News story with ICIJ clarification and the updates or they should have asked ICIJ member some more questions?