A (somewhat) Marxist take on the Paradise Papers
The Paradise Papers, released on the 5th of November, 2017 are – much like last year’s Panama Papers - 13.4 million documents which contain information about offshore accounts owned by high profile individuals. Ranging from celebrities to the queen of England, the documents reveal the systematic evasion of taxes by the world’s rich elite.
Initially released by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) have teamed up with 95 media organizations to systematically bring the information to the public. Since then, there have been many articles released, revealing more and more how about 200,000 people which make up the rich elite of the world keep their money in offshore accounts to avoid taxation by governments.
What has been interesting to me with these has been the lack of reporting. 95 media partners sounds like all the big media organizations were eager to jump on such shocking news and get their own coverage of it. However, this does not seem to be the case.
From the United States, 4 news sources have picked up coverage on the Papers, with only one being a known news outlet – The New York Times. From the UK, BBC, The Guardian and Private Eye have picked it up. However a very large and renowned new outlet, The New York Times is a subscription based company and does not allow full access to articles to online readers. Meaning that there have been virtually no American news outlets reporting on the Paradise Papers.
This, I believe, can easily be explained by the distribution of media ownership. The New York Times is one of the few independently owned news outlets in the US and coincidentally the only one to pick up the coverage on the Paradise Papers. Out of all the massive news outlets such as NBC, Wall Street Journal, Fox, ABC, New York Post and CNN only a few have even mentioned the Papers – which has been in the context of explaining what they are and acknowledging they exist.
CNN framed the news as ‘A trove of leaked documents made public Sunday purport to show financial ties between Russia and a member of President Trump's cabinet.’ – Completely ignoring the vast coverage of things which the Papers provide. NBC, likely, did the same, titling their coverage “Paradise Papers: Leaks Show Wilbur Ross Hid Ties to Putin Cronies”. New York Post framed it as a magazine event titling it ‘Leaked documents reveal the investments of the rich and famous’ and writing the article on “U2 rocker Bono put his money in a shopping center in Lithuania and “Material Girl” Madonna invested in a medical supply company…”
Whereas on the other hand, The Guardian has created a new section in their website dedicated to the Papers in which they categorically posted (and continue to post) articles on the papers as they produce them – while keeping the updated coverage on top of their home page for over 2 weeks. BBC – however also arguable when it comes to the ownership – also covered the news with a special section on their website.
Overall, no American news outlet gave coverage on the Papers, regardless of whether they had coverage from ICIJ or not. Relating it all to US-Russia politics, their framing of it was also leaning towards agenda setting, which seems to be the primary purpose of the mainstream media in the US anyway. It seems that no news outlet owned by one of the ‘big 6’ did any serious coverage of the Paradise Papers and seemingly decided it is not something important for the tax-paying, proud American to know how the rich handle their taxes. After all, if they knew, it would lead to social unrest and a certain unhappiness in the system, which the rich elite certainly do not want.