The Panama Papers investigative journalism expose, on which The Irish Times was the Irish media partner, has won a Pulitzer Prize in the United States for revealing the use of offshore companies by wealthy individuals to conceal billions of euro in assets.
New York’s Columbia University announced that the prize for explanatory reporting was awarded to US media outlets, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), McClatchy and the Miami Herald, for the project, “The Panama Papers – The Secrets of Dirty Money.”
The Irish Times was the Irish partner of the Washington, DC-based ICIJ on the co-ordinated globe-spanning project that began with a leak of 11.5 million documents linked to Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca to German journalists Bastian Obermayer and Frederik Obermaier.
The two Süddeutsche Zeitung reporters shared the secret records through the ICIJ with hundreds of reporters including Irish Times legal affairs correspondent Colm Keena who revealed the Irish connections in the material.
The papers exposed offshore firms linked to more than 140 politicians in more than 50 countries, including 14 current or former world leaders. It unearthed offshore hideaways tied to international banks, corporate bribery scandals, drug kingpins and a network of people close to Russian president Vladimir Putin that shuffled as much as $2 billion around the world.
The Pulitzer Prize board praised the year-long investigation for “using a collaboration of more than 300 reporters on six continents to expose the hidden infrastructure and global scale of offshore tax havens”.
“This honour is a testament to the enterprise and teamwork of our staff and our partners here in the United States and around the world,” said ICIJ’s director Gerard Ryle who is originally from Tralee, Co Kerry, and started his career in journalism at the Sligo Champion and Longford Leader.
‘Groundbreaking revelations’
“We’re honoured that the Pulitzer Board recognised the groundbreaking revelations and worldwide impact that the Panama Papers collaboration produced.”
The New York Times won three Pulitzer prizes, including for international reporting on Mr Putin’s efforts to project Russia’s power abroad. David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post won the Pulitzer for national reporting for his work on Donald Trump’s charitable foundation.
The Wall Street Journal’s Peggy Noonan won the prize for commentary for columns that the Pulitzer board said “connected readers to the shared virtues of Americans during one of the nation’s most divisive political campaigns.”