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I may be missing something, but what does wikileaks have to do with this?

Putin barely has a unfavorable world view so I don't see how it can get much lower.

I think the highest approval rates are Lebanon and Vietnam

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
I may be missing something, but what does wikileaks have to do with this?

Ok, so an organization, that has nothing to do with the leaks themselves and receives aid from the US government via "USAID" and Swiss the government, as well as something called the "open society institute" reported on this, so that means it's all an elaborate conspiracy to attack Putin. Somehow? And wikileaks is mad at that?

If I'm misunderstanding it, please correct me.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Wikileaks is claiming the US government is responsible for the Panama Papers leak so they could get at Putin.

And just like you, they don't prove it. They just state is as true. Further they don't say the US government is responsible. They said the US government "directly funded" the leaks, and that the funding damages the integrity of the leak. Which is a fair enough statement, but I have no idea to what they are referring. OCCRP is not directly funded by the US government, neither is ICIJ, or the Center for Public Integrity. This seems to be the tweet you actually want, which identifies that OCCRP gets funding from USAID. Given that Wikileaks is ever obsessed with a very specific ideal of Journalistic Integrity, I'm not surprised to see them bring this up, and it is fair. They also get money from Switzerland and Romania apparently.

Unfortunately that doesn't make it what you want it to be. Süddeutsche Zeitung recieved the documents, and doesn't get money from the US government and has been the primary mover behind the documents. Nor does ICIJ as far as I can tell. Pointing to a single group of journalists among the hundreds that those two news agencies brought in on the papers and showing it got money from the US government doesn't amount to a conspiracy and it sure as hell doesn't translate to "US government is behind it all."

You've moved on from just making things up to misrepresenting them. But then that's not surprising. It's basically your bread and butter on these kinds of thread.

That might also explain why Americans are suspiciously absent in the leaked papers...

Its like you don't even read the thread. Americans are in the papers (I've named one, and Baron listed several), and as has been pointed out multiple times by multiple posters, Panama isn't a good place for Americans to hide money. We have the US Virgin Islands for that kind of thing. No one doubts Americans do just as much (maybe even more) offshore banking than anyone else, but you do realize that there isn't just one tax haven in the world and people from different parts of it might use different places and firms to do their offshore banking?

Seems like the US will do anything to damage Putin's reputation.

Nice soap box.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 whembly wrote:

I was under the impression that more is coming...

I explained this earlier; the release of the Papers probably purposefully targeted world leaders because no one has to explain who David Cameron is or why you should care about him. It's a really easy way to make it know that the papers exist, what is inside them, and that they are potentially damaging. Ultimately though the real meat of the papers is going to be in the shell companies and firms, which will take much longer to investigate and probably won't be as headline worthy as "Putin and Friends" or "More Soccer Shadiness."


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
If I'm misunderstanding it, please correct me.

I presume they're one of over 100 news agencies brought in by the German Newspaper who first received the papers, and the ICIJ who the german newspaper called int o help sort them. Both papers have said they've been having secret meetings with other news agencies for the past year, organizing, investigating, and correlating the data from the files. US OCCRP is likely one of the agencies that was brought in. EDIT: Some investigating of my own. OCCRP seems to have a long standing working partnership with ICIJ, and with reporting on Off Shore Banking, and seems to have a particular interest in political corruption in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Bloc.

Iron_Captain is misrepresenting Wikileaks intent. They're not calling the papers fake or US government manufactured. They're pointing out that someone like will seek to dismiss/misrepresent them because US money was involved. Wikileaks has a very specific ideal of Journalistic Integrity, and taking money from government is a good way to get on their gak list. And Wikileaks is right. It just happened in this thread. EDIT: They're also probably a bit jealous that someone is raining on their parade. Wikileaks hasn't done much relevant since their reputation got mired in muck with the Chelsea Manning thing, and Julian Assange's legal troubles.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
There are still plenty of other non-Western countries left though, India was just an example.

And this is why it's pointless. Not only did you make an absurd generalization, but it was shown false, and you're still sticking to your generalization.

This. The sound of those goalposts moving was loud enough to scare my dog.

Not true. First of all, the generalisation is not absurd, it is a very common one and so far I have yet to see a convincing argument against it.

You haven't done anything to prove it other than to say that it is so and then be proven wrong when you tried to do so. There's no argument against it that's possible to make because it is patently untrue; we even provided you with non-Western news sources to prove the point.

Well, if you don't want to see I can't help you. Maybe you should read back through the thread.
I brought up as arguments for the existence of Western media as a group the following: Western nations (and thus Western media) all share a common historical, cultural and ideological background, based on the Enlightenment and French Revolution. Ideological and political differences that exist between Western groups and nations are relatively insignificant on a global scale. On a global scale, there is much more variety in ideological, historical and cultural backgrounds, thus giving rise to clear "groups" of nations that share similar backgrounds and clear gaps with nations that don't share that background:

There has been a lot of scientific research and the existence of these "culture blocks" or "worlds" of nations with similar backgrounds is an accepted and well-established fact (altough there is debate on some small details). If you want to read some actually scientific work on this, I suggest starting with the Wikipedia article and its reference and 'further reading' list.
And just as these nations share common cultural and ideological background that makes them "Western", the media of these nations also shares common characteristics that makes them "Western". The Western media is thus, to put it very simply, the media of the aforementioned Western world. Again, there has been a lot of scientific research on Western media and on what it is that makes them part of a single group. The existance of "Western media" as a group is again a commonly accepted fact. Hell, just search news sites or Google Scholar and see how often this term is used.
Beside that, further evidence I gave is that all Western media take a lot of their facts and news from a very limited number of press agencies (AFP, Reuters, AP) and that most media is controlled by a very small group of people (90% of US media for example is controlled by just 6 companies). That this leads to similarity is common sense.
You claimed Süddeutsche Zeitung and Fox News were significantly different enough, so different that they can't both be grouped in the single group "Western media". I then gave you articles from the Zeitung and Fox News on the relevant issue, that were virtually identical in content (excepting language, style and minor details).
I then told you that other news sources from non-Western countries were reporting quite differently. I did not provide the links however, that is true.
I will also admit that I am too lazy to look everything up again and to post the links here. Suffice to say that I found that Iranian media barely reports on the Panama Papers at all (and only one mention of "associates of Putin" in all the media I searched), Chinese media also barely paid any attention to Putin (again only naming Putin's friends in passing and the fact that they were on the list) and Indian media was mostly the same as Chinese media in this, altough they tended to have better coverage of the Panama Papers than Chinese or Iranian media. Russia media had quite extensive coverage of the Panama Papers, but either completely ignored that Putin's friends were on the list or only mentioning them without linking them to Putin (an exception to this were some of the independent and opposition news sources, but even they did not slam Putin all over the front pages like much of the Western media did.)
To make up for the lack of those links however, I shall submit much better proof.
Here, I gave these two works a casual read. You should too if you really want to see proof of obvious facts. The second is also really interesting beyond that as it compares Western and non-Western medias. (I don't know if you have access to the full versions, but if you really are interested I might be able to send you a PDF copy)
Hardy, Jonathan. Western media systems. Routledge, 2010.
https://books.google.nl/books?hl=en&lr=&id=eMaNAgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=western+media&ots=vfnVrQV3hZ&sig=8SHPA_jQTPvW4dikA0gM9-YC-4w#v=onepage&q=western%20media&f=false

Hallin, D. C., & Mancini, P. (Eds.). (2011). Comparing media systems beyond the Western world. Cambridge University Press.
https://books.google.nl/books?hl=en&lr=&id=gGy_SqiaBmsC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=western+media&ots=DVAKJfGyFG&sig=enGixN32tRWsMH4pFyRj3V_kaKA#v=onepage&q=western%20media&f=false

Okay. That was a lot of work. Do I win the argument now? Please?

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Secondly, the generalisation was not shown false. I gave multiple arguments to support my position, only one of which was shown false. Refuting a single argument (when multiple arguments are given) and then presenting the entire position as false is a fallacy.

This quote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Ustrello wrote:
RT's version is hilarious as it left dear leader and russia out of the names

As it should have been, because Putin is not in the papers at all. It is just a clear example of Western propaganda: Many people from across the entire world, including the prime minister of Iceland and President Poroshenko of Ukraine and many others. The list also includes two friends of Putin and suddenly the Western media is all over Putin, even though Putin is not on the list, is not responsible for and does not control the acts of his friends, and has no further link to this list at all. Meanwhile, they barely as much as mention the other people on the list.
The Western media's version is hilarious as it twists and distorts facts just to be able to take a shot at Putin. If Western media were truly independent and impartial, they would go after Poroshenko, Messi or someone else who is actually on the list. Now however they have shown themselves once more to be nothing but empty propaganda outlets, some more so than others.

was proven incorrect, as the Wicked Media of the West DID go after the Prime Minister of Iceland, Poroshenko, Messi, and a lot of others. That's you being wrong again. There's no arguments, there's just a long list of you being wrong repeatedly.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Okay. That was a lot of work.

It was a lot of work to say a whole lot of nothing.

The Western media's version is hilarious as it twists and distorts facts just to be able to take a shot at Putin.

It hasn't twisted or distorted facts. Nothing that's been reported has been false (as far as the papers are concerned). They're taking a shot at everyone.

If Western media were truly independent and impartial, they would go after Poroshenko, Messi or someone else who is actually on the list.

They have.

To be fair, when I wrote that, it was true

No it wasn't. Literally all of those names were named in initial reports right along with Putin's. The thing that changed (and this has been said before) is that the Kremlin made an official statement and was the only one at the time to do so. That put more reporting on Putin at the time, and had nothing to do with any bias on anyone. Reporting things that happen isn't a bias.

Putin meanwhile, was slapped all over every single front page I came across.

Then you must have only looked at one or two articles. There's hundreds of them.

When claiming something is absurd, proof of absurdity must be given.

You made the claim and offered no evidence to support it. Other posters have been more than generous with you by responding in faith, while you've simply done what you always do; post walls on nonsense, make claims, and demand to be proven wrong.

Usually people don't ask for proof of commonly accepted facts.

Your opinion isn't an accepted fact by anyone.

Thank you kindly for helping me in finding practical examples of my point.

Not reporting something doesn't support your argument even remotely. If anything, it supports the argument that state controlled media in China and Iran don't want to report the papers even though one of those is as deep in them as anyone else. And even then, China still reported in a bizarrely vague article the Putin connection, just without naming and names. The only thing pertaining to Russia to appear in Iran's news is that the Kremlin responded to the papers. Not mentioning any Russian names at all, even the ones who are listed, and that they are close friends of the President of Russia, is a more apparent bias than anything.

I hate to tell you this, but reporting things that happened isn't a bias. It's just reporting things that happened.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Okay. That was a lot of work.

It was a lot of work to say a whole lot of nothing.

Maybe you'd like to make an actual argument for once? So far you have posted nothing but unsupported opinions and absolute nonsense, while ignoring and failing to adress any of the arguments I have made. Maybe you should marry that stone? You keep appealing to it...

 LordofHats wrote:
Nothing that's been reported has been false (as far as the papers are concerned). They're taking a shot at everyone.

I did not say it was false, I said it was distorted. On that note, I am also going to say now that there has been plenty of reporting that is outright false.
Case in point:
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/03/panama-papers-money-hidden-offshore
A "2bn trail" reported as leading to Putin that actually leads to friends of Putin rather than Putin himself.

 LordofHats wrote:

If Western media were truly independent and impartial, they would go after Poroshenko, Messi or someone else who is actually on the list.

They have.

To a far lesser extent than Putin, a person who isn't actually on the list.

 LordofHats wrote:

To be fair, when I wrote that, it was true

No it wasn't. Literally all of those names were named in initial reports right along with Putin's. The thing that changed (and this has been said before) is that the Kremlin made an official statement and was the only one at the time to do so. That put more reporting on Putin at the time, and had nothing to do with any bias on anyone. Reporting things that happen isn't a bias.

It was. Those other names were only mentioned in passing. Putin was the one that in almost every article was mentioned first (often with picture, even) and who was most extensively reported on, even though most of the things they reported on had no connection to the actual content of the Panama Papers. The Kremlin statement hardly seems to be the cause of that, as again it was only mentioned in passing if at all, and the coverage slapping Putin on the front page already was going on before the Kremlin statement (the Kremlin statement being a reaction to this).

 LordofHats wrote:

Putin meanwhile, was slapped all over every single front page I came across.

Then you must have only looked at one or two articles. There's hundreds of them.

And I highly doubt whether you even looked at a single one of them.

 LordofHats wrote:

When claiming something is absurd, proof of absurdity must be given.

You made the claim and offered no evidence to support it. Other posters have been more than generous with you by responding in faith, while you've simply done what you always do; post walls on nonsense, make claims, and demand to be proven wrong.

You choosing to ignore evidence doesn't mean it isn't there. Maybe you'd like to start reading?

 LordofHats wrote:
quote]Usually people don't ask for proof of commonly accepted facts.

Your opinion isn't an accepted fact by anyone.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
while ignoring and failing to adress any of the arguments I have made.

You haven't made any arguments. Standing on a soap box and stating something is a "fact" over and over again isn't an argument.

And I highly doubt whether you even looked at a single one of them.

I must have linked over a dozen articles by now into this thread. Most of them don't even mention Putin at this point, and the rest only mention him in passing before moving on to someone else. You can say bias as many times as you want, but saying it doesn't prove it, and numerous articles have been linked by me and others detailing people not Putin from the day this began.

You choosing to ignore evidence doesn't mean it isn't there.

I can't ignore what you haven't provided. On the other hand I can look on my own, and find absolutely nothing to support your position.

Tell them they should remove all mentions of "Western world" and "Western media" because it is not accepted fact and just the opinion of someone on DakkaDakka.

Just because the western world exists and has media outlets doesn't mean you don't have to provide support for a claim of bias. Talking at length about shared values and common history doesn't support your position. It's a giant red herring.

The choice of what things to report on is a very important element that sets Western and non-Western medias apart.

So, your position is that reporting something that happened as having happened is a bias? You do know that what reporters do is report things that happen? That's kind of their job.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
There are still plenty of other non-Western countries left though, India was just an example.

And this is why it's pointless. Not only did you make an absurd generalization, but it was shown false, and you're still sticking to your generalization.

This. The sound of those goalposts moving was loud enough to scare my dog.

Not true. First of all, the generalisation is not absurd, it is a very common one and so far I have yet to see a convincing argument against it.

You haven't done anything to prove it other than to say that it is so and then be proven wrong when you tried to do so. There's no argument against it that's possible to make because it is patently untrue; we even provided you with non-Western news sources to prove the point.

Well, if you don't want to see I can't help you. Maybe you should read back through the thread.
I brought up as arguments for the existence of Western media as a group the following: Western nations (and thus Western media) all share a common historical, cultural and ideological background, based on the Enlightenment and French Revolution. Ideological and political differences that exist between Western groups and nations are relatively insignificant on a global scale. On a global scale, there is much more variety in ideological, historical and cultural backgrounds, thus giving rise to clear "groups" of nations that share similar backgrounds and clear gaps with nations that don't share that background:

Spoiler:

There has been a lot of scientific research and the existence of these "culture blocks" or "worlds" of nations with similar backgrounds is an accepted and well-established fact (altough there is debate on some small details). If you want to read some actually scientific work on this, I suggest starting with the Wikipedia article and its reference and 'further reading' list.
And just as these nations share common cultural and ideological background that makes them "Western", the media of these nations also shares common characteristics that makes them "Western". The Western media is thus, to put it very simply, the media of the aforementioned Western world. Again, there has been a lot of scientific research on Western media and on what it is that makes them part of a single group. The existance of "Western media" as a group is again a commonly accepted fact. Hell, just search news sites or Google Scholar and see how often this term is used.
Beside that, further evidence I gave is that all Western media take a lot of their facts and news from a very limited number of press agencies (AFP, Reuters, AP) and that most media is controlled by a very small group of people (90% of US media for example is controlled by just 6 companies). That this leads to similarity is common sense.
You claimed Süddeutsche Zeitung and Fox News were significantly different enough, so different that they can't both be grouped in the single group "Western media". I then gave you articles from the Zeitung and Fox News on the relevant issue, that were virtually identical in content (excepting language, style and minor details).
I then told you that other news sources from non-Western countries were reporting quite differently. I did not provide the links however, that is true.
I will also admit that I am too lazy to look everything up again and to post the links here. Suffice to say that I found that Iranian media barely reports on the Panama Papers at all (and only one mention of "associates of Putin" in all the media I searched), Chinese media also barely paid any attention to Putin (again only naming Putin's friends in passing and the fact that they were on the list) and Indian media was mostly the same as Chinese media in this, altough they tended to have better coverage of the Panama Papers than Chinese or Iranian media. Russia media had quite extensive coverage of the Panama Papers, but either completely ignored that Putin's friends were on the list or only mentioning them without linking them to Putin (an exception to this were some of the independent and opposition news sources, but even they did not slam Putin all over the front pages like much of the Western media did.)
To make up for the lack of those links however, I shall submit much better proof.
Here, I gave these two works a casual read. You should too if you really want to see proof of obvious facts. The second is also really interesting beyond that as it compares Western and non-Western medias. (I don't know if you have access to the full versions, but if you really are interested I might be able to send you a PDF copy)
Hardy, Jonathan. Western media systems. Routledge, 2010.
https://books.google.nl/books?hl=en&lr=&id=eMaNAgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=western+media&ots=vfnVrQV3hZ&sig=8SHPA_jQTPvW4dikA0gM9-YC-4w#v=onepage&q=western%20media&f=false

Hallin, D. C., & Mancini, P. (Eds.). (2011). Comparing media systems beyond the Western world. Cambridge University Press.
https://books.google.nl/books?hl=en&lr=&id=gGy_SqiaBmsC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=western+media&ots=DVAKJfGyFG&sig=enGixN32tRWsMH4pFyRj3V_kaKA#v=onepage&q=western%20media&f=false

Okay. That was a lot of work. Do I win the argument now? Please?

Your own source (Hardy) points out on friggin' page one the fact that "the West" is hopelessly vague. Similarly, Hallin and Mancini point out on page 11 that there is considerable variation between European media systems, and EXPLICITLY mention that "media systems are not homogeneous." (Hallin and Mancini 2004: 12). No win, try again.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

Beside that, further evidence I gave is that all Western media take a lot of their facts and news from a very limited number of press agencies (AFP, Reuters, AP) and that most media is controlled by a very small group of people (90% of US media for example is controlled by just 6 companies). That this leads to similarity is common sense.
You claimed Süddeutsche Zeitung and Fox News were significantly different enough, so different that they can't both be grouped in the single group "Western media". I then gave you articles from the Zeitung and Fox News on the relevant issue, that were virtually identical in content (excepting language, style and minor details).
I then told you that other news sources from non-Western countries were reporting quite differently. I did not provide the links however, that is true.

And I proved that there's similar articles in non-Western news. You said they literally did not exist, they did. That makes you wrong, which means that your argument that Western media is significantly different to the rest of the world by virtue of being Western isn't backed up.

You're throwing a bunch of research at us that doesn't actually prove this supposed bias. You're essentially creating a reverse Orientalism by focussing strictly on what various countries in the West have in common and ignoring the differences in order to claim that they're homogeneous. We've already pointed out that there was a marked difference between different countries that are traditionally counted as part of "the West", in complete contradiction to your claim of homogenety. I can link to Google books to support my argument too.

"If you love it so much why don't you marry it" is primary school level arguing, and impolite to boot. Pick up your game or take a break from the keyboard

Guys, can we get back to the subject instead of arguing how homogeneous the other guy is? It's like listening to someone with a van and two loud speakers playing US and Russian Cold War propaganda simultaneously.

As has been pointed out, Putin is not named in this. Despite early Putin reports, they've pretty much fallen off the map in favor of facts.

The news has overtaken your argument.

Let's assume that everyone's press has a large amount of BS and move on.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
while ignoring and failing to adress any of the arguments I have made.

You haven't made any arguments. Standing on a soap box and stating something is a "fact" over and over again isn't an argument.

And I highly doubt whether you even looked at a single one of them.

I must have linked over a dozen articles by now into this thread. Most of them don't even mention Putin at this point, and the rest only mention him in passing before moving on to someone else. You can say bias as many times as you want, but saying it doesn't prove it, and numerous articles have been linked by me and others detailing people not Putin from the day this began.

You choosing to ignore evidence doesn't mean it isn't there.

I can't ignore what you haven't provided. On the other hand I can look on my own, and find absolutely nothing to support your position.

If you had scrolled just a few posts up, you would have seen this:

Hardy, Jonathan. Western media systems. Routledge, 2010.
https://books.google.nl/books?hl=en&lr=&id=eMaNAgAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=western+media&ots=vfnVrQV3hZ&sig=8SHPA_jQTPvW4dikA0gM9-YC-4w#v=onepage&q=western%20media&f=false

Hallin, D. C., & Mancini, P. (Eds.). (2011). Comparing media systems beyond the Western world. Cambridge University Press.
https://books.google.nl/books?hl=en&lr=&id=gGy_SqiaBmsC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=western+media&ots=DVAKJfGyFG&sig=enGixN32tRWsMH4pFyRj3V_kaKA#v=onepage&q=western%20media&f=false

There. Peer-reviewed works on Western media. Better proof is not possible for me to give unless I were to do research myself (and even then it would probably still be of lesser quality).


On the second position (Coverage of Putin in relation to the Panama Papers leak is disproportionate): It is something that is hard to proof, as would need a set, objective definition of what is 'disproportionate'. This is impossible because disproportionateness is an inherently subjective concept. It is therefore an opinion. As an argument to support my opinion however I brought up that when the news initially came out, Putin was slammed all over the front pages of many Western medias, was usually mentioned first and received more initial coverage despite not being on the list at all. If you want evidence of that, all you need to do is to look back at newspapers, newssites etc. Hell, even the BBC (which itself is generally really good at objective reporting and being unbiased, I must say) noticed it about the Guardian:
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-the-papers-35957117
And the Guardian gave us much more articles like this, and also used pictures of Putin on general articles about the Panama Papers where pictures of people actually involved would have been more fitting.
And the Guardian was not the only media to do this. The Daily Mail was worse. Here, just an example of the kind of articles I am talking about:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/news/article-3525325/Banks-face-MPs-tax-scandal-Lenders-accused-helping-clients-avoid-tax-setting-offshore-accounts.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3522483/Murdered-money-Panama-leaks-reveal-Putin-s-former-media-chief-died-Washington-hotel-room-linked-offshore-company-used-Russian-leader.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3523665/Who-playing-Russian-cellist-Putin-s-close-friend-Sergei-Roldugin-odd-man-list-tax-haven-exploiting-world-leaders-billionaires-celebrities-isn-t-money-laundering-is.html

Then there were plenty of the Dutch and German news sites that I frequent, that did the same thing. Not every media in the Western world participated in it (the BBC was a notable and welcome exception), but a significant amount did. That is where my observation of the Western media being biased against Putin came from (altough, it should be nuanced to say that some are more biased than others). Of course, this being an observation, the only evidence I can give is empirical.

I also want to note that since that initial moment, there has also been a lot of good, more diverse coverage, and later articles have much less or no anti-Putin bias at all. Some (like at the BBC) even were critical of the Putin-centered coverage. This shows that Western media is less biased then I originally thought, which makes me happy
Even more on the positive side, CNN also had a lot about Putin and the Panama papers, but they wrote a really good article that was much more factual and well-informed than the wild Putin-bashing in many other media:
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/04/06/europe/chance-putin-panama-papers/index.html

 LordofHats wrote:

Tell them they should remove all mentions of "Western world" and "Western media" because it is not accepted fact and just the opinion of someone on DakkaDakka.

Just because the western world exists and has media outlets doesn't mean you don't have to provide support for a claim of bias. Talking at length about shared values and common history doesn't support your position. It's a giant red herring.

The choice of what things to report on is a very important element that sets Western and non-Western medias apart.

So, your position is that reporting something that happened as having happened is a bias? You do know that what reporters do is report things that happen? That's kind of their job.

I think you are getting things conflated here. That was in response to AlmightyWalrus (and later you too) argueing against the fact that "Western media" is similar enough to be grouped together. My position that the Western media is biased kinda relies on the presumption that the Western media exists in the first place, which is what AlmightyWalrus argued against.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BaronIveagh wrote:
Guys, can we get back to the subject instead of arguing how homogeneous the other guy is? It's like listening to someone with a van and two loud speakers playing US and Russian Cold War propaganda simultaneously.

As has been pointed out, Putin is not named in this. Despite early Putin reports, they've pretty much fallen off the map in favor of facts.

The news has overtaken your argument.

Let's assume that everyone's press has a large amount of BS and move on.

True.
And probably the best post in this thread so far.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/06/news/panama-papers-mossack-fonseca-nevada/index.html

For those complaining about not enough American action, we're now serving hot humble pie. Seems that these guys were setting up over a thousand US corporations while-you-wait just outside the Las Vegas International Airport, which was run by a single employee.

Why not just set up an airport Kiosk?

Hell, even the BBC (which itself is generally really good at objective reporting and being unbiased, I must say) noticed it about the Guardian:
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-the-papers-35957117

An article about the Iceland PM followed that one by 2 minutes. So 2 minutes is the difference between being biased against Putin, and being biased against Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson?

As for the Daily Mail, it's the Daily Mail. I'm pretty sure I've mentioned to you before that they're terrible I actually got side tracked after noticing they have an entire Putin sub-domain (seriously wtf?) and this is the article at the top. Only the truly dedicated would ever put something like that on their "news" site. I'll give you this one Cap. The Daily Mail has an obsession. A creepy, disturbing obsession... EDIT: And for the record, when I made that joke in the other thread I was joking. I had no idea Putin was in league with the Greys!

Guys, can we get back to the subject instead of arguing how homogeneous the other guy is?

Some of us actually went to a bunch of different news sites and looked around (and read them), rather than just make unilateral declarations. That's a lot of googlefu.

As has been pointed out, Putin is not named in this.

And David Cameron? Does it really need to be explained yet again that Putin doesn't have to have his name in the papers to be relevant to them?

In other news;

The papers were captured in a hack, according to the firm in question. I was actually expecting it to be an inside job, but the firm says that isn't the case. Guy has a point though. The hack is criminal, but I doubt many people will ever care about that. As was said in Ant-Man "it was a cool crime." Though some criminals have started to be linked tot the papers beyond American scam artists. Apparently the papers highlight something that went down in South Africa and is really sad (right in the feels).

You know we should get a pool going on what companies will come out in the papers. Two internets on Comcast *crosses fingers*

 Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:
You completely overlooked the point I made about the serious fraud office having it's cases dropped due to political interference. If that isn't de-fanged, then I don't know what is.

I actually wrote out half an answer, but deleted it because it was so far away from anything that I've tried to explain here. The existence of some bad claims is never good, and nor is an investigative committee getting defanged by insider interests. But in both cases it's necessary to keep it in perspective - what corruption we're seeing right now is probably the least corrupt human institutions there have ever been. Giving up on that and thinking because a bad story hit the paper is extremely wrong headed.


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 Mr. Burning wrote:
I am fairly ambivalent to who avoided what and where. Our western society and sensibilities means that the richest know they can get away with literal murder. There is proper outrage but in the end change means running the risk of there being no hot running water, no food on the supermarket shelves and no reliable wi fi connection.

We cannot afford (nor will the majority abide) radical change.

What? How in the hell did you reduce the options to nothing or revolution, and remove every possible alternative in between?

I'll repeat what I posted earlier - there have been 10 years of reforms on tax havens, and many have actually reformed in the face of being shut out of the international community. We still have a long way to go, but there's no denying progress has been made.


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 whembly wrote:
@Iron_Captain: This isn't really about tax evasion... it's really about corruption.

The political class *wants* to talk about tax evasion, because then they don’t have to talk about how corrupt said political class is.

No, this is about ta evasion, because almost all of the money being moved the BVI and other havens is legally earned corporate dollars that relocated in order to reduce tax. That's just the reality of the situation.

Putin's $2bi and all the rest gets more healdines because corruption is sexier than tax evasion, but the reality is that the real impact to you, me and every other taxpayer is the bulk of money that should be collected from multinationals that is lost through these schemes.

Does anyone want to wager that Hillary Clinton's "The Clinton Foundation" would be embroiled in this?

I suspect you're desperately hoping it is.

 LordofHats wrote:
The papers were captured in a hack, according to the firm in question. I was actually expecting it to be an inside job, but the firm says that isn't the case.

I was also expecting it to be an inside job - and not just because I've read and watched John Grisham's The Firm. With over two terabytes of data lost, I would expect the sneakiest way to get it out of the firm to be by USB hard drive. But then, I might be underestimating how much bandwidth has increased in the past few decades.

Well the last two big leakers (Snowden and Manning) were inside guys, so I guess it seemed a natural first guess.

Apparently the firm informed customers on April 1st about the hack, and people are saying that their security was really bad. I don't really know what it means so Ima just quote it;

FORBES discovered the firm ran a three-month old version of WordPress for its main site, known to contain some vulnerabilities, but more worrisome was that, according to Internet records, its portal used by customers to access sensitive data was most likely run on a three-year-old version of Drupal, 7.23. That platform has at least 25 known vulnerabilities at the time of writing, two of which could have been used by a hacker to upload their own code to the server and start hoovering up data. Back in 2014, Drupal warned of a swathe of attacks on websites based on its code, telling users that anyone running anything below version 7.32 within seven hours of its release should have assumed they’d been hacked.

That critical vulnerability may have been open for more than two-and-a-half years on Mossack Fonseca’s site, if it hadn’t been patched at the time without updating website logs. It remains a valid route for hackers to try to get more data from the firm and its customers. On its site, the company claims: “Your information has never been safer than with Mossack Fonseca’s secure Client Portal.” That boast now looks somewhat misguided.

 LordofHats wrote:
Apparently the firm informed customers on April 1st about the hack, and people are saying that their security was really bad.

Thus it ever is when a company is too big, or old, or greedy. The greybeards at the top haven't been keeping up with data security and might well have thought it a needless expense to have someone actually good at it have a look and fix things. Anyone from the IT department who makes noise about a vulnerability is seen as a troublemaker trying to make himself seem important and the company could do without such a person. In the end you're either a Yes-man who keeps your mouth shut or unemployed.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
. Hell, even the BBC (which itself is generally really good at objective reporting and being unbiased, I must say) noticed it about the Guardian:

The BBC is not unbiased. Its probably the least unbiased media source in the world (on most things at least) but it still has a definite bias both institutionally (communist countries will rarely, if ever, get anything good said about them) and individually (Nick Robinson's complete factual distortion of a statement made by Alec Salmond and the editorial staff of the Daily Politics programme attempting to influence the Shadow Cabinet reshuffle by actively seeking to have one of the cabinet members resign on air). There will be many more examples, these are just the ones that I am aware of

No news source is unbiased, its important to remember that.

Call it a gut feeling if you like but one suspects that "El Chapo" -- the mexican druglord -- wasn't storing his money offshore to cut down on his tax bill.

Reassuring to see that Mark Thatcher continues to be a generally worthless human being, still those coups don't organise themselves eh ?

As an example of when you shouldn't read too much into this: the Daily Mirror says Jackie Chan has owned at least six offshore companies, but we already knew he owned four: the film production and distribution companies based in his home city of Hong Kong. Given that Jackie Chan has a career spanning two continents, it would be practically impossible for him not to have offshore accounts from somebody's viewpoint.

 reds8n wrote:



Call it a gut feeling if you like but one suspects that "El Chapo" -- the mexican druglord -- wasn't storing his money offshore to cut down on his tax bill.

Reassuring to see that Mark Thatcher continues to be a generally worthless human being, still those coups don't organise themselves eh ?

Is it really front page news that Mark Thatcher, Simon Cowell and El fething Chapo have money in off shore accounts?

Fergie? C'mon.

Nick Faldo? who has had a raft of articles about his business dealings.

Paul Burrell? he is an odious gakker anyway.

IIRC Faldo has a fair few ex wives as well.....

I'm surprised, that Lionel Messi, football's number one global superstar, hasn't received more overage, despite being named in these papers.

Journalists must be Barcelona fans

 LordofHats wrote:

Hell, even the BBC (which itself is generally really good at objective reporting and being unbiased, I must say) noticed it about the Guardian:
http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-the-papers-35957117

An article about the Iceland PM followed that one by 2 minutes. So 2 minutes is the difference between being biased against Putin, and being biased against Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson?

Yes. The difference is that Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson was actually on the list, and Putin wasn't, and they still put out Putin articles first.

 LordofHats wrote:
EDIT: And for the record, when I made that joke in the other thread I was joking. I had no idea Putin was in league with the Greys!

Haha! You found out too late... Now the plans have already been set in motion!

 Iron_Captain wrote:
[Yes. The difference is that Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson was actually on the list, and Putin wasn't, and they still put out Putin articles first.

Well, Putin is certainly a more important person than the PM of Iceland. And while he wasn't on the lists himself it's pretty odd that old friends of his are moving about billions of dollars when they don't exactly should have access to that sort of money. I mean, what does a cellist make? Even if he's really really good and employed by the best orchestra, like the Leningrad or Marinsky?

 sebster wrote:


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 whembly wrote:
@Iron_Captain: This isn't really about tax evasion... it's really about corruption.

The political class *wants* to talk about tax evasion, because then they don’t have to talk about how corrupt said political class is.

No, this is about ta evasion, because almost all of the money being moved the BVI and other havens is legally earned corporate dollars that relocated in order to reduce tax. That's just the reality of the situation.

Putin's $2bi and all the rest gets more healdines because corruption is sexier than tax evasion, but the reality is that the real impact to you, me and every other taxpayer is the bulk of money that should be collected from multinationals that is lost through these schemes.

No... what private people/companies do with their wealth is their business. The simple fact is that people *HATE* paying taxes will do what is feasible to mitigate their tax liabilities.

If a country is finding that their wealthy citizens are doing this enmassed, then said countries need to look at their own tax laws as to why.

Simply stated: A person's money belongs to them, not the government, just as their other freedoms.

The crux of the attention should be spent on politicians... politicians having off-shore accounts is strange and its not a stretch to assume that they're doing this to hide wrong-doings... not just to "evade taxes." 'Tis why attention on politicians like in Iceland is a good thing.

Does anyone want to wager that Hillary Clinton's "The Clinton Foundation" would be embroiled in this?

I suspect you're desperately hoping it is.

We got time my dear friend.

Simon Cowell? Say it ain't so! How can I ever watch an episode of The Voice of American Idol's Got Talent again?

 whembly wrote:

No... what private people/companies do with their wealth is their business. The simple fact is that people *HATE* paying taxes will do what is feasible to mitigate their tax liabilities.

If a country is finding that their wealthy citizens are doing this enmassed, then said countries need to look at their own tax laws as to why.

Simply stated: A person's money belongs to them, not the government, just as their other freedoms.

What? That makes no sense at all. If the tax is legally due then it's not their money, it's the governments.

Why do people do this? Because they can. No matter what your tax rate someone will not want to pay it, and try and avoid it.

Whembly wrote:
No... what private people/companies do with their wealth is their business. The simple fact is that people *HATE* paying taxes will do what is feasible to mitigate their tax liabilities.

If a country is finding that their wealthy citizens are doing this enmassed, then said countries need to look at their own tax laws as to why.

Simply stated: A person's money belongs to them, not the government, just as their other freedoms.

Right, because greed never factors in to this equation?

If you are a private company in a country doing business, you are expected to follow that countries laws on taxes. If not, then those wealthy companies could certainly afford to get the heck out and go somewhere else. Because we do not need any more rich leeches whining about needing help and bailouts.

If you live in a country, you follow their rules. End of discussion. Pay your taxes like an adult or get punished for it. Stop whining.