Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
This weekend, Fusion and more than 100 other media organizations started publishing the Panama Papers, a global investigation into the secrets of offshore finance. So far it has yielded huge revelations about heads of state and politicians around the globe. Some of the biggest names to come out of the files include close friends and…
Yahoo’s offices have become a grim place of late. In February, C.E.O Marissa Mayer announced that the company would shed 15 percent of its staff as it explores a sale of its core business. This human “streamlining” has been particularly brutal for morale at Yahoo’s extensive media holdings. Numerous publications have been shuttered, including Yahoo…
FROM THE START of the reporting based on Edward Snowden’s leaked document archive, government defenders insisted that no illegal behavior was revealed. That was always false: Multiple courts have now found the domestic metadata spying program in violation of the Constitution and relevant statutes and have issued similar rulings for other mass surveillance programs; numerous articles on NSA and GCHQ documented…
It’s easy to get confused by all the headlines about the Panama Papers, a massive 2.6-terabyte leak of documents that reveals a global web of corruption and tax avoidance. But Vox’s German Lopez uncovered a great explanation of what’s happening, and it’s courtesy of brilliant redditor DanGliesack. He uses piggy banks to help explain the…
The Panama Papers leak is still in its infancy, but one thing is clear: the largest data leak in the history of investigative journalism promises to have repercussions for the rich and powerful around the world. Already, leaders in Iceland and Russia are facing questions about their use of the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca…
Updated on April 3 at 9:58 p.m. EST News organizations from around the world have published investigations based on a massive trove of leaked documents they say reveal corruption and questionable business dealings of world leaders, politicians, sports stars, and others. The German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung said Sunday it received encrypted internal documents from Mossack…
Richard Conniff When people talk about natural history museums, they almost always roll out the well-worn descriptive “dusty,” to the great exasperation of a curator I know. Maybe he’s annoyed because he’s spent large sums of his museum’s money building decidedly un-dusty climate-controlled storage sites, and the word implies neglect. (“Let me know,” the curator…
A sign alerts trail walkers in Fairfax County’s Roundtree Park to the remains of a bridge that washed out near Holmes Run. With a mounting backlog of deferred maintenance, there are no immediate plans to fix it. (Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post) For decades, Fairfax County has been a national model for suburban living, a place…
Matt Sayles/APPharrell is sad about his royalties.This past year was great for singer Pharrell Williams. His song “Happy” secured him Grammy nominations for Best Music Video and Best Pop Solo Performance. Despite Pharrell’s ubiquity, “Happy” made $2,700 in publisher and songwriter royalties from 43 million Pandora streams in the first quarter of 2014, according to an email…
In recent years, venture capitalists have funded all manner of improbable ideas. An app that lets random people call and wake you up. A bathroom scale that posts your weight on Twitter. And then there is Doug Evans’s brainchild. With no experience running tech companies and a bungled juice-bar chain under his belt, he has…