Center for Public Integrity

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Logo of the CPI

The Center for Public Integrity ( CPI ) is a non-profit organization that the American journalist Charles Lewis founded in March 1989 in Washington, DC . Her main focus is investigative journalism . The CPI is financially supported by a number of foundations, including the Ford Foundation and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation (Florida).

Goal setting

The CPI cites its mission to “expose the abuse of power, corruption and neglect of duty by influential public and private institutions” in order to induce them to act responsibly. With over 50 employees, the CPI is one of the largest impartial investigative centers in the United States. The CPI publishes its reports on the Internet or passes them on to media outlets in the USA and other countries.

history

After founding the CPI in March 1989, Charles Lewis remained director until January 2005. By then, the CPI had published 14 books and more than 250 investigative reports, and The Buying of the President , published in 2004, was on the New York Times bestseller list for three months . In 2005, the Washington CPI had over 40 full-time employees. They worked with a network of authors and editors in over 25 countries.

Lewis' successor as director was Roberta Baskin , who left the organization in May 2006. In January 2007, Bill Buzenberg became director of the CPI.

ICIJ

ICIJ logo

In 1997 the CPI launched the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists ( ICIJ ) project: in 2013 it was a network of 160 journalists in around 60 countries.

Offshore leaks

In April 2013, the ICIJ attracted a lot of international attention with its Offshore Leaks project . It was an extensive research project involving 86 journalists and media from 46 countries. In a project-wide concerted campaign, renowned media such as the Washington Post have been reporting since April 4, 2013 on the large tax haven machinery that has made it (e) easy to own black money or to hide it from third parties. In Germany, the Süddeutsche Zeitung , the research team from NDR television and the reporter pool from NDR Info are cooperation partners of the project.

Luxembourg leaks

In November 2014, the ICIJ also attracted a lot of international attention with its Luxembourg Leaks project . Over 500 global companies have shifted their profits to Luxembourg by means of complicated constructions and with the participation of the local tax authorities, thus reducing their tax rate to as little as 0.1%.

Swiss leaks

In February 2015, the ICIJ reported that the Swiss HSBC Private Bank had systematically supported clients with tax evasion. ICIJ received the data, known as Swiss Leaks , from the French newspaper Le Monde .

Panama Papers

On April 3, 2016, the consortium published its first research results on the Panama Papers simultaneously and internationally . For this, it received the Pulitzer Prize for Background Reporting in 2017 .

Paradise Papers

From November 5, 2017, the international journalist consortium with 400 journalists worldwide (in Germany involved the WDR and NDR as well as the Süddeutsche Zeitung ) will publish the "Paradise Reports" on tax avoidance by high-ranking politicians worldwide after evaluating more than 13 million documents , including the US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross . 120 politicians from more than 40 countries are affected, including several incumbent heads of state and government . They used mailbox companies or other “ tax havens ”. In addition, the corresponding business dealings by companies, “super-rich” and criminals are discussed and analyzed.

More reports

The first developed by CPI report America's Frontline Trade Officials ( America's front -Handelsbeamte ) showed that over a period of 15 years, nearly half of the observed Whitehouse trade Officials after retirement lobbyists for other countries or foreign organizations was. Lewis described the success of the report as follows:

“[It] prompted a Justice Department ruling, a General Accounting Office report, a Congressional hearing, was cited by four presidential candidates in 1992 and was partly responsible for an executive order in January 1993 by President Clinton, placing a lifetime ban on foreign lobbying by White House trade officials. "

“[He] initiated a Justice Department directive, a General Accounting Office report , a Congressional hearing, was cited by four presidential candidates in 1992, and was partially responsible for a January 1993 directive from President Clinton on a lifetime ban on foreign lobbying for the White House -Commercial officials. "

In 1996 the CPI published Margaret Ebrahim's Fat Cat Hotel report . He described connections between overnight stays in the Lincoln Bedroom in the White House under US President Bill Clinton and donations to the Democratic Party and / or for Clinton's re-election campaign. The author received a prize from the Society of Professional Journalists for this .

A 2003 report entitled Windfalls of War (meaning windfall profits ) examined the relationship between campaign donations for George W. Bush and the award of contracts for reconstruction projects in Afghanistan and Iraq. The report was controversial in the US media.

Also the CPI report Who's Behind the Financial Meltdown? got a lot of attention.

In 2010, the CPI and National Public Radio published Sexual Assault on Campus , the failure of colleges and government agencies to prevent and clarify sexual assault, such as sexual assault. B. Rape.

criticism

The Boston Globe journalist Alex Beam called for the CPI to "empathize with the devils". The criticism of the billionaires Charles G. Koch and David H. Koch takes up a lot of space. At the CPI, "apparently every day is Fear-the-Terrible-Koch Brothers Day". According to Alex Beam, the Koch brothers are "so bad that they are good again". If it weren't for it, the left should have invented it. Just mentioning the name Koch will be enough in the next decade to raise funds for “every quirky world rescue charity event”.

The conservative Washington Post - columnist Jennifer Rubin criticized in this context that the CPI donations of as a progressive force billionaire George Soros suppose. This will make the CPI part of what they consider to be an “anti-cooking campaign” controlled by Soros. According to Rubin, the CPI practices left-wing liberal opinion journalism.

Publications

  • Under the Influence: Presidential Candidates and Their Campaign Advisers. University Press of America, 1991, ISBN 0-9629012-5-3
  • Steve Weinberg: For their eyes only: How presidential appointees treat public documents as personal property. 1992, ISBN 0-9629012-7-X
  • Rebecca Borders, CC Dockery: Beyond the Hill: A Directory of Congress from 1984 to 1993. 1995
  • Encarnacion Pyle: Silence of the laws: How America's leading defense companies employ women and minority executives. 1995, ISBN 0-9629012-6-1
  • Toxic Deception: How the Chemical Industry Manipulates Science, Bends the Law, and Endangers Your Health. 1996
  • Charles Lewis: The Buying of the Congress: How Special Interests Have Stolen Your Right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. 1998
  • Alan Green: Animal Underworld: Inside America's Black Market For Rare And Exotic Species. 1999
  • Citizen muckraking: How to investigate and right wrongs in your community. Common Courage Media, 2000
  • Charles Lewis: The Cheating of America: How Tax Avoidance and Evasion by the Super Rich Are Costing the Country Billions - and What You Can Do About It. Harper Collins, 2001, ISBN 0-380-97682-X
  • Diane Renzulli: Capitol Offenders: How Private Interests Govern Our States. 2002, ISBN 1-882583-14-0
  • Harmful Error: Investigating America's Local Prosecutors. 2003, ISBN 1-882583-18-3
  • The Water Barons: How a Few Powerful Companies are Privatizing Your Water. 2003, ISBN 1-882583-16-7
  • Making a Killing: The Business of War. 2003, ISBN 1-882583-15-9
  • Charles Lewis: The Buying of the President 2004: Who's Really Bankrolling Bush and His Democratic Challengers - and What They Expect in Return. HarperCollins, 2004, ISBN 0-06-054853-3
  • The Corruption Notebooks: 25 Investigative Journalists Report on Abuses of Power in Their Home Country. 2004, ISBN 1-882583-19-1
  • John Dunbar: Networks of influence: The political power of the communications industry. 2005, ISBN 1-882583-20-5
  • City Adrift: New Orleans Before and After Katrina. LSU Press, 2007, ISBN 0-8071-4776-1

literature

  • Charles Lewis: 935 Reads: The Future of Truth and the Decline of America's Moral Integrity. PublicAffairs, 2014. ISBN 978-1-61039-117-7
  • Amy Handlin (Ed.): Dirty Deals? An Encyclopedia of Lobbying, Political Influence, and Corruption. ABC-Clio, 2014, p. 392

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ How the CPI is funded publicintegrity.org
  2. ^ Center for Public Integrity
  3. ↑ PI reduces staff to compensate for $ 2 million budget hole
  4. ^ A b c The Growing Importance of Non-Profit Journalism . (PDF) The Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy
  5. ↑ icij.org
  6. ↑ www.icij.org/offshore
  7. ^ OffshoreLeaks . sueddeutsche.de.
  8. ^ "Offshore Leaks": Tax havens and straw men . ( Memento from April 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) ndr.de.
  9. ↑ Bastian Brinkmann: This is how Luxembourg Leaks was researched. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung. November 6, 2014, accessed November 6, 2014 .
  10. ↑ "Luxleaks" -Enthüllungen ( Memento of 23 January 2015, Internet Archive ) 11 December 2014 heute.de
  11. ↑ Research on tax tricks - politicians worldwide under pressure . In: Deutschlandfunk . ( deutschlandfunk.de [accessed on November 5, 2017]).
  12. ^ Paradise Papers: Secrets of the Global Elite . In: International Consortium of Investigative Journalists . ( icij.org [accessed November 5, 2017]).
  13. ↑ To “i” Toward Tough Journalism . In: Johns Hopkins Magazine .
  14. ↑ Margaret Ebrahim: Fat Cat Hotel (Publici: Newsletter of the Center for Public Integrity, Vol. 2, No. 5, August 1996)
  15. ↑ Center for Public Integrity, October 30, 2003: Winning contractors
  16. ↑ Reception in US print media ; Example: Daniel Drezner (Slate, November 3, 2003): Fables of the Reconstruction: Bush isn't really favoring Halliburton and Bechtel
  17. ^ Sexual Assault on Campus . publicintegrity.org
  18. ^ Campus Rape Victims: A Struggle For Justice . npr.org
  19. ↑ Alex Beam: Empathy for the Devils Boston Globe, Sept. 2, 2011
  20. ↑ Jennifer Rubin: Is the Center for Public Integrity's work advocacy or journalism? Washington Post, September 2, 2011