The Guardian: Here's how to investigate Donald Trump

[kpete]

We broke the Panama Papers story. Here's how to investigate Donald Trump
We were successful because we collaborated with other journalists.
Now it is time for the media to join forces once again – especially given the threat Trump poses


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American journalists should stop him from dividing their ranks – however hard their professional competition may be. They should do the opposite: unite, share and collaborate. Even if doing so would mean embracing something quite unfamiliar and new to American journalism.

The highest level of collaboration – which is what these times require – would be special joint projects. A possible first project could be to look into his international business ties, and those of his billionaire cabinet, to find all of their conflicts of interest.

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Collaboration could even mean working with foreign news outlets in different countries, whose reporters certainly might have more knowledge of Trump’s respective business partners than a US-based journalist. This is an experience we had over and over while our international Panama Papers team worked on stories about Iceland, Russia, Pakistan, the UK or Argentina.

Trump is now the president of the United States. He is the government. It has always been the noblest job of a journalist to check the power of government, the center of power. This seems even more important as the president acts like one of the oligarchs that journalists like the two of us, who work on international corruption, investigate again and again.

He threatened his Democratic opponent with jail, he is making promises no one can fulfill, he is mixing family and government, he is mixing business and government, he is obstructing control and he is fighting the freedom of press.

This government has decided to go down a new and hostile path. Now, it is time for us to change path, too. That’s not only just fair – it is absolutely necessary.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jan/24/panama-papers-media-investigation-next-donald-trump-hold-accountable