Censorship at the South China Morning Post: fact, fiction and fallacy

Some of my friends and readers have been asking me to explain a bit of internet chatter this week about the South China Morning Post “censoring” reports on the “Panama Papers”, a treasure trove of leaked documents that are causing a global sensation by exposing how the world’s rich and powerful have been hiding their wealth in tax havens.

I usually ignore the fringe narrative, much of it perpetuated by butthurt ex-Post employees with axes to grind, about this newspaper avoiding stories that show China in a bad light. I could never understand the pathological compulsion some people feel to publicise and post their opinions online without any knowledge, understanding or context about an issue. The bizarre sense of urgency to put ignorance permanently on public display is beyond me.

Let me put it into perspective.

The 11.5 million confidential files from a secretive Panamanian tax firm were obtained by a German newspaper and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which then studied the information and compiled it into a report that was picked up by everyone.

The story broke on Monday, and everyone was hugely excited, in particular by the latest “revelations” about Chinese officials and their secret, offshore shell companies. The problem was all the information on the China link being reported by media outlets was recycled from a much earlier leak that the Post had covered extensively in 2014. We had a team working with the ICIJ back then and reported more details than this new, much bigger leak threw up.