The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
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How We All Survived Likely the Largest Collaboration in Journalism History
One of the most frequent questions people ask us these days is “How in the world did you get 86 journalists to work together?”
Photo: Shutterstock.I can understand their puzzlement. Journalists often compete fiercely to scoop each other. When they get a great tip or a unique document they don’t sit and wonder how they can share it with as many of their colleagues around the world as possible.
Many investigative reporters are classic “lone wolves,” working in isolation and extremely protective of their work.
That’s okay, but it would have been a recipe for disaster in the Offshore Leaks investigation.
What we had in front of us was 2.5 million files involving offshore dealings with links to more than 170 countries and territories. Global data on a truly global issue – business dealings and money flows. It became clear very soon that we could not tackle the job effectively from our Washington office or just with the small team of reporters ICIJ initially recruited to analyze the files.
We needed to open up the game as much as possible without compromising the investigation or the sources. It was a risky approach, but we did not see any other way around it.
Last summer, ICIJ member Nicky Hager and I scrolled down the list of 160 ICIJ journalists in more than 60 countries and began to make some choices. It was one of those moments in which having this network of trusted reporters and relationships we have built overtime made a huge difference.
In countries where we didn’t have a member we sought recommendations and checked out the work of potential collaborators. We did not pick journalists based solely on their media affiliation – we were much more interested in choosing the right people, the real diggers and the most trustworthy colleagues. (See, also, How We Chose Our Offshore Reporting Partners).
Worldwide Information Network System
A web-based, open platform for actors in all sectors to share, visualize, and analyze data related to the underlying conditions of conflict that exist in areas prone to violence and mass atrocities globally to inform policy and enable action.
Atrocity prevention is about more than collecting and presenting data about conflict risk and opportunities for peacebuilding in an eye-catching and clever way. We also need to present data in a way that simultaneously entices and helps facilitate exchanges among networks of actors who don't usually talk to one another. All sectors must be creatively engaged and working together to effectively confront the challenges that make up the underlying conditions of conflict. These social, economic, political, and security issues are all interrelated. Absent the big picture, solving one problem in isolation may just exacerbate another.
Continue reading “Berto Jongman: World Citizens' Truth Network Begins?”
Dear friends,
An invitation to speak has brought me back to some roots of my work I haven't revisited in some time – the Iroquois Confederacy and its recognition of the intimate tie between democracy and peace – collective wisdom and collective tranquility. Peace between people requires their respectful, insight-seeking conversation. It requires, as Oren Lyons, Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan of the Onondaga Iroquois tells us, that “we meet and just keep talking until there's nothing left but the obvious truth.”
Lyons also notes – to us self-proclaimed modern people – that “The Earth has all the time in the world. We don't.” I strongly recommend his brief, vivid and moving video:
http://vimeo.com/50460060 (note for those who have trouble with online videos: in the lower right it give the option to use Flash or HTML5 video players).
Few Americans or people in other modern “democracies” realize how much our government structures owe to the Iroquois. We talk about ancient Greece giving us democracy. True, ancient Athens gave us the idea of “one man one vote” when adopting laws. But some scholars suggest that the Iroquois gave us our federal system (an alliance of free states under one greater power), the idea of “balance of powers”, and much of our sense of personal privacy and liberty from government interference, as well as the idea of taking turns while speaking in an assembly.
http://www.co-intelligence.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Continue reading “Tom Atlee: 17 April 2013 Democracy, Peace, & the Iriquois Teleconference”
The Theory of Knowledge (ToK) programme is central to the educational philosophy of the International Baccalaureate. It challenges students and their teachers to reflect critically on diverse ways of knowing and areas of knowledge, and to consider the role which knowledge plays in a global society. It encourages students to become aware of themselves as thinkers, to become aware of the complexity of knowledge, and to recognize the need to act responsibly in an increasingly interconnected world.
Nicholas Carr, futurist and author of The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, has provided a tremendous amount of insight into how/why technology, and the Internet specifically, shapes both our behaviors and neurophysiology. According to Carr while the Web is unarguably a tremendous asset, it has also re-wired our neural pathways via neuro-plasticity. Due to the design of Web 2.0 the Internet has made us less contemplative, less empathetic, and more schizophrenic in our thinking. Carr's work serves as an excellent compliment to the writings of other Web 2.0 contrarians such as Jaron Lanier and Doug Rushkoff.
Post below is a brief interview with Carr conducted in late 2012:
Like.
How a Leafy Folk Remedy Stopped Bedbugs in Their Tracks
New York Times, 10 March 2013
Generations of Eastern European housewives doing battle against bedbugs spread bean leaves around the floor of an infested room at night. In the morning, the leaves would be covered with bedbugs that had somehow been trapped there. The leaves, and the pests, were collected and burned — by the pound, in extreme infestations.
