How the story broke, more details at http://renaissancechambara.jp/2016/04/06/how-the-panamapapers-story-broke-online/

1. #PanamaPapers – how the
story broke online
Ged Carroll
renaissancechambara.jp

2. What are the Panama Papers
The Panama Papers are 2.6 TB worth of documents provided to
German paper Sueddeutsche Zeitung by an anonymous source
in August 2015. The documents cover 40 years of work by a
Panamanian corporate law firm Mossack Fonseca on behalf of
clients around the world.
The documents detail corporate services provided to the rich and
powerful around the world. The first stories from the data trove
were published on April 3, 2016 with more expected by early May
2016.

3. Online media mentions eclipsed by
Twitter discussion
Online media mentions
Blogs Forums News articles
Mentions
Blogs Forums News articles Twitter

4. Mentions over time
0
5000
10000
15000
20000
25000
30000
April 1, 2016 April 2, 2016 April 3, 2016 April 4, 2016
Online news articles
Online news articles
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
8000
April 1, 2016 April 2, 2016 April 3, 2016 April 4, 2016
Online mentions in blog posts and
forum posts
Blog posts Forum posts

5. Mentions over time
0
200000
400000
600000
800000
1000000
1200000
1400000
April 1, 2016 April 2, 2016 April 3, 2016 April 4, 2016
Twitter mentions
Twitter mentions
• The international journalist
consortium did a good job
keeping the story under wraps
• It broke on April 1 on a forum,
this was shared 4 times on
Twitter
• On April 2, the discussion was
happening in a forum with little
Twitter awareness
• When the coverage properly
broke on April 3, Twitter blew up
– figuratively, with over a million
tweets

6. The story in one tweet
The story behind the #PanamaPapers? Courage is contagious.
https://t.co/P6nYOebdKu https://t.co/zrT2J0PtIa
@Snowden (April 3, 2016)
The most shared Tweet regarding the Panama Papers. The tweet had
a half life of 4 hours 27 minutes.
Retweeted 1,000 times and a reach of 4,295,481. This cemented
Edward Snowden’s status as a defacto media outlet on privacy and
transparency

7. Understanding the retweeters
0
5
10
15
20
25
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
% Retweeters by authority
% Retweeters by authority

8. More information
International Consortium of
Investigative Journalists micro-
site on The Panama Papers
Sueddeutsche Zeitung English
Language microsite on The
Panama Papers
Guardian microsite on The
Panama Papers

9. About me
Amazon author page: amzn.to/1SeO5Il
LinkedIn page: linkedin.com/in/gedcarroll
About: renaissancechambara.jp/about
Blog: renaissancechambara.jp
Email address found here: scr.im/renaissance
Twitter account: @r_c
Sina Weibo: renaissancechambara
WeChat

10. thank you | 谢谢 | míle buíochas! |
감사합니다 | danke | ありがとう |
merci | спасибо | cám ơn |
whakawhetai | takk | ขอขอบคุณคุณ |
terima kasih | σας ευχαριστώ |
grazie | ‫|شكرا‬ þakka þér | დიდი
მადლობა | kiitos | நன்றி | gracias