The Panama Papers: the greatest ever collaboration in journalism

Yes, there has never been such a collaboration in the field of journalism in history. An it was executed in observance of the ultimate code of secrecy, "Omerta Absolutas", the type only known to Mafiosi clans.

It is the “biggest leak in the history of data journalism” with millions of documents incriminating hundreds of world leaders of money laundering and tax evasion.

The journalistic effort responsible for the leak was equally as impressive as the documents themselves. With about 400 journalists from hundreds of media outlets in 80 countries working together to put the story together in secret for nearly a year.

But how did this huge collaboration start?

In late 2014, an anonymous source reached out to the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung. From there, a variety of major international news outlets from every continent were asked to assist in reading and analyzing the leaked documents, but in absolute secrecy, even within news rooms, colleagues kept it a secret.

The need for such a diverse group was due to the widespread implications in the leak itself. Let British journalists dig deeper on Mr Cameron, while Russian documents involving Putin is better left in the hands of Russian journalists to dig deeper, same as Iceland, South Africa etc etc.......

But what still baffles me is why some of the biggest names in the media were not involved in this data heist......

How come America's and the world's top three leading newspapers, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post were not involved in this effort?Yet the effort was led by the Washington D.C. based International Consortium of Investigative Journalism(ICIJ).

With the resignation of the Prime Minister of Iceland, the first casualty is out of the way, who is next?