“OCCRP doesn’t have to provide the USG with any info to be useful to them. It’s an army of ‘clean hands’ investigating outside the U.S.,” he said, asking for anonymity to as not to disturb relations with funders and colleagues. “But it’s always other people’s corruption. If you’re getting paid by the USG to do anti-corruption work, you know that the money is going to get shut off if you bite the hand that feeds you. Even if you don’t want to take USG money directly, you look around and almost every major philanthropic funder has partnered with them on some initiative and it gives the impression that you can only go so far and still get funded to do journalism. The truth is we don’t know how deep the influence goes in some newsrooms.”
Shit never changes
As Amy Goodman once quipped- if the US had a state run media, would it look any different?