Answers: Scoops II
Answers
1) The death of Thomas Moss in the U.S. city of Memphis in 1892 prompted Ida B. Wells, co-owner and editor of the Memphis Free Speech and Headlight newspaper to write a series of investigative articles. Wells travelled across the American South over several months for her reports. What did she focus on? (Hers was the most extensive documentation of the issue at the time)
Lynching of Black people. More here and here. Wells’ quantitative approach makes her a pioneering figure in what’s now known as data journalism. More here
2) In 1933 Gareth Jones was one of the first foreign journalists to interview Adolf Hitler after he became Chancellor of Germany. But he is now remembered for a clandestine trip to a part of another country. He revealed his undercover findings through a press release in Berlin that was picked up by newspapers. But prominent journalists and intellectuals such as George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells refuted Jones’ account and attacked his credibility. What Jones revealed is now recognised as a genocide by 18 countries. What happened and where?
Famine in the Soviet Union and especially in Ukraine. The atrocity under Joseph Stalin is known in Ukraine as Holodomor (death by hunger in Ukrainian). More on the famine here and here. More on Gareth Jones here, here and here. More on George Bernard Shaw’s praise for Stalin here.
3) a) E.D. Morel was a clerk at a Liverpool shipping company who also wrote for British newspapers about the West African trade. In 1900 he published a series of articles on unfair trade practices through the use of forced labour, after observing that weapons and chains were repeatedly shipped from Europe while rubber was coming in. From where? Morel left his job and became a journalist and activist for this cause.
Congo under the direct control of King Leopold II of Belgium. More on Morel here, here and here.
(b) Supplementary question on E.D. Morel - he opposed the First World War and was briefly imprisoned for his Pacifist activism. After the war, Morel ran for the Labour Party in the 1922 UK parliamentary election and stunned a cabinet member and prominent figure in the war effort. Who did he defeat?
Winston Churchill. More here, here and here.
4) Noted travel writer and historian Jan Morris was earlier a journalist responsible for two major scoops of the 20th century. The first one for the Times of London was as part of an expedition in 1953. The second for the Manchester Guardian concerned a conflict in 1956. What were the scoops?
Jan Morris, then James Morris, was embedded with the Mount Everest expedition team in 1953 and was the first to report the ascent of Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary.
In 1956 Morris uncovered the military role of the British and French in the Suez conflict with Egypt. More here and here. The revelations led to the resignation of Prime Minister Anthony Eden and precipitated the British withdrawal from the Middle East.
5) The journalist and editor Harold Evans who died last year led the Sunday Times for 14 years, an era of trailblazing scoops. The biggest expose concerned hundreds of children. The newspaper fought a legal battle for years in English courts, as an injunction granted by the House of Lords prevented it from writing on the issue. The SundayTimes eventually won the case at the European Court of Human Rights in 1979. What was the issue?
Compensation for children affected by the drug Thalidomide. More here, here, here and here.
6) In September 1964, investigative journalist James Ridgeway’s article ‘Car Design and Public Safety’ was published by the New Republic magazine. A major focus of the article was General Motors’ Chevrolet Corvair. The main source for the piece was tailed and harassed by private investigators, which was first revealed by the Washington Post and subsequently in an extensive article by Ridgeway titled ‘The Dick’ for the New Republic. The President of General Motors eventually apologised. Who was the source who was tailed?
Ralph Nader. More here, here and here. More on James Ridgeway here, here and here.
7) Freelance journalist Seymour Hersh managed to speak to X at Fort Benning in the U.S. state of Georgia and obtained details of a classified charge sheet. Life and Look magazines refused to publish Hersh’s expose. A little-known news agency, the Dispatch News Service, ran the story on November 12, 1969 and several newspapers picked it up. Who is X and what did Seymour Hersh expose?
X is William Calley and Seymour Hersh exposed the then U.S. army lieutenant’s complicity in the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. More here, here and here.
8) He gave his first interview to journalist Anita Pratap, which was published in India’s Sunday magazine in March 1984. He was featured on the magazine’s cover wearing military fatigues. It was the first publicly available image of him as an adult. Who?
LTTE chief Velupillai Prabhakaran. More here and here.
9) Starting in September 1982, Rajkumar Keswani wrote a series of articles on hazardous chemicals over a period of two years, warning that his city ‘stood on the edge of a volcano’. But his warnings were not heeded. What did he write about?
Rajkumar Keswani published a series of articles about safety lapses at the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India. More here, here, here and here. But his warnings were ignored. The leaking of methyl isocyanate gas from the plant on the night of December 2, 1984 killed thousands of people, making it one of the world’s worst industrial disasters. Keswani died this May from post-Covid-19 complications.
10) The first story in an investigative series by the Boston Globe was published on January 6, 2002 and focused on John Geoghan, who was later jailed. More than 600 articles followed on the same theme. What was revealed?
How the Roman Catholic church hierarchy in Boston covered up child sexual abuse by priests. More here, here, here and here.
11) In 2018 an undercover team led by the investigative journalist Anas broadcast video of senior football officials accepting bribes. The documentary Number 12 resulted in FIFA banning the country’s football chief. Several referees were also banned. Which country was at the centre of the expose?
Ghana. More here, here and here
12) In 2010 the online news site El Faro published an interview with a former military captain who admitted being part of a death squad behind an assassination, on the 30th anniversary of the killing. Alvaro Savaria, who spoke from an undisclosed location said the order was given by a senior military figure turned right-wing party leader. Which country and who was assassinated? (Hint: Latin America)
El Salvador and the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero in 1980. More on El Faro’s revelations here, here and here. Pope Francis conferred sainthood on Oscar Romero in 2018. More here and here.
13) Jan Kuciak was investigating an Italian crime syndicate’s activities in his country, its efforts to fraudulently corner European Union farm subsidies and potential ties to ruling party and government officials. Kuciak and his fiancee were murdered in 2018. The subsequent outcry and public protests led to the Prime Minister’s resignation. Which country?
Slovakia. More here, here, here, here and here.
14) She relentlessly accused politicians and government officials of corruption in her blog Running Commentary. Her allegations linking her country’s Prime Minister to tax havens (Panama Papers scandal) led to the PM announcing early elections (he returned to power). The journalist described as a ‘one-woman WikiLeaks’ was killed in a car bomb attack in 2017. The PM had to step down in 2019 after his close associates were implicated in the murder. Name the journalist and the country.
Daphne Caruana Galicia, Malta. More here, here, here and here.
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