MEDIA MONDAY / READ THIS TO HELP REPORTERS WHO COVER THE WORLD’S UGLIEST STORIES

TV’s irrepressible John Oliver asks does this look like a re-education campus to you?

Have you heard of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists? [The group behind the uncovering of the Panama Papers]. They work with reporters across the world to hold the powerful and corrupt to account. I subscribed to their weekly emails – and they're great! You should sign up! Click here:

By the way, I apologize if this comes off as a robopost from pillartopost.org.  I’m a retired newspaperman and magazine journalist and I really like this organization and in a very polite way, they’ve asked for help in acquiring a larger viewership.

The following is a recent column I received via my free subscription:

DON’T CRY, MOMMY

“..."If your employee handbook says 'prevent escapes,' you're probably working at a prison," United States comedian John Oliver recently quipped while covering China's mass internment of Uighurs, and other minorities, in Xinjiang.

As Oliver explained, new research found that equipment used to protect people from the coronavirus could be made by the Uighurs who are held in the camps. “The very masks that some in this country see as unacceptable infringements on their personal liberty may be getting made by people who would absolutely love for their worst infringement to be getting politely asked to leave a ... Costco,” he said. Watch his 20 minute take here. (Readers outside the U.S. may be geo-blocked from the video.) 

DOS SANTOS QUITS

Angolan billionaire Isabel dos Santos has stepped down from the board of the country’s mobile phone operator Unitel. Dos Santos said there was a “climate of permanent conflict” among the board and it was “counterproductive” to stay on. The businesswoman has held a 25% stake in the company since her father, then president, awarded her company a lucrative operating license in 1999. Luanda Leaks revealed Unitel paid more than $5 billion in dividends to shareholders between 2006 and 2015.

POLITICAL GAMES

A United States bill to curb anonymous shell companies has stalled – but supporters are still hopeful it will pass. The bill enjoys support from both sides of the aisle, along with banks and the White House, but differences between the two political chambers have postponed its approval. The new law would create a federal register of the real, flesh-and-blood owners of all U.S. based companies – similar to the registries created in the United Kingdom and Europe. However, the U.S. register would not be open to the public.

One last favor before I go, would you tell your friends about ICIJ's newsletter? We want to make sure everyone knows about the work we do – and before our next investigation!  Click here.

SOURCE: ICIJ.ORG Click here.

Posted by H. DeMayo, Managing Editor, PillartoPost.org daily online magazine blog.