Mossack Fonseca in the JEP, 4 days before the Panama Papers story broke

The story of the "Panama Papers" leak broke on the 3rd of April, 2016. Here was a little article in the JEP just 4 days earlier.

I love a good coincidence, don't you?

Leah McGrath Goodman loses cred

I saw this on Clever Trevor's blog comments, after having read about it already on my usual daily news sites.

"It would appear that Leah McGrath Goodman has either just broken one of the biggest stories on the planet, or seriously overplayed her hand.

http://mag.newsweek.com/2014/03/14/bitcoin-satoshi-nakamoto.html

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/mar/07/satoshi-nakamoto-denies-inventing-bitcoin

On the sites where people get to comment, there has been a strong backlash against Leah, saying this was a very low thing to do. On one site I even found a predictable reference to HDLG :

"The journalist was sniffing around the island of Jersey because of alleged financial malfeasance and, more bizarrely, supposedly murdered children at the now infamous Haut la Garenne childrens home. I know from my reading on this matter that this is abject bollocks, and made me question her wisdom."
http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2014/03/06/bitcoin_inventor_satoshi_nakamoto_revealed/

( a second story on The Register is about Nakamono's denial : http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/03/07/nakamono_man_denies_inventing_bitcoin/ )

The evidence for him being the inventor seems to be a matter of opinion, hardly anything concrete. Even if he was behind BTC, what right does Leah have to expose him? From being a champion of truth and justice, it seems she has immediately sunken to gutter press levels of self interest. So that's a big "Whoops!" and a blow for the cause of the abuse victims. How sad.

Maison de Ville in the sloppy news

More sloppy reporting again - the Maison de Ville care home is to close  - but where is it? Would it kill them to actually say, for those of us who may be hazy on such things?

Does the basic journalism of "Who, what, why, when, where?" no longer apply to our local media?

It's here on Google Maps (Streetview), up La Pouquelaye.

(btw, look at the website for the home at www.sthelier.je and compare the photo they've used with the view Streetview - looks familiar?! Can we wonder "copyright theft"?)

Oh, and as for the "nearby" St.Ewold's (maybe on the map, but it's still a long-ish indirect walk for even the fittest youngsters) that involves taking a right from Trinity Hill here (Streetview) and it looks like this (Streetview).

Coastal crash - more sloppy reporting

The story from Channel 103 radio -

"Three teenagers are being treated in hospital after the car they were in plunged over a cliff in St Martin.

It went over the side of the road between Anne Port and Archirondel just before midnight.

It came to rest upside down against a tree - which stopped it rolling over the sea wall onto the rocks below.

Paramedics and firefighters attended, and two boys aged 19 and 17, and a 15 year old girl were taken to A&E.

The driver suffered a suspected broken wrist but the two passengers are believed to have suffered more serious injuries, although Police have told us they're not critical.

Watch Commander Chris Love said. "These 3 youths have been involved in a very serious incident. However, it would have been a lot worse had their vehicle rolled from its final resting place onto the rocks below."

"Had that been the case specialised rescue equipment and extra resources would have been called for. Emergency crews would have been faced with a more difficult and prolonged extrication, increasing the risk of injuries already sustained"

BBC Jersey also says "between Archirondel and Anne Port".

Only Channel TV correctly reported "near Archirondel".

If you're a radio listener you'd think it had happened near the BBQ area on the headland near La Crete quarry. The only recent damage to the roadside banks that I can see is actually well before that area.

It looks like, heading from St.Catherine's towards Gorey, the driver took this bend (by the old Les Arches) too fast, over-corrected, and failed to straighten up quickly enough to stay on the road.



It's actually on a straight, just after the left-hander, and not where previous accidents have happened at the headland farther on, or just past Jeffrey's Leap on the other side of Anne Port!

On some news website comments pages people are criticising the lack of barriers here, and it does appear to be in the same place (from the same direction) as another from 2010 (BBC).

All in all I'm left with the sour taste of sloppy journalism again - there was no mention of the direction in which they were travelling, or the precise location. And it's sensationalism again too, accidents happen all over the island, but just because it's on a coastal road and NEARLY ended up in greater fall onto rocks, this somehow seems more spectacular and may be more likely to lead to knee-jerk over-reaction.

The fact that several accidents in this region in recent years have all been survived without death shows how much safer it is to crash here compared to hitting walls and large trees at the roadside elsewhere!