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Over and over, journalists let themselves be instrumentalized for dubious exposes. The problem is that the wider public no longer falls for them, finews.asia editor Claude Baumann writes for finews.first.

finews.first is a forum for renowned authors specialized on economic and financial topics. The texts are published in both German and English. The publishers of finews.asia are responsible for the selection.

Just to clarify from the beginning: this column doesn't condone illegal or criminal practices. I also don't want to decry proper journalistic investigation, but the case of the recently-disclosed cache of Paradise Papers, something doesn't add up.

When a whopping 13.4 million confidential documents end up in the hands of selected media to meticulously evaluate, one would assume that the world changes (for the better?) somehow – or at least that the leak advances our knowledge of reprehensible schemes of the wealthy and powerful, and prompted a legal investigation.

Not much of that has happened since the trove of documents from Bermuda law firm Appleby was leaked last month. Unsurprisingly, what was billed as a huge expose of dirty dealings in tax havens drew a faint response. The Paradise Papers count as one of this year's major media flops. Why?

1. Not Truly «Investigative»

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, or ICIJ, maintains that it revealed the tax fraud after an extensive investigative effort. In fact, the network received the trove of data –  anonymously, but presumably from the U.S. – that had been stolen from a law firm and to a lesser extent from a fiduciary firm. The journalist's accomplishment was to serve up the data as desired by the source and to instigate a public scandal. The fact that basic principles were ignored didn't enter the equation (see point 7).

 2. Many Inaccuracies

The investigation is burdened with too many inaccuracies and irregularities to call the Paradise Papers a sensational reveal. The fact that tax optimization – which is perfectly legal – and tax fraud – which crosses the line into the criminal – are treated as one and the same belies a lack of understanding of the subject matter, and ultimately a lack of propriety. To be clear, every Swiss citizen who maintains a private pension account is optimizing their taxes, which is a savings method encouraged by the government. Under the ICIJ's line of argumentation, this would make pension savers effectively criminal.