Investigative journalism is very expensive in terms of time. People who take months if not years to study a topic, unless someone compensates them for the trouble (and then controls them in a sense), really understand what they write about. One area we're good at covering is the European Patent Office (EPO) because we already wrote thousands of articles on the topic, we have reliable sources, and we have deep understanding of internal affairs and the names of all the important managers (well beyond António Campinos and Benoît Battistelli). This is why we're able to produce so much material about the EPO and all of it is accurate, as far as we're aware. Before covering EPO scandals I wrote about software patents in Europe -- a subject that perhaps caused our initial sources to come forward to us. Basically, people with concerns if not grievances decided that Techrights would be a suitable platform to expose EPO corruption. And here we are 6 years later and more than 3,000 articles/posts later. It will be 4,000 very soon.
"Basically, people with concerns if not grievances decided that Techrights would be a suitable platform to expose EPO corruption. And here we are 6 years later and more than 3,000 articles/posts later."At times we also mentioned WIPO corruption, which is similar in a sense. SUEPO alludes to it every now and then and we wrote a number of stories about it, typically citing the better informed (with reliable sources). But we at Techrights don't have a good understanding of WIPO affairs; we also don't know many of the key players there. We know ILO and the USPTO a lot better than we know WIPO. In a sense, WIPO isn't just insincere and full of corruption; it's also exceptionally secretive.
"Remember that Techrights is still the only site (as far as we know) that Campinos is banning, expanding the ban to every employee of the EPO."Last night someone in our primary IRC channel wrote, "I saw an article about WIPO which was issued in 2017 about Francis Gurry [...] I have evidence about Gurry and his administration covering up sexual harassment and assault at WIPO and about brutal retaliation against the victim..."
This is similar to some patterns we saw at the EPO, including the attack on Judge Corcoran. "I also have evidence of WIPO member states being well informed about the case and ignored the request to investigate WIPO administration," the person continued. Sounds like the Administrative Council of the EPO.
We're currently assessing what can be published -- if anything -- based on the above, as "the evidence is available in writing," we're told. But the problem is, as usual, that all the major publishers are totally ignoring it. To make matters worse, they banished the few people who wrote about this. Sounds familiar? Remember that Techrights is still the only site (as far as we know) that Campinos is banning, expanding the ban to every employee of the EPO. What is he so afraid of? Our language is family-friendly and we defame nobody.
"There's no scarcity of news, only scarcity of time."Journalism is in a really bad state; but that does not imply that there's nothing to report. The way we see it, the most plausible explanation is that people in positions of power (who cynically abuse that power) prefer for media to just write puff pieces. The last thing they want is investigative journalism that actually reveals something new or refutes the puff pieces. How many years did we spend writing about the misbehaviour of the Gates Foundation before the media sort of 'caught on' (rather than caught money from the Foundation, in exchange for bias)?
2020, irrespective of the pandemic, will hopefully be a renaissance year for us. Although it is difficult, we still try to produce about 10 posts per day (we managed to exceed that last month). We focus on quality and accuracy, not clicks or "engagement" (or "impact" -- terms of the PR industry; investigative journalists have different aims). People with information about corruption/abuses and cover-up of wrongdoing can, as always, contact us securely. We're eager to open investigations in new and unexplored directions, including WIPO. There's no scarcity of news, only scarcity of time. ⬆