Global reporting network unveils tobacco secrets

Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. The IRE Journal, Mar/Apr 2001 by Beelman, Maud S

ICU's inaugural investigation prompted parliamentary hearings at which senior company officials and our British colleague were called to testify. The British government recently announced it would launch a formal investigation into the allegations. Government officials in Brazil and Argentina sought information from ICIJ on how to access similar documents. And three civil lawsuits have since been filed in the United States under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) against the major tobacco companies by the governors of Colombia, the government of Ecuador and the European Union. ICU's work has been referenced in each.

Maud Beelman is director of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists at the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, D. C. Prior to that, she was an AP correspondent for 14 years and covered German unification, the post-Gulf War Kurdish crisis in Iran and Iraq and the wars in former Yugoslavia from 1991-1996. Beelman is also an Alicia Patterson Foundation fellow.