The Deadly Secret of China’s Invisible Armada
This joint investigation published by The Outlaw Ocean Project and NBC News reveals the world’s largest fleet of illegal fishing boats ever discovered that has been operating invisibly in North Korean waters in clear violation of UN sanctions. The discovery of this fleet — more than 900 Chinese squid vessels — partially explains why in the past 5 years more than 500 ships, many of them carrying the dead bodies of North Korea fishermen, have washed ashore along the coast of Japan. The story took over a year and a half to report and required me and my team to buy our way onto a squid vessel off the coast of Korea so as to report at sea.
The Outlaw Ocean Project also decided to do something very different in how we disseminated this journalism. One of the limitations of the traditional model used especially by legacy news outlets, is that worthy investigative stories are typically seen by only a small fraction of the public because these stories get published in just one outlet and typically in just one language. Part of what The Outlaw Ocean Project seeks to do is not just produce polished narrative investigative journalism but also convert that journalism into new forms in order to reach new audiences.
Apart from the original NBC investigation, this story was re-published in over 30 international news outlets within 25 countries, translated into more than 12 languages, and had an overall cumulative readership of over 146 million. This readership speaks to the new model of journalism that The Outlaw Ocean Project is trying to leverage.
We built a spreadsheet with the best available intelligence with the vessels we spotted in this investigation that are believed to be in violation of UN sanctions. For users interested in learning more, view the spreadsheet here.
More importantly, though, is the journalism itself. Give the story a read in any of the respective venues and languages below.
- United States
NBC News
Yale Environment 360
GreenBiz - Canada
Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) - Mexico
El Sol de Mexico - United Kingdom
Foreign Desk
The Economist Part 1
The Economist Part 2
Sentient Media - Ireland
Irish Times - Germany
Der Spiegel - Italy
Millenium Magazine
Investigative Reporting Project Italy - The Netherlands
NRC Handelsblad - Greece
Reporters United - France
Libération - Taiwan
China News Center - Finland
Helsingin Sanomat
Hufvudstadsbladet - Australia
Ocean Impact - Japan
Yahoo! Japan
Alterna
Kahoku Shinpou - Chile
Emol - Argentina
Clarín - Brazil
Epoca - South Korea
Chosun - Dominican Republic
Diario Libre - Uruguay
El Observador - Scotland
The Herald Pt. 1
The Herald Pt. 2 - Liberia
Liberian Daily Observer - The Philippines
The Manila Times Pt. 1
The Manila Times Pt. 2 - Nicaragua
La Prensa - Spain
Revista Contexto - Iceland
Visir - Palawan
Palawan News - Haiti
Le Nouvelliste - Colombia
El Tiempo - South Africa
Uspiked - India
Caravan Magazine - Geneva
Geneva Solutions
Heidi News
The reporting for this story was published in outlets around the world.
- 30News Outlets
- 25Countries
- 12Languages
- 146MReadership