> Many will ask about the ethics of publishing such private data. We are doing so — quite selectively and carefully — because we believe it serves the public interest in fundamental ways, allowing readers to see patterns that were until now hidden.... We believe that disclosing the identities of billionaires who paid little to no taxes in years their fortunes grew by billions of dollars will help readers understand t…
> quite selectively and carefully > allowing readers to see patterns that were until now hidden am I being too cynical, or is this a "pick one" situation? what "pattern" are the readers supposed to see in this carefully chosen subset of the data? what patterns do the unchosen subsets show?
I'd give ProPublica the benefit the doubt here. They have the resources to hire the right talent, and that talent is likely empowered to keep conjecture at bay or properly disclosed.
And, of course, you're unlikely to get all the data. Stories like this will nearly always, in some form or fashion, be based on a somewhat incomplete snapshot of data or documents. But taking that data and corroborating it with what we do know is often enough to add validity to the assumptions that are being reached by a publication such as ProPublica.