“Perseverance will be rewarded sooner or later – but mostly later” (Wilhelm Busch). As an investigative journalist you need to act like a long-distance runner – with many research projects taking weeks or months to piece the puzzle together. I am therefore all the more proud of the following revelations, making my perseverance worthwhile:

– After five years of proceedings at three levels of the judicial system I won my action for disclosure against WDR before the Federal Administrative Court (cf. “News”). After having filed the lawsuit on the grounds of the German legal provisions on the freedom of information and after Süddeutsche Zeitung published my report on the participation of WDR committee members in WDR mediagroup, the WDR law was modified with regard to the German legal provisions on the freedom of information and participations of committee members.

– After I revealed that the catholic banking institution Pax-Bank invested in a defence company (manufacturer of fighter jets and nuclear subs), tobacco companies and a producer of contraceptive pills, thus contravening its own ethical standards, the bank apologized to its clients on the very day my revelations were published in the SPIEGEL magazine. On the next trading day, the bank sold its corresponding shares with a total value of 1.6 million euros. The matter was also covered by media abroad.

– The weekly newspaper der Freitag commented in 2009: “One of the authors of the award-winning multi-author blog Carta is Marvin Oppong. Amongst the analytical work of co-bloggers such as the renowned Swiss media scientist Stephan Russ-Mohl, music manager Tim Renner or old hands such as former BILD editor-in-chief Michael Spreng, the 27-year-old student’s sub-blog ‘Investigative research’ seems to be a bit out of place at first sight. The youngest member of the illustrious Carta network, however, has currently been blossoming into the nightmare of several institutions. In his journalistic battle against cronyism, mismanagement, lobbyism and corruption the part-time journalist already registered remarkable success.”

– I revealed several illegal non-reported side activities of members of the German parliament, amongst others Sigmar Gabriel and Jürgen Trittin – the latter having thanked me for my work in this respect.

– At the age of 18 I already discovered that the CDU in the city of Münster had apparently financed parts of its electoral campaign illegaly.

– I was awarded the Grimme Online Award in the “Information” category and the Special Distinction “Critical Media Analysis” of the Alternative Media Award 2014. Otto Brenner Stiftung – the scientific foundation of the metal workers’ trade union IG Metall in Frankfurt/Main – awarded me a research grant for critical journalism.

– My research resulted in several parliamentary inquiries and received media coverage. The visa affair was for example covered in the prime-time news programme Tagesschau.