What is SourceWatch?

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/g...asp?grpid=7352

SourceWatch is a project of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD)
an Anti-capitalist, anti-corporate organization

What is Center for Media and Democracy?

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/g...asp?grpid=7353

In Center for Media and Democracy's (CMD) view, capitalism generally,
and corporations in particular, are the principal root causes of
societal ills in the U.S. and abroad. The Capital Research Center,
which rates the ideological leanings of nonprofit organizations,
places CMD near the extreme far left of the spectrum. The website
ActivistCash, which provides "information about the funding source[s]
of radical anti-consumer organizations and activists," characterizes
CMD as "a counterculture public relations effort disguised as an
independent media organization."

Members of the CMD Board of Directors include: Joseph Mendelson, a
former Director of Friends of the Earth and co-founder of the
environmental organization Center for Food Safety; Anna Lappe, co-
founder of the social justice organization Small Planet Institute and
a former W.K. Kellogg Foundation fellow; David Meritt, former
Executive Director of the Citizens Utility Board (a Wisconsin consumer
advocacy group that opposes utility rate increases); Inger Stole, an
assistant professor at the Institute of Communications Research; and
Jan Miyasaki, an Asian American Studies professor at the University of
Wisconsin.

The most notable CMD Board member is Ellen Braune, whose leftist
affiliations are extensive and longstanding. She currently serves as
Vice President of Communications at the Ms. Foundation for Women, and
was formerly a Senior Vice President at Fenton Communications and a
Communications Director for the Committee in Solidarity with the
People of El Salvador (CISPES). Part of the Soviet-controlled World
Peace Council, CISPES was established in America in 1980 by high-
ranking members of the Salvadoran Communist Party and Cuban
intelligence to support El Salvador's murderous guerrilla bands and to
influence American public opinion through protests and one-sided
disinformation.

CMD was founded by the leftist writer and environmental activist John
Stauber, who continues to serve as the Center's Executive Director.
Stauber began his activism in high school when he organized anti-
Vietnam War protests and early Earth Day events. The co-author (with
SourceWatch founder Sheldon Rampton) of six books, Stauber created the
now-defunct website Vote2StopBush.org. He is also an unpaid advisor
to several organizations, including the Action Coalition for Media
Education, the Center for Food Safety, the Liberty Tree Foundation,
the Media Education Foundation, and the Organic Consumers
Association.

The aforementioned Sheldon Rampton currently serves as CMD's Research
Director. A graduate of Princeton University, Rampton was formerly an
outreach coordinator for the Wisconsin Coordinating Council on
Nicaragua, a group established in 1984 to oppose President Reagan's
efforts to stop the spread of Communism in Central America, and
currently dedicated to promoting a leftist vision of "social justice
in Nicaragua through alternative models of development and activism."

An April 2001 commentary in the liberal publication Village Voice said
of Rampton and Stauber: "These guys come from the far side of
liberal."

According to ActivistCash, "Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber
operate ... from the presumption that any communication issued from a
corporate headquarters must be viewed with a jaundiced eye. ... [T]hey
recently referred to corporate PR as a propaganda industry, misleading
citizens and manipulating minds in the service of special interests.
Ironically, Rampton and Stauber have elected to dip into the deep
pockets of multi-million-dollar foundations with special interest
agendas of their own. Their books Mad Cow U.S.A. and Toxic Sludge Is
Good For You were produced and promoted using grant monies from the
Foundation for Deep Ecology ($25,000) and the Educational Foundation
of America ($20,000), among others. Along with the more recent Trust
Us, We're Experts, these books are scare-mongering tales about a
corporate culture out of control, and each implies that the public
needs rescuing. … If someone in a shirt and tie dares make a profit
(especially if food or chemicals are involved), Rampton and Stauber
are bound to have a problem with it. Unless, of course, that food is
vegetarian, organic, certified fair-trade, shade-grown, biodynamic, or
biotech-free — in which case, the sky's the limit!"

In his 2005 article, "Strategy for Progressives: Where Do We Go from
Here?," Stauber lauded the violent 1999 anti-WTO protests in Seattle
and the anti-Iraq War protests of 2003, though all these events were
replete with political propaganda, which CMD professes to disdain. The
fact that the propaganda was of a leftist nature made it acceptable to
Stauber, who in the same article praised Moveon.org as a "brilliant
and effective internet-based activist group."

CMD sponsors the following projects:

PR Watch Quarterly: "investigates and exposes how the public relations
industry and other professional propagandists manipulate public
information, perceptions and opinion on behalf of governments and
special interests"

Spin of the Day: "offers web-based daily reporting on public
relations, propaganda and media spin"

SourceWatch: an Internet-based "encyclopedia of people, issues and
groups shaping the public agenda"

Congresspedia: "the 'citizen's encyclopedia' of the members of the US
House and Senate" (This is a collaborative project of CMD and the
Sunlight Foundation.)
In addition to these projects, CMD has established an in-house
Resource Center that "answers inquiries from journalists and other
members of the public seeking to understand the forces and influences
behind current issues."

The Center also provides skills training sessions designed "to share
best practices and success stories with citizen journalists and
activist groups, through workshops and CMD's publications." These
publications include the three previously cited Rampton-Stabuer books,
as well as their other three: The Best War Ever: Lies, Damned Lies and
the Mess in Iraq; Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in
Bush's War on Iraq; and Banana Republicans: How the Right Wing is
Turning America Into a One-Party State.

CMD officials make frequent media appearances to spread their message.
In recent years, they have given interviews to such outlets as Air
America Radio, The American Prospect, Al Jazeera, AlterNet,
CommonDreams, Democracy Now!, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting,
Mother Jones, The Nation, The New York Times, and TomPaine.com.

The Center has collaborated with other leftist organizations on a
number of projects and campaigns. For example:
CMD and Adbusters co-endorsed the 2001 "National Ad Slam Contest" (a
project of the Ralph Nader-founded Commercial Alert), which awarded
money to schools that barred advertisers from their premises.

CMD joined the Center for Food Safety (CFS) and the Humane Farming
Association in filing two lawsuits against the federal government in
1999. Alleging that existing federal protections did not adequately
protect the American public from Mad Cow Disease, the plaintiffs
demanded changes to meat-processing and labeling regulations.

CMD is a member of the Foodspeak coalition organized by the Center for
Science in the Public Interest, which seeks to give far greater legal
latitude to critics who publicly condemn the food industry's allegedly
unsafe practices. Other members of Foodspeak include Alliance for
Justice, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Environmental Working
Group, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, Greenpeace, the Natural
Resources Defense Council, People for the American Way, Public
Citizen, and the Union of Concerned Scientists.

At the height of the U.S. mad-cow scare, CMD's John Stauber shared a
press-conference dais with the Environmental Working Group's Ken Cook,
warning journalists that a "crisis" threatened America's meat supply.
The event was organized by Environmental Media Services, the now-
defunct media arm of Fenton Communications.

CMD is a member organization of the anti-technology Turning Point
Project, whose Board member Joe Mendelson also sits on CMD's Board.
CMD has received financial backing from the Ettinger Foundation,
Funding Exchange, the Grodzins Fund, the HKH Foundation, the Leo J. &
Celia Carlin Fund, the Litowitz Foundation, the Marisla Foundation,
the Mostyn Foundation, the Panta Rhea Foundation, the Park Foundation,
the Rockefeller Family Fund, the Schumann Center for Media and
Democracy, the Threshold Foundation, the Wallace Global Fund, Richard
& Rhoda Goldman Fund, the Foundation for Deep Ecology, the Harold K.
Hochschild Foundation, the Carolyn Foundation, the Deer Creek
Foundation, the Turner Foundation, the Educational Foundation of
America, the Stern Family Fund, the Winslow Foundation, the DJB
Foundation, the Bauman Family Foundation, the CarEth Foundation, and
the Cold Mountain Foundation.