SourceWatch

Welcome to SourceWatch—your guide to the names behind the news. SourceWatch is a collaborative project of the Center for Media and Democracy to produce a directory of the people, organizations and issues shaping the public agenda. A primary purpose of SourceWatch is documenting the PR and propaganda activities of public relations firms and public relations professionals engaged in managing and manipulating public perception, opinion and policy. SourceWatch also includes profiles on think tanks, industry-funded organizations and industry-friendly experts that work to influence public opinion and public policy on behalf of corporations, governments and special interests. Over time, SourceWatch has broadened to include others involved in public debates including media outlets, journalists and government agencies. Unlike some other wikis, SourceWatch has a policy of strict referencing, and is overseen by a paid editor. SourceWatch has 37,181 articles.

• Time for a Federal Shield Law for Journalists: The New York Times editorial board supports a proposed federal shield law for journalists currently in the Senate. The bill, which would provide journalists with protections against having to reveal sources in federal court, also makes allowances for genuine needs on the part of law enforcement and security concerns. Despite those exceptions, the bill faces "near hysterical opposition from the Bush administration."

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  Edelman Gets Called Out for Greenwashing: Members of the Oxford Climate Action group protested at the London offices of PR firm Edelman to draw attention to the greenwashing done on behalf of its energy client E.ON UK . The group said that said the demonstration aimed to "highlight the insanity of investing in new coal power stations such as Kingsnorth in the face of human-caused climate change." The activists protested in front of the firm's building, unfurled a banner from the roof, and even gained entrance to the company's offices.

• Researchers Uncover How Tobacco Companies Use Menthol: Harvard School of Public Health researchers combed through tobacco industry documents to find out why the industry adds menthol to cigarettes, and why cigarette brands have differing levels of menthol. Researchers found that tobacco companies use menthol's anesthetic effect to mask the harshness of the smoke and ease throat pain for beginning smokers. Once smokers are addicted, according to documents, they seek cigarettes with increasing levels of menthol to maintain the sensory effects.

• The Army National Guard Wants to Rock You: The Army National Guard is launching a new recruiting campaign, called the "Rock Star Hero Challenge." Developed by RedPeg Marketing, the effort focuses on venues where the Guard expects its target demographic to be: music festivals, NASCAR events, and fishing tournaments.

• The Nation Magazine Examines MoveOn@Ten: At the Netroots Nation conference in Austin registrees received the latest The Nation magazine with a timely cover article by Christopher Hayes. He writes, "This year, MoveOn turns ten. ... Perhaps the most damning criticism leveled at MoveOn is that by creating a clear and easy outlet for people's frustration and angst, the organization delivers people a false sense of accomplishment. In other words, MoveOn can be tremendously successful without being effective."

• Liddy Doles Out Dubious Honor: Republican Senator Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina submitted an amendment to name an HIV/AIDS relief bill after the late Jesse Helms. Helms, Dole’s predecessor in North Carolina, was notorious for being a "strident foe of HIV/AIDS prevention, research and treatment." In 1988, while vigorously opposing the Kennedy-Hatch AIDS research bill, Helms said, "There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy;" later, in 1995, in opposition to refunding the Ryan White Act, he argued that "the government should spend less on people with AIDS because they got sick due to their ‘deliberate, disgusting revolting conduct.'" I

• See You Later, Alligator!: The Colorado Coalition for the Homeless plans to hand out free movie tickets, free passes to the Zoo, Denver's Museum of Nature and Science and other cultural attractions to homeless people during the Democratic National Convention August 25-28. They will even provide free bus tickets for the homeless to visit attractions that are beyond walking distance. Some citizens think the plan is an effort to hide the city's homeless during the convention. Some homeless people have shown little enthusiasm for the plan. Denver panhandler Ronnie Wand says he'll believe the free tickets when he sees them, and expects to do time in jail for vagrancy during the convention.

• The White House Exploited Lynch and Tillman to Market their Wars: A U.S. House of Representatives committee has released a report investigating the White House's media management efforts over the death from friendly fire of Army Ranger Pat Tillman and the rescue from an Iraqi hospital of Private Jessica Lynch. The report noted that Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan had e-mailed the White House’s Director of Strategic Initiatives, Peter Wehner, recommending that he "find out what faith Tillman practiced and have the president go by that church and light a candle or say a prayer."

• Nuking the Media: Two years ago an editorial in the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) referred to the dream run that Patrick Moore and Christine Todd Whitman were getting in the media representing the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition. CJR noted that few journalists were disclosing that the group was created by the Nuclear Energy Institute with assistance from Hill & Knowlton. The dream run continues. Jay Hancock, a business columnist for the Baltimore Sun, wrote in his blog that "Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore has decided that the risks of nuclear energy are lower than the risks of continuing to use carbon energy." The week before his post, a CanWest News Service story simply described Moore as an "avid proponent of nuclear" power.

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  Weekly Radio Spin: What Would Jesse Do?: Listen to this week's edition of the "Weekly Radio Spin," the Center for Media and Democracy's audio report on the stories behind the news. This week, we look at rock star Guard members, protection for journalists and a bizarre "honor" for Jesse Helms. In "Six Degrees of Spin and Fakin'," we look at Senator Elizabeth Dole. Podcasters can subscribe to XML feed on http://www.prwatch.org/audio or via iTunes. If you air the Weekly Radio Spin on your radio station, please email us at editor@prwatch.org to let us know. Thanks!

• Diane Farsetta surveys the breadth of the U.S. nuclear lobby. See Meet the Nuclear Power Lobby (July 1);

• In a guest blog, retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner reviews how the the U.S. Administration is building its anti-Iran message. See Same Old Dog and No New Tricks: Update on Messaging on Iran (June 20);

• Anne Landman reviews the latest bout of "pinkwashing", with numerous companies trying to boost sales by associating their products with the fight against breast cancer. See Pinkwashing: Can Shopping Cure Breast Cancer? (June 11);

• Diane Farsetta reports on the recent National Conferences on Media Reform in Minneapolis. See Pentagon Pundits, Media Reform and Talking Back to Bill O'Reilly, June 10; and

• Sheldon Rampton scritinises the review of former Bush administration press secretary Scott McClellan's new book by John Stodder, one of the two former Fleishman-Hillard consultants convicted in May 2006 of multiple counts of conspiracy and fraud in a scheme to overbill the city of Los Angeles for public relations consulting services. See McClellan and the Ethics of Spin (June 5).

• Portal:Superdelegate Transparency Project: The Superdelegate Transparency Project (STP) is a project of LiteraryOutpost.com, OpenLeft, DemConWatch, HuffPost's OfftheBus project and the Congresspedia community on SourceWatch. It is the central gathering place for compiling information on the 2008 Democratic Convention superdelegates, their endorsements and the delegate voting process, including for comparison to the district-by-district allocation of pledged delegates. It is based on fully sourced research generated largely by citizen journalists, bloggers and activists who have the common purpose of bringing public transparency to the role of superdelegates in the Democratic nomination process. More...

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  Help Publicize What the Candidates for Congress and the White House Stand For: The online world is rife with complaints that it's hard to tell what Barack Obama and John McCain's positions and records really are on the issues. Fortunately, the Congresspedia staff have come up with a handy guide to tracking their positions - and those of every congressional incumbent and candidate - down. Who supports continuing the War in Iraq? Who wants to make abortion illegal? Who voted for the Bush tax cuts?

• Who Are the Pentagon's Pundits?: On Sunday, the New York Times outed the Pentagon's "military analyst program," an extensive effort to cultivate retired military officers as "message force multipliers" or "surrogates" spouting Bush administration talking points on Iraq and other hot-button issues. We've compiled a list of known participants, and started SourceWatch profiles on each. Can you help us uncover more about the Pentagon's pundits? What did they say, on what news programs? Do they also lobby on behalf of defense contractors? More information on the program is here. The list of participants is also repeated here, with tips on how to investigate each. If this is your first time editing on SourceWatch, you can register here, and learn more about adding information to the site here, here and here. Thanks for your help!

If this is your first time editing on SourceWatch, you can register here, and learn more about adding information to the site here, here and here. Hold onto your hat, have fun, and thanks for your help!

And if you would like to work on something else, take a look at some of our earlier citizen journalism projects here. Have fun, and thanks for your help!

• Join the Discussion: Forums for Communication on SourceWatch: The SourceWatch staff has created two forums for citizen journalists on SourceWatch to communicate with each other about what's going on in the site: a Yahoo group and a Community Portal. The Community Portal is a place where you can find announcements by staff and citizen editors, links to important policies and help pages and categories of outstanding tasks and projects identified by readers and editors, such as articles that need updating, expanding or fixing. The Yahoo group is meant primarily for sysops and other editors who are most concerned with the administration of the site and facilitating the contributions of the users, but both the group and the community portal are open to everyone to view and post. SourceWatch is only as strong as its community of editors, so please dive in and let us know what you think.

With the U.S. election primary season dominating news headlines, it is no surprise that pages on the 2008 Presidential election campaign are amongst the most popular pages over the last week. Heading the list are those on Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, the main campaign issues, Congresspedia's Superdelegate Transparency Project and the Economic Stimulus Bill of 2008.

Other popular pages include those on the Heartland Institute, a corporate-funded think tank which this week convened a meeting of global warming skeptics in New York; the article on Corporate Social Responsibility and the profile on the military contractor, Blackwater USA.

"A truly impressive project based on cutting edge web technology." David Korten, author of When Corporations Rule the World and The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community.

"The troublemakers at the Center for Media and Democracy, for example, point to dozens of examples of "greenwashing," which they defined as the "unjustified appropriation of environmental virtue by a company, an industry, a government or even a non-government organization to sell a product, a policy" or rehabilitate an image. In the center's view, many enterprises labeled green don't deserve the name.—Jack Shafer, "Green Is the New Yellow: On the excesses of 'green' journalism", Slate, July 6, 2007.

"As a journalist frequently on the receiving end of various PR campaigns, some of them based on disinformation, others front groups for undisclosed interests, [CMD's SourceWatch] is an invaluable resource."—Michael Pollan author of The Botany of Desire

"Thanks for all your help. There's no way I could have done my piece on big PR and global warming without the CMD [Center for Media and Democracy] and your fabulous websites."—Zoe Cormier, journalist, Canada

"The dearth of information on the [U.S.] government [lobbying] disclosure forms about the other business-backed coalitions comes in stark contrast to the data about them culled from media reports, websites, press releases and Internal Revenue Service documents and posted by SourceWatch, a website that tracks advocacy groups." Jeanne Cummings, 'New disclosure reports lack clarity", Politico, April 29, 2008.

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To learn how you can edit any article right now, visit SourceWatch:About, SourceWatch:Welcome, newcomers, our Help page, Frequently Asked Questions, or experiment in the sandbox.

If you are unsure where to start, you could expand some of the recently created but currently very brief articles. (If you look at the recent changes page you will see some noted as being 'stubs' - articles that may just be a line or two and needing to be fleshed out). So if you would like to add to some of those you would be most welcome. Or if you would like some other suggestions closer to your interests you could drop SourceWatch editor, Bob Burton an email. His address is bob AT sourcewatch.org

SourceWatch content

SourceWatch also includes specific case studies of deceptive PR campaigns, the activities of front groups, industry-funded organizations and industry-friendly experts. We are also building profiles on public relations associations, specific criticisms of PR, common propaganda techniques, war propaganda and much, much more.

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SourceWatch began as the "Disinfopedia" in February 2003. In January 2005, the name was changed to SourceWatch. Contributors are now working on 37,181 articles. In the last twelve months SourceWatch has served over 113 million pages to users.

Disclaimer: SourceWatch is an encyclopedia of people, issues and groups shaping the public agenda. It is a project of the Center for Media & Democracy—email bob AT sourcewatch.org.

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