Center for Media and Democracy - SourceWatch

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The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), founded in 1993 by John Stauber. It is a progressive organization led by Lisa Graves. According to its website, CMD "strengthens participatory democracy by investigating and exposing public relations spin and propaganda, and by promoting media literacy and citizen journalism." CMD publishes PR Watch, SourceWatch, and BanksterUSA.

Contents

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Books

The following books were written by former CMD staff, John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton:

People

Staff

Board of Directors

Funding

Over its history, CMD has received over $500 from the following foundations: [1]

The Center does not accept corporate, labor union or government grants. [2]

Contact

Center for Media and Democracy
520 University Ave.
Suite 260
Madison, WI 53703
phone (608) 260-9713
fax: 608-260-9714
Email: email editor AT prwatch.org
Web: http://www.prwatch.org/

Non-Partisan Advocacy

The group presents itself as a nonpartisan media research organization and its principals have criticized people and policies in both of the major political parties in the U.S. and interest groups across the political spectrum.

Example of CMD's Critiques

The CMD book Banana Republicans documents that the right wing in the United States regards politics as a form of "war by other means." The book notes that notwithstanding self-named "conservatives" have a "stated aversion to 'big government,' when in control of the federal government they did not hesitate to expand its powers in precisely those areas that are most threatening to individual freedoms, through the USA Patriot Act and other measures that authorize spying on citizens and detentions without trial. The likelihood that such inherently abusive powers will be misused has increased, moreover, as the conservative movement accuses its ideological adversaries of 'treason,' 'terrorism' and 'un-Americanism,' threatening long-standing traditions of tolerance and diversity. ... In sum, the direction in which forces in the GOP are moving looks - at times absurdly, at times ominously - similar to the 'banana republics' of Latin America: nations dominated by narrow corporate elites, which use the pretext of national security to violate the rights of their citizens."

The book warns that one-party domination of politics carries the danger of "incestuous amplification," a tendency for policymakers to "only listens to those who are already in lock-step agreement, reinforcing set beliefs and creating a situation ripe for miscalculation." It notes that in one-party dictatorships like Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Soviet Union, "hierarchical, command-driven social systems" were "notorious for their tendency to make disastrous decisions, in the areas of both domestic and foreign policy." With regard to the United States, the book argues that "incestuous amplification" helps explain "how the Bush administration managed to convince itself that Iraq truly did possess awesome weapons of mass destruction, that it was closely tied to al Qaeda, and that the people of Iraq would greet a U.S. invasion of their country as liberation. Much of the administration's intelligence information about Iraq actually came from the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an organization created and funded by the U.S. government at the behest of the first Bush administration for the purpose of creating conditions for Saddam Hussein's overthrow. Not surprisingly, the information from the INC and its head, Ahmed Chalabi, tended to reinforce the already-existing assumptions of policymakers in the second Bush administration, even when that information contradicted other reports coming from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency."

The book argues that incestuous amplification can also distort other areas of knowledge and policy, such as science. It notes that Bush administration routinely subordinated science to politics, with potentially dangerous consequences. "To inform its decisions on issues including sex education, environmental health, global warming, workplace safety and AIDS, the Bush administration has used a variety of political litmus tests to create scientific panels stacked heavily with members who have scant scientific credentials but strong industry ties and right-wing agendas. It had altered official government websites, removing scientific information that contradicts the political views of industry groups and the conservative movement. In some cases, scientists have been ordered to remain silent by their politically appointed higher-ups."

Criticism

Some contend that CMD is not neutral because its founder, John Stauber, is "a democracy activist in leadership roles since high school around controversial issues of war, peace, public affairs, environmental health and social justice." CMD has been criticized for having an anti-corporate viewpoint by industry lobbyists like Berman & Co., a public affairs firm owned by Rick Berman specializing in creating front groups for industry clients in the tobacco, food, biotechnology and other sectors. ActivistCash.com, an industry-funded website run by Berman & Co. and associated with Berman's Center for Consumer Freedom, has run such critiques.

Other organizations with similar names

CMD was founded in 1993. Since then a number of other unaffiliated organizations with similar names have arisen. They also are named, or have in their name, "Center for Media and Democracy." These different groups include:

  • CMD Pakistan - a civil society group in Pakistan, which says its goal is "to ensure free, fair and transparent holding of upcoming general elections" (in February 2008) [3]
  • Schumann Center for Media and Democracy - a foundation based in New Jersey, which focuses on the environment, good governance and media issues
  • DeWitt Wallace Center for Media and Democracy - a research center at Duke University that supports "democratic free media in the United States and around the globe" [4]
  • CCTV Center for Media and Democracy - a Burlington, Vermont community media center (CCTV stands for Chittenden Community Television) with a mission of ensuring "free speech and opportunity in the increasingly centralized and commercialized world of electronic media" [5]

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