Center for Media and Democracy

The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), founded in 1993 by John Stauber. It is a progressive organization administrated 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.

Books

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

• Toxic Sludge is Good For You!
• Mad Cow U.S.A.
• Trust Us, We're Experts! How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles With Your Future
• Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq; Banana Republicans: How the Right Wing Is Turning America Into a One-Party State
• The Best War Ever: Lies, Damned Lies and the Mess in Iraq

People

Staff

• Lisa Graves, Executive Director
• Mary Bottari, Director of the Real Economy Project
• Wendell Potter, Senior Fellow on Health Care
• Patricia Barden, Webmaster
• Bob Burton, SourceWatch Editor
• Conor Kenny, consultant
• Anne Landman, TobaccoWiki Editor
• Sari Williams, Office and Outreach Manager
• John Stauber, Founder and Advisor

Board of Directors

• Deborah Bey
• Lisa Graves
• David Merritt
• Joe Mendelson
• Inger Stole
• Ellen Braune
• Jan Miyasaki

Funding

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

• Bydale Foundation
• Careth Foundation
• Carolyn Foundation
• Changing Horizons Charitable Trust
• CS Fund
• Deer Creek Foundation
• DJB Foundation
• Educational Foundation of America
• Florence and John Schumann Foundation
• Foundation for Deep Ecology
• Richard & Rhoda Goldman Fund
• Grodzins Fund
• HKH Foundation
• Homeland Foundation
• Jenifer Altman Foundation
• Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation
• Litowitz Foundation
• Ottinger Foundation
• Rockwood Fund
• Roy and Niuta Titus Foundation
• Sperling Foundation
• Stern Family Fund
• Town Creek Foundation
• Turner Foundation
• Winslow Foundation

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

Contact

Center for Media and Democracy
520 University Ave.
Suite 227
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

In their 2004 book, Banana Republicans, John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton document that the right wing in the United States regards politics as a form of "war by other means" and that this philosophy, combined with Republican control of every branch of the U.S. federal government, has moved the United States in the direction of becoming a one-party state. They write that notwithstanding conservatives "stated aversion to 'big government,' now that they have become the government they have not hesitated 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 those powers will be abused 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."

Rampton and Stauber warn 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." They note 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, they argue 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."

They argue that incestuous amplification can also distort other areas of knowledge and policy, such as science. In the Soviet Union, for example, agricultural development was seriously undermined when biologists were charged with sabotage, terrorism and Trotskyism, fired from their jobs and even killed for perceived deviations from the government's official party line. "Under Republican rule, of course, scientists are not being arrested or shot," they write, "but the Bush administration has begun a disturbing process of subordinating 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 has 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, citing the writings of its founder, the writer, political activist, and environmentalist John Stauber who describes himself as "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. ActivistCash.com accuses CMD of operating "as do most self-anointed progressive watchdogs, from the presumption that any communication issued from a corporate headquarters must be viewed with a jaundiced eye." This website also opines, "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!" See the article on CMD on ActivistCash.com, and the criticisms section of the Wikipedia article on SourceWatch.

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]