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We Track Corporations and PR Spin

The Center for Media and Democracy publishes SourceWatch to track corporations.

We provide well-documented information about corporate public relations (PR) campaigns, including corporate front groups, people who "front" corporate campaigns, and PR operations.

Please visit SourceWatch's sister websites EXPOSEDbyCMD, to find our investigations and original documents we release, PRWatch, to read our original reporting, and ALECexposed, to see our award-winning investigation of a corporate front group where corporate lobbyists actually vote as equals with elected legislators on "model" legislation to change our rights.

Also, please check out the in-depth research from around the world by our partner projects within SourceWatch: Coal Swarm, and FrackSwarm.

ALEC Exposed

Follow the Bills!

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Thousands of resources on the American Legislative Exchange Council are part of the Sourcewatch wiki. In ALEC's own words, corporations have "VOICE and a VOTE" on specific changes to the law that are then proposed in your state.

Important resources:

Visit ALEC Exposed for more.

SPN Exposed

Follow the Studies!

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The State Policy Network is a web of right-wing “think tanks” and nonprofits that publishes corporate-backed research to promote the ALEC/Koch agenda in state houses nationwide.

Important Resources:

Visit State Policy Network for more.

GEM.wiki

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Launched in January 2020, GEM Wiki is a new resource sponsored by Global Energy Monitor and the Center for Media and Democracy. From 2008 to 2019, the two organizations sponsored the CoalSwarm and FrackSwarm portals on SourceWatch. These resources, comprising over 17,000 footnoted pages, have now been combined into a single wiki platform devoted to information on fossil energy, climate, and the clean energy transition.

Visit GEM Wiki for more.


Koch Exposed

Follow the Money!

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The Center for Media and Democracy brings you this unique wiki resource on the billionaire industrialists and the power and influence of the Koch cadre and Koch cash.


Feature Resources:

Visit Koch Exposed for more.


New/Updated SourceWatch Articles

SourceWatch's home page is the top landing page on this website. Here are some recently published or updated pages:



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Praise for SourceWatch!

"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 CMD [the Center for Media and Democracy] and your fabulous websites."
—Zoe Cormier, journalist, Canada

"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.

"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.

"The folks at the Center for Media and Democracy have done incredible work documenting fake grassroots ("astroturf") groups. Here, they're helping protect the rights of all Americans to exercise their right to vote. They are completely non-partisan. These guys are the real deal."

Craig Newmark, craigslist


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