We will be performing maintenance on the SourceWatch wiki on Friday, November 20, 2009, beginning at 6pm EST. During this time, editing will be suspended and the wiki will be offline at times. The process will take several hours. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you. Thank you for your continued support of the SourceWatch project!
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, government agencies, activists and nongovernmental organizations. Unlike some other wikis, SourceWatch has a policy of strict referencing, and is overseen by a paid editor. SourceWatch has 47,749 articles.
In the news
*A None-Too-Happy Mermaid A coalition of groups has unveiled a short list of nominees for The Angry Mermaid Award for the "company or lobby group is doing the most to sabotage effective action on climate change." (A waterside statue of a mermaid is a local Copenhagen landmark.) Groups short-listed include the U.S. coal industry front group, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity; the International Air Transport Association, which has lobbied against climate legislation binding airlines to reduce emissions; Shell, which is investing in developing highly polluting tar sands; and the South African company, Sasol, which is promoting Carbon Capture and Storage as a "clean solution to the dirty business of producing liquid fuels from coal and gas." Voting is open until Sunday December 13, 2009.
UnitedHealth Presses its Employees to Oppose Public OptionUnitedHealth Group urged its 75,000 employees to phone their senators and write letters-to-the-editor to protest including a public health insurance option in health reform legislation. The California-based consumer advocacy group Consumer Watchdog obtained a copy of an email that United for Health Reform, UnitedHealth Group's lobbying arm, sent to company employees. It contained form letters employees could use to contact newspapers and senators. According to Consumer Watchdog, the email offered misleading talking points the same as those advanced by the Republican Party, like the claim that health insurance reform will cause millions to lose their coverage.
Berman's Serious Secrecy Veteran astroturf lobbyist Richard Berman, through his front group the Employment Policies Institute, is planning an advertising blitz claiming that healthcare reform is too costly. The ads will run in Nebraska, North Dakota, Arkansas, Louisiana, Connecticut and Maine. “We’re putting some serious money behind it,” said Berman. As to whose money it is, Berman was less forthcoming. "These are people we do business with and have an interest in the issue,” was all Berman would disclose.
* Planners of Scandal-Plagued Medicare Part D Legislation Now Fighting Health Insurance Reform Former federal officials and legislative aides who helped draft the 2003 Medicare Part D drug benefit are now lobbying for pharmaceutical interests trying and protect the lucrative drug payment system in health care reform negotiations. In 2008, the House Committee on Oversight found that Medicare Part D has delivered a bonanza to pharmaceutical companies by allowing them to charge the government 30 percent more for drugs through Part D than for drugs for people in the Medicaid system. Pharmaceutical industry lobbyists are working against the House version of the health care reform bill, which requires drug companies give up some of their Medicare Part D windfall. The list of public officials-turned-health care-lobbyists includes former Senator John Breaux (D-Louisiana), who fought against allowing the government to negotiate drug prices for Medicare Part D, former Senator Don Nickles (R-Oklahoma) who helped negotiate the final version of Part D and then left to form his own lobbying firm, and Thomas A. Scully, the former head of Medicare, who also helped design Part D.
Bob Burton writes about Australian geologist Ian Plimer's connections to the mining industry. Plimer's book, "Heaven and Earth: Global Warming - The Missing Science," has made him the darling of conservative media commentators and the global network of climate change skeptics.
Editor's pick of the week
SourceWatch contributor Lisa G. Leming has created a comprehensive article on the issues surrounding Puppy Mills, pet stores, dog clubs, breeder and veterinary associations, incorporating YouTube videos of Human Society surveillance footage into puppy mill operations.
HSUS & Wayne County, NC Animal Control rescue 300 dogs in puppy mill raid. - February 2009
Projects for citizen editors
Drilling Through the Appalachian Shale Gas Hype While the U.S. economy continues to reel from the fallout from the global financial crisis, there's a boom on in the gas industry wanting access to Appalachian areas underlain by Marcellus Shale deposits. The prospect of massive drilling has environmentalists and many residents worried about the environmental impacts. To make gas production profitable, the industry employs a practice called fracking, pumping large volumes of water, sand and a mix of chemicals down drill holes to fracture the rock formations and increase the volume of accessible gas. The Safe Drinking Water Act protects water supplies, but the gas industry is the only industry excluded from the legislation, and many state governments fail to regulate fracking practices. You can help out by adding information about the health and environmental effects being seen from fracking to the SourceWatch article on fracking.
If this is your first time editing on SourceWatch, you can register here, and learn more about adding information to the site here, here, here and here. Hold onto your hat, have fun, and thanks for your help!
The most popular pages over the last week have included the article on Fox News, the cable channel owned by news magnate Rupert Murdoch. Other popular pages include the article on Propaganda techniques, which describes common strategic and rhetorical techniques often used to influence opinions and avoid the truth. Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, think tanks, Xe (the company formerly known as Blackwater) have also been popular this week.
What they're saying about SourceWatch
"The folks at the Center for Media and Democracy have done incredible work documenting fake grassroots ("astroturf") groups. Here, they're helping protects the rights of all Americans to exercise their right to vote. They are completely non-partisan. These guys are the real deal." Craig Newmark, Craig's List
"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.
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 began as the "Disinfopedia" in February 2003. In January 2005, the name was changed to SourceWatch. Contributors are now working on 47,749 articles. In the last twelve months SourceWatch has served over 97 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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