(A CMD illustration)

An online group, the Center for Media and Democracy, stays on the lookout for spin

By Alex Byers
byersalex@niemanwatchdog.org

With the use of new technologies and multimedia media becoming more and more common in the workplace, public relations departments have an increasingly direct line to consumers and citizens. At least one organization, though, is standing strong in the fight to make sure the public knows which news is objective and which is concocted.

Founded in 1993, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), based in Madison, Wisc., is a public interest, nonprofit organization designed to advocate for transparency and battle corporate and government spin. The group is consistently studying how the media cover issues ranging from climate change to foreign military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and how interested parties are trying to shape that coverage.

“Our focus is always how is the media covering this, and how are vested interests trying to shape the media coverage,” Diane Farsetta, a senior researcher at the Center, told me in a telephone interview. “Our mission is to really to help people understand.”

The Center often points to gross flackery, helping readers sift between vetted news and corporate propaganda. In addition, the Center is a resource for reporters and editors, working directly with them on request to look into specific spin tactics from particular companies or on certain issues.

“An important part of our mission is working with reporters who might be covering a story and haven’t dealt with, say, corporate espionage before,” Farsetta said, pointing to an instance where the Center worked with a reporter covering a story regarding allegations of spying by Burger King on labor rights activists. In April of 2008, according to reports, the fast food giant tried to infiltrate a south Florida labor rights group by having a woman pose as a college student who wanted to learn more about the group. The woman, Cara Shaffer, heads a company called Diplomatic Tactical services, a security firm that offers services like “covert surveillance” and undercover operations, according to a CMD article. [Click here for a New York Times piece on trhis issue.]

Farsetta said the group also gets inquiries from reporters looking for help determining whether a group they might be covering is a legitimate organization or a front group for a hidden cause. “[We] try and get the information to them, and then of course to all of their listeners or readers or viewers about what’s going on and who’s really behind this campaign.”

The Center, whose work comes in short-term forms like daily “Spin of the Day” stories and longer-term pieces with more detailed reporting that might appear in its quarterly “PR Watch” publication, has excelled on issues where staff really focus in on an issue, Farsetta said. Farsetta, who has written for Nieman Watchdog in the past (click here), singled out reporting on climate change and debunking of fake TV news as some of the Center’s best contributions.

From June 2005 to March 2006, CMD exposed 36 deceptive video news releases and the television stations that aired them. In one example, a package about a skin medicine called Mimyx skirted FDA regulations regarding commercials by placing all the potentially negative information about the product at the very end of the piece, where television stations would likely cut it out. At least three stations aired the video, according to CMD’s report.

For some readers, CMD might be best known for SourceWatch, a wiki-based and community-generated encyclopedia of major names and organizations in the news. The project, started in 2003, currently has nearly 45,000 articles. Mainly, SourceWatch is a resource for people who might see talking heads on the news or for journalists who don’t know much about an organization that submitted a press release, Farsetta said.

“That’s where we hope people are going to get the quick facts on who are these people and what might be motivating them and who might be funding them,” she said.

Funding for CMD comes from individual donors and private foundations. The Center needs to ensure its reporting is completely independent, Farsetta said, and does not take corporate, government or labor union funding.

Farsetta said her perception is that the Center is stable but operating at a reduced level, in part because donors have been hurt by the financial collapse.

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