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SourceWatch
You gotta spin it to win it Media |
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We want pictures of Spider-Man! |
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SourceWatch (formerly Disinfopedia) is a wiki dedicated to profiling government and corporate spin doctors. According to their mission page:
“”SourceWatch profiles the activities of front groups, PR spinners, industry-friendly experts, industry-funded organizations, and think tanks trying to manipulate public opinion on behalf of corporations or government. We also highlight key public policies they are trying to affect and provide ways to get involved.
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The wiki is a project of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) think tank, which also runs PRWatch. According to CMD, it does not accept government grants or corporate donations.[1] CMD was founded by environmental activist John Stauber.
The site suffers somewhat from liberal bias in that there's not much documentation of left-wing front groups, though the wiki is meant to concentrate on corporate FUD campaigns. Occasionally, some anti-scientific stuff from nature woo-meisters creeps in and a few editors like to slap Koch Industries under the funding sections of every front group page. However, the wiki is in general active and well-maintained and collects a lot of good sources and research. Their coverage of global warming denialism, oil and coal interests, and tobacco front groups is superb.
By contrast, their information pertaining to animal testing is atrocious, calling the whole exercise vivisection. They also downplay and whitewash PETA's insanity, hypocrisy, and media stunts, as well as the shenanigans of ecoterrorists and the radical fringes of the animal rights movement. Their coverage of Big Pharma and alternative medicine is rather inconsistent. Some of their alt-med and pharma pages actually link to good skeptical resources like Quackwatch and The Skeptic's Dictionary debunking nature woo and quackery. However, some other pages are loaded up with anti-vaccination crankery and alt-woo references, including some really egregious quacks like Dana Ullman. Their articles on GM crops and Monsanto are a mix of logical fallacies, distorted events, half-truths, and outright lies, with the occasional fact thrown in.