Consumer Reports WebWatch, Center for Media and Democracy Collaborate on
Blog-Driven, Wiki-based Site Inviting Contributions from Interested Readers
'The American public deserves to know when someone is trying to persuade
them.' - U.S. FCC commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, Thursday, Jan. 17, 2008
YONKERS, N.Y., Jan. 29 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Full Frontal Scrutiny
(http://www.frontgroups.org), a joint project of two non-profit organizations
with a strong history of independent, public interest investigative reporting
online, launched today to expose the work of hidden persuaders on the Web and
in other media.
Full Frontal Scrutiny is a joint venture between Consumer Reports WebWatch and
the Center for Media and Democracy. The site seeks to shine a light on front
groups -- organizations that state a particular agenda, while hiding or
obscuring their identity, membership or sponsorship, or all three.
WebWatch and the Center will create original content for Full Frontal
Scrutiny, debuting today with two exclusive features: An investigation of
front group activity in the popular online information resource Wikipedia,
including a guide to help consumers get the most out of that site; and a
history of front groups and their activities. Full Frontal Scrutiny will also
publish selected content from WebWatch and from the Center's SourceWatch
database, as well as aggregating news about front groups from other reliable
sources.
Author Sheldon Rampton is the Research Director for the Center for Media and
Democracy, and the creator of its popular site www.SourceWatch.org, an edited
online encyclopedia of the people, organizations and issues shaping the
public's perceptions and agenda. Said Rampton, "Full Frontal Scrutiny will be
like no other site on the Web. Fakers, phonies and front groups beware, you
will be exposed."
The joint venture grew from WebWatch's mission to create guidelines for Web
site credibility, which it has successfully done for travel, health, search
sites and others. WebWatch's credibility guidelines emphasize that the most
trustworthy Web sites clearly disclose their address, identity, purpose,
mission, corporate parents and sources of funding. The Center's SourceWatch
site, open to contributions from the public, has indexed and reported on
hundreds of organizations whose offline or online presence fails the
transparency test, by omission, obfuscation, or deception.
"For six years, Consumer Reports WebWatch has evaluated sites against five
simple guidelines for credibility and trustworthiness," said Beau Brendler,
WebWatch's director. "Who owns the site? What's its purpose and mission? Does
it disclose sources of funding or key relationships with third parties? These
are important questions for consumers to ask about any Web site, and they're
also remarkably effective for ferreting out sites that intend to spin,
obfuscate or dress up an unpopular agenda."
Full Frontal Scrutiny will focus on front groups in the health, personal
finance, electronics and Internet, automotive, home, environment, travel and
other topic areas of particular interest to Consumers Union and within its
expertise.
What's a Front Group?
Not all organizations trying to shape public opinion are front groups. Some
organizations may represent a particular point of view, and don't hide who's
paying the bills. But just about all front groups try to mislead in one way or
another.
A front group typically has some (but not necessarily all) of the following
characteristics:
-- It avoids mentioning its main sources of funding. This does not
necessarily mean absolute concealment of sponsorship.
-- It's set up by and/or operated by another organization, particularly a
public relations, grassroots campaigning, polling or surveying firm or
consultancy.
-- It engages in actions that consistently and conspicuously benefit a third
party, such as a company, industry or political candidate.
-- It shields a third party from liability, responsibility or culpability.
-- It re-focuses debate about an issue onto a new or unrelated topic, for
example, portraying secondhand smoke from cigarettes as a property rights
issue.
-- It has a misleading name that disguises its real agenda, such as the
National Wetlands Coalition, which opposed policies to protect U.S. wetlands;
or the Consumer Alliance for Energy Security, which is funded by the oil, gas
and manufacturing industries and advocates for offshore drilling. Sometimes a
front group's name might seem to suggest academic or political neutrality
("Consumers' Research," "American Policy Center"), while in fact it
consistently turns out opinions, research, surveys, reports, polls and other
declarations that benefit the interests of a company, industry or political
candidate.
-- It has the same address or phone number as a similar group that has since
disbanded, or been forced out of business by exposure, lawsuits, etc. Or,
possibly, it has limited or no contact information, with a telephone number no
one answers and an e-mail address no one responds from.
-- It consists of a group of vocal, "esteemed" academic "experts" who go on
national tours, put on media events, give press conferences, seminars,
workshops, and give editorial board meetings around the country, etc., even
though the organization would not seem to have the budget or financial means
to carry out such events.
-- It touts repeatedly in communications that it is "independent,"
"esteemed," "credible" etc.
Front Groups and Wikipedia
Perhaps not surprisingly, the popular online information resource Wikipedia
has been targeted by front groups. Full Frontal Scrutiny investigates this
trend and offers consumers the following five tips for getting the most out of
Wikipedia:
1. Take note of any warnings or cautions posted at the tops of articles by
Wikipedia's administrators. They often flag articles that violate Wikipedia
authorship guidelines.
2. Review the article's sources. Do they include citations from the mainstream
media or peer-reviewed journals?
3. Use the "history" tab on each Wikipedia page to review edits made to its
content. Click on the "discussion" tab to review users' debates on matters of
accuracy.
4. If you're in doubt, step back and use a search engine. Review at least one
page, preferably more, of search results to increase the likelihood of finding
relevant information. Consider "sponsored links" that may appear within, above
or to the side of "organic" search results (or all three) more carefully,
since they are advertisements. A third party paid the search engine to place
those links.
5. For another way to look under the hood of a Wikipedia entry, try using the
Wikiscanner, to see who has been editing the encyclopedia. And scan the list
of "salacious edits" Wired's readers have found using the Wikiscanner,
revealing suspect contributions from employees at organizations ranging from
Amnesty International to Scientology, the United Nations and Wal-Mart.
About Consumer Reports WebWatch
Consumer Reports WebWatch is the Internet integrity division of Consumers
Union, the non-profit publisher of Consumer Reports Magazine, the Consumer
Reports on Health and Money Adviser newsletters, BestBuyDrugs.org, and a
variety of sites advocating consumer rights in the marketplace.
We research and investigate Web sites on behalf of consumers, and we advocate
for consumer-focused Internet policy and governance. Consumer Reports WebWatch
accepts no advertising. Consumer Reports WebWatch is a member of the W3C
consortium for developing Internet standards; the Internet Society, a
grass-roots group focused on Internet policy; and is an at-large structure
(ALS) in the user community of ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigning
Names and Numbers. WebWatch also serves as an unpaid special adviser to
StopBadware.org, a "Neighborhood Watch" initiative led by Harvard University's
Berkman Center and the Oxford Internet Institute devoted to helping Internet
users avoid downloading malicious spyware, adware and malware programs.
For further information about Consumer Reports WebWatch, including staff
biographies, visit Consumer Reports WebWatch at
http://www.consumerwebwatch.org
About The Center for Media and Democracy
The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) is a non-profit, non-partisan, public
interest organization that strengthens participatory democracy by
investigating and exposing public relations spin and propaganda, and by
promoting media literacy and citizen journalism. CMD serves journalists,
researchers, policymakers and citizens at large in the following ways:
-- Countering propaganda by investigating and reporting on behind-the-scenes
public relations campaigns by corporations, industries, governments and other
powerful institutions.
-- Informing and assisting grassroots citizen activism that promotes public
health, economic justice, ecological sustainability and human rights.
-- Promoting media literacy to help the public recognize the forces shaping
the information they receive about issues that affect their lives.
-- Sponsoring "open content" media that enable citizens from all walks of
life to "be the media" and to participate in creating media content.
Toward these ends, the Center sponsors the following projects:
-- PR Watch, which investigates and exposes how the public relations industry
and other professional propagandists manipulate public information,
perceptions and opinion on behalf of governments and special interests.
-- SourceWatch, an Internet-based "open content" encyclopedia of people,
groups and issues shaping the public agenda.
-- Congresspedia, the "citizen's encyclopedia" of the members of the US House
and Senate.
-- Publications including articles and books by CMD staff.
-- Public education campaigns, including public speaking and activities such
as CMD's work to raise awareness about the PR coverup by government and
industry of problems related to mad cow disease.
For further information about CMD, including staff biographies and a list of
our financial supporters, visit http://www.PRWatch.org.
SOURCE Consumer Reports WebWatch
Sheldon Rampton of Center for Media and Democracy, +1-608-260-9713; or Beau
Brendler and Jorgen Wouters, +1-914-378-2600, both of Consumer Reports
WebWatch
