Media Watch

The Center for Digital Democracy "is committed to preserving the openness and diversity of the Internet in the broadband era, and to realizing the full potential of digital communications through the development and encouragement of noncommercial, public interest programming."

The Center for Media and Democracy works to strengthen democracy by promoting media that are "of, by and for the people." Our projects include PR Watch, a quarterly investigative journal; five books by CMD staff; Spin of the Day, which offers daily reporting on spin and propaganda in the news; and SourceWatch, a wiki-based investigative journalism resource to which anyone, including you, can contribute.

The Columbia Journalism Review is one of the most respected observers of the journalism profession.  It maintains a subsidiary site - The Campaign Desk - which observes how the media operate during the 2004 campaign season.

The Dart Center is a global network of journalists, journalism educators and health professionals dedicated to improving media overage of trauma, conflict and tragedy. The Center also addresses the consequences of such coverage for those working in journalism.

Editor and Publisher is the oldest journal covering the newspaper industry.  It has many on-line articles with cogent analysis.

Electronic Frontier Foundation is a nonprofit group of passionate people — lawyers, technologists, volunteers, and visionaries — working to protect your digital rights.

FactCheck is "a nonpartisan, nonprofit, "consumer advocate" for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics. We monitor the factual accuracy of what is said by major U.S. political players in the form of TV ads, debates, speeches, interviews, and news releases. Our goal is to apply the best practices of both journalism and scholarship, and to increase public knowledge and understanding."

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting has a web site that will be of great interest to people concerned with how the media are doing their job.

The Federation of American Scientists " is a nonprofit, tax-exempt, 501c3 organization founded in 1945 as the Federation of Atomic Scientists. Our founders were members of the Manhattan Project, creators of the atom bomb and deeply concerned about the implications of its use for the future of humankind. FAS is the oldest organization dedicated to ending the worldwide arms race and avoiding the use of nuclear weapons for any purpose."  The Project on Government Secrecy is maintained on the FAS site.

Free Press "is a non-profit organization working to involve the public in media policymaking and to craft policies for a more democratic media system."

Free Press - Media Reform Network "is a national organization working to increase informed public participation in crucial media policy debates. The ultimate aim of Free Press is to generate a range of policies that will produce a more competitive and public interest-oriented media system with a strong nonprofit and noncommercial sector."

Independence Media Center is "a collective of independent media organizations and hundreds of journalists offering grassroots, non-corporate coverage.  IndyMedia is a democratic media outlet for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of truth."

MediaChannel.org "is a nonprofit, public interest Web site dedicated to global media issues. MediaChannel offers news, reports and commentary from our international network of media-issues organizations and publications, as well as original features from contributors and staff."

Medialens "is our response to the unwillingness, or inability, of the mainstream media to tell the truth about the real causes and extent of many of the problems facing us, such as human rights abuses, poverty, pollution and climate change.
Because much modern suffering is rooted in the unlimited greed of corporate profit-maximising - in the subordination of people and planet to profit - it seems to us to be a genuine tragedy that society has for so long been forced to rely on the corporate media for 'accurate' information. "

Media Matters for America "is a Web-based, not-for-profit progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media. Conservative misinformation is defined as news or commentary presented in the media that is not accurate, reliable, or credible and that forwards the conservative agenda."

For an interesting article on media coverage and self-censorship see the article Pilger & Fisk on Iraq Coverage: The Real Danger Lies Within by Gørill Hus and Guri Wiggen published by Inter Press Service

See also media links on the US Media Links and the International Media Links pages.

Journalism.org is the online home of the Project for Excellence in Journalism and the Committee of Concerned Journalists.  While the web site deals mostly with the journalism profession and offers criticism, it also has a sections for citizens, students and teachers to help them participate in media-related activities.

The National Press Club "has been a part of Washington life, and more significantly of downtown Washington life, for nearly a century. Its members have included four generations of American and foreign journalists, plus many of the 20th Century's foremost newsmakers, including 17 consecutive Presidents of the United States — from Theodore Roosevelt to Bill Clinton."

Media Channel "is a media issues supersite, featuring criticism, breaking news, and investigative reporting from hundreds of organizations worldwide. As the media watch the world, we watch the media."

The Media Education Foundation "produces and distributes video documentaries to encourage critical thinking and debate about the relationship between media ownership, commercial media content, and the democratic demand for free flows of information, diverse representations of ideas and people, and informed citizen participation."  This site also offers excellent videos (VHS and DVD) related to contemporary issues.

"The Media Education Foundation has been carrying out vitally important work on major issues of the day, in a highly meritorious effort to raise public awareness and understanding, work that is particularly crucial in advance of the coming election, which may well cast a long shadow over the country's future."
Noam Chomsky | Professor of Linguistics, MIT

Media Transparency

MEF.tv provides a forum for grassroots media education and activism. It's a place for media activists to discuss issues and ideas, as well as to network and find resources. The site uses open-source technology, so come in, contribute, and help us build your site!

Project Censored "is a media research group out of Sonoma State University (California) which tracks the news published in independent journals and newsletters.  The Mission of Project Censored is to educate people about the role of independent journalism in a democratic society and to tell The News That Didn't Make the News and why."

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press has a primary mission of serving and defending working journalists.

SpinWatch "exists to provide public interest research and reporting on corporate and government public relations and propaganda.  Spin techniques are much more extensive than is generally realised, encompassing media management, lobbying, corporate social responsibility, investor relations and corporate dirty tricks and spying.  We aim to foster greater public and political awareness of spin and to campaign against the manipulations of the PR industry in the public interest." 

Take Back the Media is a hard-hitting critic of mainstream media.  It also has a large collection of links to liberal and progressive commentators.

CounterBias.com critiques media.

The Institute for Public Accuracy is "a nationwide consortium of policy researchers, the Institute for Public Accuracy seeks to broaden public discourse by gaining media access for those whose perspectives are commonly drowned out by corporate-backed think tanks and other influential institutions."

Poynter On Line looks at news media from a variety of angles.

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