SourceWatch:Purpose

< About SourceWatch

The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) publishes SourceWatch, this collaborative, specialized encyclopedia of the people, organizations, and issues shaping the public agenda. 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. In addition, SourceWatch contains information about others who help document information about PR spin, such as reporters, academics, and watchdog groups.

To get started, there's a link to your left on the basics of how you can help write history. We also have guides, such as how to research front groups and uncover propaganda tactics, such as the use of the "third party technique," as well as great insider tips for web researching.

Launched in 2003, SourceWatch now has  articles, as of today, thanks to interested contributors like you, and over six million new visitors to its pages a year and many returning visitors who rely on our articles regularly.

Welcome to the SourceWatch community! Lisa Graves, Executive Director of the Center for Media and Democracy, publisher of SourceWatch, PRWatch, and BanksterUSA

What is SourceWatch's role in increasing transparency and public scrutiny?
SourceWatch provides simple tools to attract public participation in documenting information about the people, companies, and entities attempting to shape public opinion. With the experience of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) in researching and writing about spin and propaganda, CMD believes it is vital to a working democracy to increase public scrutiny and public awareness of the people and companies shaping public policy. We think it is imperative to provide useful information about key policies and document disinformation about these issues. And, it is important to help people understand options for addressing these problems.

Who owns SourceWatch?
The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) is the publisher of SourceWatch. CMD owns the server and domain names related to SourceWatch. The articles in SourceWatch are released by their authors under the GNU Free Documentation License, so the articles are open content. See SourceWatch:Copyright and SourceWatch:Readers' FAQ for information on how you can use SourceWatch content. Other publications of CMD, including our PR Watch web site, remain copyrighted property and should not be used without permission.

Who is responsible for the articles on SourceWatch?
This is a collaborative endeavor. Many people have contributed to different parts of this project, and anyone can do so, including you! All you need to know is How to edit a page. It would also be good to know what you are talking about or to have a passion for the truth about these issues or the public's right to know more about them. You can see who is responsible for the most recent versions of any given page by clicking on the "History" link.

Getting Started

 * First you need to register.
 * Then you need to know how to log in and set your preferences.

Contribute an Article or an Edit

 * How to follow the policies for contributors
 * How to add an article or edit articles
 * How to follow our manual of style
 * How to stay within the bounds of our editorial policy
 * How to upload images and key documents
 * How to find our how to pages
 * How to get answers to Frequently Asked Questions
 * How to test out how wiki editing and formatting works by playing in the editing sandbox

More Details

 * Finding recent changes: see the articles that SourceWatch contributors are working on with the most recent changes listed first
 * Tracking new articles
 * Requesting an article or information
 * Fixing a stub, which is the small starting kernel for an article
 * Getting better search results
 * Using categories to link articles and build the SourceWatch index

Errors or Complaints

 * Fixing errors

Other Policies

 * SourceWatch: General disclaimer

Some Quick History

 * July 3, 2004: SourceWatch is the world's 14th biggest wiki website by mere article count.
 * March 10, 2003: SourceWatch is publicly launched.
 * January 15, 2003: SourceWatch is first created.
 * December 18, 2002: PR Watch editor Sheldon Rampton attends a conference in Amsterdam hosted by World-Information.org and first learns about the creation of Wikipedia.