Media and democracy can mean a lot of things -- getting rid of payola pundits, ensuring disclosure of fake news and challenging government propaganda. But it also means using technology to further democratize new media. That’s one goal of our newly-redesigned website.

One of the first things you'll probably notice is the three feature boxes on the home page. These areas will highlight our most important breaking news items, be they original CMD reports, short Spin of the Day items or our Weekly Radio Spin.

Pentagon pundit Ken Allard"I want to make sure that we strengthen prohibitions against domestic covert propaganda campaigns aimed essentially at breaking down the Constitutional barriers between who controls policy and who makes war," stressed Representative Paul Hodes. "It's an important point, given the recent history."

Rep. Hodes was speaking at a conference on public diplomacy, held in Washington, DC on January 13. Public diplomacy is a catch-all term for the various ways in which the United States promotes itself to international audiences (as opposed to "regular" diplomacy, which targets foreign governments). These include international media, like the Voice of America; cultural and educational exchanges, such as the Fulbright Program; and a wide range of information activities, including foreign press centers, speaking events and publications. As the University of Southern California's Center on Public Diplomacy notes, the term "was developed partly to distance overseas governmental information activities from the term propaganda, which had acquired pejorative connotations."

Rick BermanWashington, D.C. lobbying scourge Richard B. "Rick" Berman is facing steadily increasing pushback these days, and some of it is coming from a surprising source -- his own son, musician David Berman.

Berman has long been the front man through which corporations have aggressively attacked their opponents without leaving fingerprints. Known to his own friends and enemies alike as "Dr. Evil," Berman has perfected the art of setting up non-profit "charitable" groups to advance corporate interests. The groups have deceptively helpful-sounding names, like "Guest Choice Network," the "Employment Policies Institute" or the "Center for Consumer Freedom," but really serve as well-funded attack dogs for the tobacco, alcohol, chain restaurant, tanning and other industries. The groups' non-profit status makes their funding hard to trace, which has permitted Berman to operate in the shadows for decades while pocketing millions from unpopular industries for his work thwarting public interest legislation.

Several newspapers reported in late January on the death of Horace R. Kornegay, Jr., who served as the Executive Director of the Tobacco Institute from 1969 to 1986. Mr. Kornegay's passing was little noticed, but he was one of the more notable opponents of public health measures in American history.

Mr. Kornegay took over at the Institute just five years after the U.S. Public Health Service and Surgeon General's first report in 1964 positively linked smoking to a list of chronic and deadly diseases. In his speeches, Kornegay typically portrayed public health advocates -- a category that included the Surgeon General -- as a bunch of shrill, over-emotional zealots who "plied their trade with terrifying tactics" and were involved in misguided efforts to destroy the industry.

I've been following some of the recent writings of Patrick Ruffini, a former "eCampaign Director" for the Republican National Committee who is part of an effort to reinvent and reinvigorate the Republican Party in the United States. Ruffini is overall a fairly smart guy who is realistic enough to emphatically reject some of the more ridiculous conservative talking points. I've seen him write some astute analyses, particularly when writing about online political organizing.

I was struck, therefore, at the absence of all those positive qualities when Ruffini wrote a recent blog post that touched on topics related to what the government should actually do when it governs. The goal in politics, after all, is not simply to win elections but to wield power toward some purpose upon taking office. Ruffini's post, titled "The iPod Tax: This Is How We Win," suggests that he is searching for hot-button issues that will help conservatives win elections. Upon reading it, however, I came away thinking that the real problem facing conservatives is that they literally have no idea how to govern effectively, and little evident interest in learning.

A chart by Patrick Ruffini showing the relative importance of various online media to the Obama election campaign.

Ruffini begins by criticizing New York governor David Patterson, who recently proposed to address his state's $15.4 billion budget gap by introducing a number of "tax increases on services people use every day -- like iTunes downloads and taxis." Ruffini sees the proposal as "a gift" to conservatives because it gives them "a ready-made issue" to campaign on, namely, "kill the iTunes tax."