SourceWatch (formerly Disinfopedia) is an online wiki that is a collaborative project. ^[1] Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). According to the project's website, it "aims to produce a directory of public relations firms, think tanks, industry-funded organizations and industry-friendly experts that work to influence public opinion and public policy on behalf of corporations, governments and special interest groups."^[2] SourceWatch has been mentioned in news sources such as the New York Times^[3] and the Sunday Times.^[4] The site runs on MediaWiki software.

Organizational information[link]

On behalf of the Center for Media and Democracy, the Center's then-Research Director Sheldon Rampton started SourceWatch on January 15, 2003 and launched it publicly with 200 articles created by the Center on March 10, 2003. According to SourceWatch's own statistics, it included almost 50,000 articles as of August 2010.^[5] The site's content is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.

The publisher of SourceWatch is Lisa Graves, the executive director of the Center for Media and Democracy.^[6]

Editorial and security policies[link]

The stated goals for registered users who are permitted to edit SourceWatch are "accuracy and fairness".^[7] Its editorial guidelines stress the importance of maintaining the accuracy of its source citations and admonish its editors to create articles that are "fair, accurate, and documented".^[8]

When SourceWatch began, any visitor to the site could edit existing articles and create new ones. In April 2006, SourceWatch changed its policy, requiring users to register and log in before they could edit its articles.^[2]

The Center for Media and Democracy sets the editorial and security policies under which SourceWatch operates.^[2][9]

See also[link]

• Media transparency
• Transparency (behavior)
• Watchdog journalism

References[link]

External links[link]

• SourceWatch
• PRWatch.org, another website run by the Center for Media and Democracy