Daily Source Bias Check: Center for Media and Democracy

These media sources are moderately to strongly biased toward liberal causes through story selection and/or political affiliation.  They may utilize strong loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes), publish misleading reports and omit reporting of information that may damage liberal causes. Some sources in this category may be untrustworthy. See all Left Bias sources.

• Overall, we rate the Center for Media and Democracy Left Biased based on editorial positions that always favor the progressive left. We also rate them High for factual reporting due to proper sourcing and a clean fact check record.

Detailed Report

Factual Reporting: HIGH
Country: USA
World Press Freedom Rank: USA 48/180

History

Founded in 1993 by John Stauber, The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) is a non-partisan progressive watchdog group led by Lisa Graves. CMD manages this website and SourceWatch.org. As noted on SourceWatch’s sister site, PRWatch.org, CMD “strengthens participatory democracy by investigating and exposing public relations spin and propaganda such as corporate greenwashing, and by promoting media literacy and citizen journalism.” CMD also manages the BanksterUSA website.  Some contend that CMD is not neutral. CMD has been criticized for having an anti-corporate viewpoint.

Funded by / Ownership

The Center for Media and Democracy is a nonprofit that is funded through donations. They claim on their about page that “We accept no funding from for-profit corporations or grants from administrative agencies.” However, they do list funding from numerous left leaning foundations such as: Open Society Institute, Ford Foundation and Tides Foundation. 

Analysis / Bias

In review, The CMD website covers news with a strong left leaning bias. Headlines and articles contain loaded emotional wording such as this: Massachusetts Law Could Blunt the Effect of Janus’s Attack on Unions. Though biased, this story is properly sourced to the Boston Globe, SourceWatch and .gov websites. Story selection often favors workers rights and fighting climate change with again proper sourcing of information. In general, story selection and op-eds favor the progressive left.

A factual search reveals they have not failed a fact check.

Overall, we rate the Center for Media and Democracy Left Biased based on editorial positions that always favor the progressive left. We also rate them High for factual reporting due to proper sourcing and a clean fact check record. (8/15/2017) Updated (D. Van Zandt 10/30/2019)

Source: https://www.prwatch.org/