These media sources are moderately to strongly biased toward conservative 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 conservative causes. Some sources in this category may be untrustworthy. See all Right Bias sources.

Factual Reporting: HIGH
Country: USA
World Press Freedom Rank: USA 45/180

History

Launched in 2001, Foundation for Defense of Democracies or FDD, is a Washington DC based Neoconservative think tank, focusing on national security and foreign policy. Clifford D. May is the founder and President of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and Mark Dubowitz is the CEO and also currently a Trump adviser on Iran. According to Financial Times “Mark Dubowitz, is an Iran hawk who advises the Trump administration, wants Mr. Trump to decertify the current deal to secure further leverage with Europeans.” Foundation for Defense of Democracies mission statement indicates “to promote pluralism, defend democratic values and fight the ideologies that drive terrorism.”

Funded by / Ownership

According to a left leaning ThinkProgress article dated July 19, 2011 about the major donors of FDD “Most of the major donors are active philanthropists to ‘pro-Israel’ causes both in the U.S. and internationally. With the disclosure of its donor rolls, it becomes increasingly apparent that FDD’s advocacy of U.S. military intervention in the Middle East, its hawkish stance against Iran, and its defense of right-wing Israeli policy is consistent with its donors’ interests in ‘pro-Israel’ advocacy.” According to Right Web “Shortly after its founding, FDD quickly became a prominent member of a group of neoconservative think tanks and advocacy groups—including the American Enterprise Institute and the Hudson Institute—that were influential in shaping the early foreign policy priorities of the George W. Bush administration.”

Analysis / Bias

In review, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies utilizes credible right-center biased sources such as the Washington Times and also founder Clifford May’s articles are published by the Washington Times. FDD uses minimally emotional language in their headlines such as “The man who would be Saudi King.” Most articles and information on the website favor Neoconservative positions that are pro-military and pro-Israel.

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

Overall, we rate Foundation for Defense of Democracies Right Biased based on political affiliation and story selection. Further, we rate them High for factual reporting based on the use of proper sources. (M. Huitsing 11/29/2017) Updated (11/30/2018)

Source: http://www.defenddemocracy.org