Flack Attack

Attacks on the public interest--whether they be environmental, human rights, public health or other issues--operate under the cover of disinformation campaigns conceived of and executed by public relations experts at PR firms and industry-funded organizations. PR Watch has spent ten years exposing these kinds of campaigns. Needless to say, we have never found ourselves short on material.

We initiated our collaborative Disinfopedia project, which is now called SourceWatch because there are simply too many disinformation campaigns for any one organization to cover. Our online Disinfopedia is designed to have hundreds of organizations and individuals contributing to it. It is easy to update to accommodate the latest crop of front groups and industry-friendly experts, and cross-referenced to keep track of the web of affiliations between think tanks, industry, and PR firms.

We're showcasing a number of collaborative Disinfopedia articles in this issue of PR Watch. It has, however, been challenging to represent what is essentially a non-linear, web-based reference tool in print! What you read here is a flatlander representation of a three-dimensional library. What you don't see in these pages are all the text-embedded hyperlinks to other articles both in Disinfopedia and off site. To understand the real potential of Disinfopedia, please visit the website (www.disinfopedia.org). Also, compare the web versions of Disinfopedia articles with the versions printed here in this issue of PR Watch. Over time, articles are will evolve, incorporating new information. Disinfopedia is a bold experiment in citizen journalism. We hope you participate.