Subject: [big campaign] Media Matters Action Launches New Database Exposing the Money Behind the Conservative Movement
From: Chris Harris <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009 10:49:19 -0500
List-Id: <bigcampaign.googlegroups.com>

Just wanted to alert you all about a new database/website we launched
today.  It's great for oppo folks (or the oppo curious).

-Chris Harris

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*For Immediate Release*:

*Contact: *

Chris Harris

202-756-4120

[email-masked]

November 3, 2009

*Media Matters Action **Launches New Database Exposing the Money Behind the
Conservative Movement
*

*ConservativeTransparency.org
<http://mediamattersaction.org/transparency/>reveals the
interconnected web of wealthy ideologues, foundations and
corporations that bankroll the conservative movement’s infrastructure.
*

*WASHINGTON, D.C. – **Media Matters Action Network* announced the
launch of Conservative
Transparency <http://mediamattersaction.org/transparency/>, a new database
that allows users to track the money flowing into the coffers of
conservative groups from the nation’s largest corporations and ideologically
extreme organizations.  The website,
ConservativeTransparency.org<http://mediamattersaction.org/transparency/>,
presents official IRS data in a way that is easily digestible by the media
and the public-at-large.

The new database allows reporters, bloggers, researchers and the general
public to discover what special interests are behind efforts to influence
public opinion and legislative outcomes.

“Conservative Transparency reveals the interconnected web of wealthy
ideologues, foundations and big corporations that bankroll the conservative
movement’s infrastructure,” said Ari Rabin-Havt, *Media Matters *vice
president for research and communications.

In December 2008, *Media Matters Action Network* announced it had purchased
MediaTransparency.org from Cursor, Inc. Since that time, researchers at *Media
Matters Action Network* have expanded the available data by reviewing
publicly available tax documents, spending and grant information, and staff
lists.  All data has been inserted into a database allowing users to make
their own queries and cross-reference funders, board members and employees
with other organizations within the conservative infrastructure.

###

*Media Matters Action Network *is a Web-based, not-for-profit, progressive
action and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring,
analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/03/AR2009110300372.html

 Liberal group eyes conservatives' connections Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 3, 2009; 8:58 AM

  by Dan Eggen

Washington Post Staff Writer

A liberal advocacy group is launching a new Web site Tuesday that aims to
document the financial and political ties of conservative groups, many of
which have emerged as major political forces this year in fomenting
opposition to President Obama's policies.

The Conservative Transparency Web site (
http://www.conservativetransparency.org), which will be run by the Media
Matters Action Network, uses Internal Revenue Service filings to track the
major financial backers and beneficiaries of conservative activist groups.

"Conservative Transparency allows users to track the money flowing into the
coffers of conservative groups from the nation's largest corporations and
ideologically extreme organizations," said Chris Harris, the group's
communications director. "Knowing the source of conservative funding will
assist the entire progressive movement in responding to attacks from
'astroturf' organizations."

The effort illustrates the growing importance of rapid media response in the
age of the Internet and Twitter, as liberals and conservatives alike battle
to gain the upper hand in driving news coverage and influencing the
direction of political debates in Washington. It also shows how advocacy
groups are increasingly supplanting nonpartisan organizations in the race to
compile and distribute information.

The Web site pulls together data from nonprofit tax disclosure forms into
one searchable database, allowing users to quickly access information about
how various conservative groups raise and disburse money. Harris notes that
most watchdog sites focus on campaign finance or lobbying data compiled by
the Federal Elections Commission and Congress, rather than information about
outside groups.

For example, the Web site's listing for FreedomWorks Inc., which has helped
organize anti-tax and anti-health reform protests, shows the group brought
in more than $4 million in 2007, much of it from wealthy conservative donors
such as the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation.

The Web site is unequivocally liberal, taking aim only at conservative
organizations. Among the groups not included on the site, for example, is
the Media Matters Action Network and an affiliated organization, Media
Matters for America.

"Media Matters is supported by a myriad of progressive and grass roots
donors," Harris said when asked about the absence. "Information can be found
on our publicly available" Form 990 returns to the Internal Revenue Service.

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