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The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) is a American liberal investigative reporting organization. CMD produces original reporting and analysis on policies such as the economy, environment, and national security. It promotes citizen journalism and aims to expose corporate spin and government propaganda.

History
CMD was founded in 1993 by environmentalist writer and political activist John Stauber in Madison, Wisconsin, and has been run by Lisa Graves since the 2009 retirement of Stauber. Graves is the former Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice and Chief Counsel for Nominations for the chair of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. CMD states it is a "national, independent, non-partisan public interest newsgroup".

ALEC
On July 13, 2011, CMD leaked 800 documents it obtained from a whistleblower of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). ALEC describes itself as a “nonpartisan public-private partnership of America’s state legislators, members of the private sector and the general public.” CMD claims that: "ALEC is not a lobby; it is not a front group. It is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, behind closed doors, corporations hand state legislators the changes to the law they desire that directly benefit their bottom line." Common Cause has filed an IRS complaint about ALEC, describing it as “a corporate lobby masquerading as a charity.”

CMD analyzed the leaked documents and created ALECexposed.org in July2011. It also worked with The Nation Magazine to break the story about the trove of documents. The Nation’s editor Katrina vanden Heuvel said ALECexposed “offers a never-before-seen look at the origins of the rightwing legislative assault on labor, education, healthcare and voting rights in states across the country. It is an important reminder to refocus on the battle to loosen the grip of corporate America and renew democracy in the states."

The key findings from the ALEC expose were :
 * Corporations and state legislators work together as equals to draft model legislation.
 * Drafted model legislation that made polluting easier, voting harder, and wages lower.
 * The anti-collective bargaining laws in Wisconsin and Ohio began as ALEC model bills.

Publications
CMD publishes PR Watch, its investigative reporting site; SourceWatch, its wiki about corporations, policymakers, and policies; BanksterUSA, its site for updates about Wall Street reforms; ALECexposed.org, its clearinghouse site about the American Legislative Exchange Council based on documents CMD obtained from a whistleblower in 2011, and FoodRightsNetwork.org, a project focused primarily on the practice of growing food in sewage sludge.

Funding
CMD states that it does not accept corporate donations or grants from the government. It also maintains a lists of financial supporters on its website.

Some critics have clamed that its BanksterUSA site has received $200,000 in funding from the Open Society Institute (OSI), the charity with ties to investor George Soros, but its BanksterUSA project was not funded by OSI. CMD has stated publicly on its site that it received a grant from OSI for a project researching national security issues. CMD’s executive director, Lisa Graves (a former Deputy Assistant Attorney General at the U.S. Department of Justice) has testified several times before Congress on national security, homeland security, and civil liberties issues, joined in legal briefs on such issues, and her analysis has been published by the Texas Law Review and in numerous other articles.

Awards
In May 2012, CMD was selected one of the top three finalists for “Best Investigative Story or Series” by the Milwaukee Press Club for Graves’ article “"Group Called 'Citizens for a Strong America' Operates out of a UPS Mail Drop but Runs Expensive Ads in Supreme Court Race?" In April 2012, CMD won the I.F. Stone Award (The “Izzy”) for investigation journalism from the Park Center for Independent Media for its numerous pieces of investigative reporting relating to ALEC. In September 2011, the CMD won the Sidney Award for their ALEC Exposed piece. "A Look Into the Secretive Collaboration Between Corporations and Politicians on State Legislation".

CMD’s 2003 book “Weapons of Mass Deception” received critical acclaim and was on the New York Times best-seller list.