Spinwatch

Spinwatch is an organisation dedicated to "monitoring PR and spin", which it defines explicitly as referring not only to political but also corporate lobbying activities [Spinwatch has no connection with the US-based 'Spin-Watch', a website located at www.spinwatch.com set up by Microsoft employee George Spix in 1998 and apparently now dormant which focuses on the IT industry, See http://www.spinwatch.com, accessed 21 June 2008] . It describes its role on its website as follows:

:"Both Government and corporate propaganda are increasingly seen as a serious problem that is undermining trust in democracy. A survey (September 2004) by the Committee on Standards in Public Life found that 70% of people no longer expect Government ministers to tell them the truth. But it is not just political spin that is undermining democracy, corporate spin plays a key role too. The UK has the world’s second biggest PR industry that has grown over eleven-fold in real terms in the last twenty years (Miller and Dinan 2000). In the UK there are over 55,000 people who work in PR with an estimated turnover of over £1 billion. Little is known about their lobbying activities in the UK or the PR activities of their clients as no progressive organisation routinely tracked the PR activities of the food, drink, chemical, pharmaceutical, biotech and oil industries. Hence SpinWatch."

Campaigns

Spinwatch is actively involved in campaigns to increase transparency by introducing regulation of lobbying and enhanced ethics rules for elected representatives. It is a founder member of the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Regulation-EU (ALTER=EU) which operates at the EU level [http://www.alter-eu.org/, accessed 21 June 2008] and of the more recent Alliance for Lobbying Transparency at the UK level. [http://www.lobbyingtransparency.org/, accessed 21 June 2008]

People

Spinwatch is run by a four person board:
*William Dinan, a lecturer at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, UK.
*David Miller, Professor of Sociology at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, UK.
*Eveline Lubbers, an Amsterdam based researcher.
*Andy Rowell, a British based environmental journalist [Spinwatch [http://www.spinwatch.org/content/view/4310/13/ Who runs spinwatch] , Accessed 21 November 2007]

Funding

The organisation is funded by donors, amongst which it lists particularly the following:

* The Lipman-Miliband Trust - "a progressive charity whose mission was to help support the practice and dissemination of socialist education and research, an area routinely discriminated against by other charities or official sources", which is named after the "socialist businessman" Michael Lipman and the Marxist intellectual Professor Ralph Miliband (the father of British cabinet ministers David Miliband and Ed Miliband). [ [http://www.lipman-miliband.org.uk/ Lipman Miliband Trust: For Socialist education and research ] ]
* The Network for Social Change - which "exists to fund and support projects for positive social and ecological change". [ [http://www.thenetworkforsocialchange.org.uk/ The Network for Social Change ] ]
* The JMG Foundation - "Anti-corporate, anti-capitalist foundation created with part of the fortune of the late billionaire, Sir James Michael Goldsmith. Funds aggressive campaign to destroy biotech crop production worldwide, member of International Forum on Globalization and Funders Network on Trade and Globalization." [ [http://www.undueinfluence.com/jmg_foundation.htm JMG Foundation ] ]
* Greenpeace UK - "Greenpeace stands for positive change through action. We defend the natural world and promote peace. We investigate, expose and confront environmental abuse by governments and corporations around the world. We champion environmentally responsible and socially just solutions,including scientific and technical innovation." [ [http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/about About Greenpeace | Greenpeace UK ] ]

References

External links

[http://www.spinwatch.org Spinwatch website] [http://www.nuclearspin.org Nuclear spin website] , run by Spinwatch.