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STATS/ cmpa

The Department of Communication at George Mason University houses the new Center for Health and Risk Communication (CHRC)  // the harvard risk?

http://chrc.gmu.edu/scholars.html

REBRAND SENSE ABOUT SCIENCE GMO BS, DIST FROM GMU

see lichter, kurtz

cash for econ comments?

entine

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https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Genetic_Literacy_Project

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see shukla, butler, barre seid

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https://usrtk.org/food-for-thought/trevor-butterworth-spins-science-for-industry/

STATS GLP entine split?

...Koch Industries / George Mason University Foundation

Charles Koch, CEO of the petrochemical conglomerate Koch Industries, gave over $100 million to 361 college campuses from 2005 to 2014, according to a Greenpeace analysis of IRS filings. The George Mason University Foundation, which received $45.5 million, was by far the largest beneficiary of this largesse.

Students at GMU raised concerns about Koch funding in a 2014 letter to the GMU president, noting that the university has been “criticized as being a subsidiary of Koch Industries.” In response to a public records request for information about Koch funding, the students “were told that all financial donations are funneled through the GMU Foundation, which does not have to respond to our FOIA request as a distinct private entity.”

The GMU Foundation funded STATS sister organization CMPA $220,990 in 2012, and $75,670 in 2013, according to tax records. In those years CMPA also helped finance STATS. In 2012, STATS reported a $203,611 loan from CMPA that “due to inadequate funding” has “not been reimbursed.” In 2013, STATS reported a loan from CMPA for $163,914.

Tax records for 2014 show no loans between the groups or donations from GMU Foundation. CMPA’s 2014 tax filingshows compensation of $97,512 for Butterworth and $173,100 for Jon Entine, a longtime public relations operative with deep ties to the chemical industry, who runs the Genetic Literacy Project, an agrichemical industry front group.

Wholly Independent?

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https://www.desmogblog.com/statistical-assessment-service

Statistical Assessment Service (STATS)
Background

The Statistical Assessment Service (STATS), a 501(c)(3) organization founded in 1993, described itself as a nonprofit and nonpartisan “resource on the use and abuse of science and statistics in the media” with the goal “to correct scientific misinformation in the media and in public policy resulting from bad science, politics, or a simple lack of information or knowledge; and to act as a resource for journalists and policy makers on major scientific issues and controversies.” The group is also listed under the alias “Science Literacy Project.” [1], [2]

According toan archive of their website, in 2004 STATS became an affiliate of George Mason University in Virginia. STATS also described itselfas a “sister organization” to the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) at George Mason University. According to2005-2006 tax records (PDF), “salary costs for the organization [STATS] are shared with the Center for Media and Public Affairs,” and that both organizations share a relationship of “common control” with shared offices in “K Street,” the lobbying district of Washington. [1], [3], [4]

As of 2015, STATS no longer listed their connection to George Mason University, and had removed the GMU logo from the website header. According to their listed mission statement on Guidestar, the Statistical Assessment Service is made up of two main components, and STATS.org is now a project of Sense About Science USA:[5]

“We have two components: Sense About Science USA, who's [sic] goal is to promote scientific evidence and transparency in society and to equip the public, journalists, and policy makers with the tools and information to make sense of science.The second is STATS.org, a website and educational project to analyze and explain numbers and statistics in the news and to promote statistical literacy in the media and society. STATS.org is a joint project of the American Statistical Association and Sense About Science USA.” [5]

The 2015 revamp of the STATS website also offered a brief outline of the group's changes over the years and listed a founding date of 1993 as opposed to 1994:[6]

“STATS began life in 1993 as an attempt to point out that statistical knowledge was essential to understanding the world; and as we relied on the news media for so much knowledge about the world, it was vital that journalists understood how to interpret statistics and report them accurately. Hence, the name of our newsletter: VitalStats.

“Scroll forward to 2004 and STATS had become an affiliate of George Mason University; the newsletter had become a website, STATS.org.

”[…] and here we are, with the third incarnation of STATS, as a collaboration between theAmerican Statistical Association and Sense About Science USA.” [6]

While STATS describes itself as a “non-profit, non-partisan organization,” its funders are not transparent, and it has repeatedly “attacked environmentalists, civil libertarians, feminists and other 'liberals',” according to SourceWatch. SourceWatch also notes that the original director of STATS, David Murray, did not have an academic background in statistics, bat rather in anthropology, even though he was often cited as a statistician by the media.[7]

George Mason University Ties

According to Polluterwatch, STATS operated from 2004 to 2014 as a sister organization of George Mason University’s Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA). The Genetic Literacy Project (GLP) was an independently functioning project formed within STATS which also maintained ties to George Mason University. [8]

CMPA no longer lists any connection to STATS on their website, apart from the biography of S. Robert Lichter, Professor of Communications at George Mason University, who directs both the Center for Media and Public Affairs and the Statistical Assessment Service. [9]

A December 2013 GMU study lists a header with a shared address for the CMPA and The Statistical Assessment Service, both at George Mason University: [10]

In 2015, the STATS.org website no longer listed its connection to George Mason University and described itself as a part of Sense About Science USA, which names George Mason University’s Math department as a partner, but makes no mention of the Center of Media and Public Affairs under which STATS formerly operated. STATS.org now redirects to SenseaboutscienceUSA.org.

Sense About Science USAwas launched in late 2014 and partners with the pro-GMO Alliance for Science. [11]

Genetic Literacy Project (GLP)

The Genetic Literacy Project, described by *U.S. Right to Know*as “a central player in Monsanto and the agrichemical industry’s public relations efforts to promote genetically engineered foods and pesticides,” was formerly connected to STATS but later denied this connection. [12]

The following was posted on a 2012 archiveof the GLP's website: [13]

“Statistical Assessment Service

The GLP is affiliated with STATS, which is a non-profit, non-partisan resource on the use and abuse of science and statistics in the media. Its goals are to correct scientific misinformation on public policy issues resulting from bad science, politics, or a simple lack of information or knowledge; and to act as a resource for journalists and policy makers on scientific issues and controversies. Two of its executives play a crucial role in overseeing the work of the GLP: S. Robert Lichter, President of STATS, Professor of Communication at George Mason University and President of the Center for Media and Public Affairs holds a Ph.D. in government from Harvard University and has also served on the faculties of Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Georgetown and George Washington Universities; and Donald Rieck, Executive Director, who received his MA in Political Science and MBA from Temple University.”

Center for Health & Risk Communication, GMU

The GLP and STATS are affiliated with the CHRC, which provides an organizational framework for stimulating innovative health and risk communication research collaborations, health promotion intervention projects and community interventions. […]” [13]

A revised statement on the GLP's website, as of March 29, 2016, read as follows:[14]

“The Washington, DC office of the GLP-founded and independently run GENeS project has an office in the University of California Washington, DC building but receives no university support of any kind, including for the office itself.The GLP has no affiliation with George Mason University (and never had an affiliation with GMU) or with the Statistical Assessment Service, which is now defunct. From 2011-2014, GLP operated as an independent entity within STATS, which provided accounting services to the GLP, until the GLP was able to secure independent 501c3 status in 2015. GLP was not involved in STATS activities.” [14]

While there was no official statement on the STATS.org website that it had dissolved at this time, between January 1, 2015andJanuary 28, 2015, the STATS website rebranded from “STATS” to “STATS.org” and cleared any mention of George Mason University. Under the new description, STATS.org described itself as “a joint project of the American Statistical Association and Sense About Science USA.”[15],[16],[17]

As of March, 2017, the STATS.org website redirected to Senseaboutscienceusa.org/stats.

Interestingly, the 2012 statement on the GLP website lists the Genetic Literacy Project as “a division of the Science Literacy Project.” According to nonprofit filings at the Economic Research Institute (ERI), the “Science Literacy Project”is also an alias of STATS. [2]

Stance on Climate Change

April 4, 2008

STATS commissioned a study by Harris Interactive on climate change views. According to the interpretation of S. Robert Lichter: [18]

“Scientists are still debating the dynamics and dangers of global warming.” [18]

Below is a list of 1996 - 2001 “Global Warming & Climate Change” articles linked on the STATS Website:

Funding

The 2015 revamp of the STATS.org website offered a revised “note on funding”: [6]

“STATS.org is a non-profit and non-partisan project; it is funded by a grant from the Searle Freedom Trust and a donation from the American Statistical Association; it does not accept industry funding or support.” [6]

In 2013, STATS also claimed on their website that “We do not take money from industry or industry-related groups.” [19]

Conservative Transparencyhas documented STATS funding from several conservative sources. Totals are detailed below, including totals from publicly available 990 tax records.[20]

View the attached spreadsheet for details on STATS funding by year (.xlsx).

...[docs] [ppl tables]

Actions

June 5, 2013

:{The Statistical Assessment Service's Jon Entine (STATS Senior fellow and Executive Director of the Genetic Literacy Project) is a signatory toCenter for Industrial Progress' letter titled, “:{Don’t Divest:(style="background-color:#ffff66ff"):}:, Educate—An Open Letter to American Universities.” [22]}:

In the letter, Alex Epstein and several other notable climate change deniers, including Peter Ferrara, J. Scott Armstrong, Steve Goreham, S. Fred Singer, David Schnare, Richard Lindzen, and Matt Ridley, proclaim that they are “proud to stand in favor of fossil fuels.” [22]

The “undersigned scientists, philosophers, energy experts, and economists” of the letter ask for a “more rigorous education on energy and environmental issues,” and “are willing to debate anytime, anywhere to defend what [they] believe is right.” [22]

April, 2008

STATS commissioned a study of climate scientists, conducted by Harris Interactive®. STATs reported that “Over eight out of ten American climate scientists believe that human activity contributes to global warming.” The study, entitled “Climate Scientists Agree on Warming, Disagree on Dangers, and Don't Trust the Media's Coverage of Climate Change” was released on April 24, 2008. [18]

According to the STATS interpretation of the results, “scientists are still debating the dynamics and dangers of global warming” and “Only 29% [of scientists] express a “great deal of confidence” that scientists understand the size and extent of anthropogenic [human] sources of greenhouse gases.” [18]

1998

In an article titled “WARM FRONT:**Print Media**and Climate Change Coverage,” STATS described a “problem with the reportage involving global warming,” contrasting the view of Ross Gelbspan, who has written that a small group of industry-backed skeptics are dominating the debate, with the opposing view that “the dominant media have been not only neglectful of the full story, but they have actively muzzled contrary information at the same time they have credulously swallowed and amplified tenuous positive evidence.” [23]

The STATS discounts Gelbspan's view, and goes ont o describe journalists “like trout in a media stream” who “seem to be practicing a version of what is termed 'rational ignorance:' the use of stereotype and prejudice as a rational response to a world overwhelming in detail or too challenging in scientific appraisal.” [23]

STATS claims that “no one has established what the 'majority of climate scientists' actually think” regarding how much warming has occurred over the last 100 or last 50 years. It goes on to criticize a report from Ozone Action. Regarding man-made influence on climate change, STATS claimed “there is not a firm consensus.” [23]

April 1997

The STATS Newsletter, *VitalSTATS*, :{highlighted research by climate change denier John Christy who they describe as a “satellite guru” and claimed that he rebutted claims that satellite data (which they write showed a cooling trend) were inaccurate. [24]}:

Social Media

Contact

2016–2017 Contact/ Address

Statistical Assessment Service shares the same contact information with Sense About Science USA. On their website they state: [25],[26]

“Sense About Science USA is in the back of a bakery and cafe. We don’t have fancy offices; we put our money into doing; every little bit helps.”

STATS shared an address with a bakery cafe called One Girl Cookies: [27]

:{:{68 Dean Street}:

Brooklyn, NY 11201 USA}:

1-917-635-2081

http://www.stats.org/

2015 Contact/Address

As of 2015, STATS listed itself as a joint project of the American Statistical Association and Sense About Science USA. It listed the following contact: [6]

Sense About Science USA

155 Water Street

Suite 4/12

Brooklyn, NY 11201

2013 Contact/ Address

The following was listed on the STATS “Contribute” page: [19]

:{:{Statistical Assessment Service}:

2100 L Street N.W., Suite 300}:

Washington DC 20037

The STATS website footerlisted a different address: [28]

Statistical Assessment Service

933 N. Kenmore St., Suite 405, Arlington, VA 22201

tel: 571.319.0029

Related Organizations

Resources

...

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820

https://chrc.gmu.edu/

overfishing?

...The CHRC helps to connect the Department of Communication with a number of relevant external constituencies outside the university, such as the National Cancer Institute (NCI’s) Health Communication and Informatics Research Branch, the NCI Cancer Information Service, the CDC’s National Center for Health Marketing, the AHRQ’s John M. Eisenberg Clinical Decisions and Communications Science Center, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Health e-Technologies Program, the Coalition for Health Communication, and a number of other important federal agencies and private foundations). There CHRC will be a focal point for plans to establish an innovative new DC-area Research Consortium of Health Communication Programs with collaborations between GMU, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Maryland, Georgetown University, George Washington University, and Howard University.

Gary L. Kreps (Ph.D., University of Southern California) is a University Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication at George Mason University. He is also the Director of the Center for Health and Risk Communication at George Mason University. His research focuses on health communication and promotion, information dissemination, cancer prevention and control, organizational communication, information technologies, multicultural relations, and risk/crisis management. His published work includes more thant 300 books, articles, and monographs concerning the applications of communication knowledge in society. Before his appointment at George Mason in 2004, he served as the founding Chief of the Health Communication and Informatics Research Branch at the National Cancer Institute, the founding Dean of the School of Communication at Hofstra University, Executive Director of the Greenspun School of Communication at UNLV, and in faculty and administrative roles at Northern Illinois, Rutgers, Indiana, and Purdue Universities. He has received numerous awards and honors for his active program of research, teaching, and scholarship.

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Statistical Assessment Service

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Statistical Assessment ServiceStatistical Assessment Service
Legal statusNon-profit
HeadquartersWashington, D.C.
PresidentS. Robert Lichter
Parent organizationGeorge Mason University
AffiliationsCenter for Media and Public Affairs
Websitehttp://stats.org/

Statistical Assessment Service (STATS) is a non-profit educational organization, based in Washington, DC, which analyzes and critiques the presentation of scientific findings and statistical evidence in the news media.[1]

Contents

Overview

STATS was founded in 1994 by S. Robert Lichter, a professor ofcommunications at George Mason University. According to the organization's website, to which it posts the majority of its research, its goal is to help correct "scientific misinformation in the media resulting from bad science, politics, or a simple lack of information or knowledge; and to act as a resource for journalists and policy makers on major scientific issues and controversies".[2] As Lichter related to the Baltimore Sun in 1998, "journalists are deluged with numbers representing findings in fields they're not familiar with".[3] Its sister organization is the Center for Media and Public Affairs, also affiliated with George Mason.[3]

Personnel

Lichter serves as the organization's president.[1] Other personnel include director of researchRebecca Goldin, a professor of mathematical sciences at George Mason and the Ruth Michler Fellow at Cornell University,[4] and STATS.org editor Trevor Butterworth, who is also listed as a senior fellow, and writes for the Huffington Post.[2] As of 2010, other senior fellows include Maia Szalavitz, a contributor to Reasonmagazine, and Stephen Rose.[2][5] The first director of STATS was David Murray, who previously worked for the Heritage Foundation and was later chief scientist for the United States Office of National Drug Control Policy.[6]

Fundraising

The organization's operating budget comes from politically conservative charitable foundations including the Carthage [scaife] Foundation, Sarah Scaife Foundation,[7] Earhart Foundation, and the Castle Rock Foundation.[8] STATS does not accept funding from private companies.[3][9] ^[[ ^so ^says ^Whelan ^too, ^sort ^of]

Activities

STATS produces an annual list called the "Dubious Data Awards", highlighting egregious factual inaccuracies in news reporting. In 2006, it challenged a study by the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse, used by The New York Times and Forbes, which claimed that almost half of the alcoholindustry's revenue came from underage drinkers. According to STATS, American teenagers who drink alcohol would each have to consume more than 1,000 drinks per year for this to be true.[10] STATS has also disagreed with recommendations from Time that parents should discontinue use of soft vinyl toys, teethers, and similar products containing phthalates, pointing out that phthalates in children's toys have been cleared for use by both the Consumer Product Safety Commission and the European Union's Institute for Health and Consumer Protection.[10] The annual list has received coverage from The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, among other news organizations.[3][11]

During election years, STATS is often quoted in newspaper articles about the use of statistics in political rhetoric. During the presidential election of 2004, the organization challenged claims by both George W. Bush and John Kerry at the request of the Associated Press.[1]

In 2001, Lichter and his staff published It Ain't Necessarily So, a book about the media's coverage of a range of topics from crime statistics to the 2001 anthrax attacks. The Philadelphia Inquirer called it "a solid critique of the way data-based reports and studies are presented in the media",[12] while Salon.com felt that thebook employed “the very same tactics that it finds so objectionable when used by journalists and publishers”.[13]

In 2007 STATS [vs joint study a few years later?] sponsored a survey of climate scientists, which was conducted by Harris International. The survey found that most climate scientists believe that human-induced global warming is occurring, although there is disagreement about its consequences, and few trust the popular media coverage of climate change.[14]

A 2009 article in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel argued that STATS's coverage of the chemical Bisphenol A verged on advocacy for the chemical industry.[7][15] On the STATS website, Lichter posted a detailed response disputing the Journal-Sentinel article, calling its reporting and logic "flawed".[16]

References

  1. ^ ^a ^b ^c "Numbers get a workout in campaign sport of Extreme Math". Associated Press. 9 April 2004.
  2. ^ ^a ^b ^c "About Stats". 12 July 2010. Retrieved 12 July 2010.
  3. ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Scott Shane (30 October 1998). "Making sure the figures don't lie; Statistics: The tiny staff of the Statistical Assessment Service specializes in debunking press reports that hinge on numbers. Its director denies any political agenda.". The Baltimore Sun.
  4. "Ruth I. Micheler Memorial Prize of the AWM". awm-math.org. Association for Women in Mathematics. Retrieved 26 July 2010.
  5. "Maia Szalavitz". Reason Magazine. Retrieved 12 July 2010.
  6. "Testimony of Dr. David Murray". house.gov. Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security. 12 July 2007. Retrieved 26 July 2010.
  7. ^ ^a ^b Rust, Susanne; Meg Kissinger (22 August 2009). "'Watchdog' advocates for BPA". Journal Sentinel. Retrieved 29 July 2010.
  8. "Conservative Transparency". mediamatters.org. 14 July 2010. Retrieved 12 July 2010.
  9. "Predatory Reporting? STATS Study Questions Media Criticism of 'Predatory' Payday Loans" (Press release). PR Newsire. 22 July 2006.
  10. ^ ^a ^b "Sex-Crazed Teens, Overhyped Abductions and Booze Bunk: Worst Science Journalism of 2006" (Press release). Ascribe Newswire. 29 December 2006.
  11. Robert Holland (21 January 1998). "This is Your Brain… on White House Data". Richmond Times Dispatch.
  12. Neill Borowski (2 August 2001). "Media's statistics don't add up, critics say". The Philadelphia Inquirer.
  13. David Appell (2 July 2001). "It Ain't Necessarily So". salon.com. Retrieved 16 July 2010.
  14. Marianne Lavelle (23 April 2008). "Survey Tracks Scientists' Growing Climate Concern". usnews.com. Retrieved 21 July 2010.
  15. Gina Kolata (30 June 2009). "Flaws in the Case Against BPA". TierneyLab (The New York Times).
  16. Robert S. Lichter (2009). "Dorothy Parker Meets The Marlboro Man: The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's BPA Conspiracy Theory". stats.org. Statistical Assessment Service. Retrieved 26 July 2010.

External links

uchic bk review

S. Robert  Lichter;, Stanley  Rothman. Environmental Cancer: A Political Disease? xiv + 235 pp., figs., tables, bibl., index. New Haven, Conn./London: Yale University Press, 1999. $35 (cloth); $17 (paper).

#

James T. Bennett [gmu]

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/380674?journalCode=isis

==

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/James_T._Bennett

Dr. James T. Bennett received his Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University in 1970. He is founder and editor of the Journal of Labor Research.

Current Positions:

The 'John M. Olin Institute for Employment Practice and Policy' is the publisher of the Journal of Labor Research. [1]

James Bennett and the Tobacco Industry

Bennett has staged media campaigns and co-authored books funded by tobacco companies withThomas DiLorenzo of George Mason University. In 1990, Bennett and DiLorenzo submitted a $150'000 project proposal to RJR, the objective of which was "to discredit the voluntary health agencies in the minds of the public." [2] 

In 1995, they billed RJR $100,000 [3] to produce a book a called Cancerscam: the diversion of federal cancer funds to politics, that attacked health charities for spending what the authors deemed a disproportionate amount of their income on political advocacy. The authors argued the money should be spent on research instead. The Cancerscam book comported perfectly with a 1993 Philip Morris internal Corporate Affairs plan to work towards constraining health charities by restricting how much of their funds could be spent on research and capping the amount the charities could spend on salaries and lobbying. Bates Page -6028 of the 119 page plan

Books co-authored by James Bennett and Thomas DiLorenzo

Related SourceWatch Resources

Related Links

Categories: 

==

Samuel Robert Lichter

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

flag]

S. Robert Lichter is Professor of Communication at George Mason University, where he directs the Center for Media and Public Affairs, which conducts scientific studies of the news and entertainment media, and the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS), which works to improve the quality of statistical and scientific information in the news.

Contents

Academia

Lichter has taught political science at Princeton, Georgetown, and George Washington universities, and he was a research faculty member at Yale University and Columbia University. He was also a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow at Smith College and held the DeWitt Wallace Chair in Mass Communications at the American Enterprise Institute. He received his Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University and his B.A., summa cum laude, from the University of Minnesota. He has received a Goldsmith Research Award from Harvard University and the Solimene Award of Excellence from the American Medical Writers Association's New England Chapter.

Scholarly work

Lichter has authored or co-authored fourteen books and over a hundred scholarly articles and monographs on the news and entertainment media. His best-known work, The Media Elite, (written with Stanley Rothman and Linda Lichter) argued that journalists, on average, held moreliberalpolitical views than the general public, and that their backgrounds and outlooks affect their coverage of the news.

This claim was extended by conservative pundits as evidence for a liberal bias in the media. It also provoked widespread debate among journalists and their critics. The Media Elite was based on interviews with major media journalists and content analysis of their work.

Lichter and his co-authors have also written on the social and political perspectives of popular culture, in books such as Prime Time and Watching America, as well as on news coverage of science and health issues, in Environmental Cancer—A Political Disease andIt Ain't Necessarily So. His most recent books (written with Stephen Farnsworth) are The Nightly News Nightmare: Television Coverage of Presidential Elections (2006, 2nd ed.); and The Mediated Presidency: Television News and Presidential Governance (2005). These works use content analysis to examine the media's coverage of government and election campaigns.

In 1986 Lichter and his late ex-wife, sociologist Linda Lichter, established the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA), PARALLEL TO ACC IN MEDIAa non-profit organization that sought to influence public debate on the media by publishing frequent studies of media coverage using the social scientific tool of content analysis. This was the first time this type of academic research was used on a regular and systematic basis to affect the general public's view of the media. Since then other groups have followed suit, including the Annenberg School for Communication and the Pew Foundation's Project for Excellence in Journalism. In 2004 the CMPA became affiliated with the George Mason University.

Bibliography

Journal articles

Criticism and Response

Some critics, such as Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) and the Columbia Journalism Review, have criticized Lichter and the CMPA for holding a conservative bias of their own or for being funded by conservative foundations.

Nonetheless, major media outlets regularly carry stories based on the CMPA's studies, and the organization was described by the Los Angeles Times' Tom Rosenstiel as "non-partisan" in an interview in the D.C.-based City Paper (2/30/90). USA Today (6/28/91) also described Lichter's methodology as "non-partisan", and Newsday (3/4/92) characterized his research as "non-ideological." After a Washington Post article referred to CMPA as "conservative," the Post published a "Clarification", which concluded, "The center describes itself as nonpartisan, and its studies have been cited by both conservative and liberal commentators." (2/9/00)

srcwtch

S. Robert Lichter is president of the Washington-based Center for Media and Public Affairs and Professor of Communication at George Mason University. Until 2008 he was a paid contributor to the**Fox News**Channel**[1]**.

Biography

According to the CMPA website, "Dr. Lichter previously taught at Princeton, Georgetown, and George Washington universities. He also served as a Postdoctoral Fellow in Politics and Psychology at Yale University, Senior Research Fellow at Columbia University, and National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow at Smith College, and he held the DeWitt Wallace Chair in Mass Communications at the American Enterprise Institute. He received his Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University and his B.A., summa cum laude, from the University of Minnesota. " [2]

Furthermore, until 2008 he was a paid contributor to the Fox News Channel.

Robert Lichter's criticisms of Peter Arnett

Lichter has repeatedly criticised Peter Arnett.

According to FAIR [3], at a conference sponsored by Accuracy In Media after the first Gulf War, Lichter was reported by AP (4/27/91) to have said "...he was disappointed in statements by [Peter] Arnett upon his return from Baghdad that he was in the enemy capital on behalf of all CNN viewers, not just Americans.'I see a trend toward journalists seeing themselves as citizens of the world' rather than patriotic Americans, Lichter said."

Lichter had another go at Arnett in the second Gulf War, during the media feeding frenzy following Arnett's remarks in an interview with Iraqi state television. An April 1, 2004 Washington Post article quoted Lichter saying: "If ever there was a poster boy for bias, it is now Peter Arnett." [4]

SourceWatch Resources

External links

===

Center for Media and Public Affairs

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) is a self-described nonpartisan and nonprofit research and educational organization that is affiliated with George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. It was founded in 1985 by political scientists Dr. S. Robert Lichter and his ex-wife, the late Dr. Linda Lichter. It publishes a newsletter called Media Monitor.

Contents

Research

The CMPA conducts studies of the news and entertainment media. Among its activities are a continuing analysis and tabulation of late night political jokes,[1][2] an annual report on diversity among network news journalists,[3] and a content analysis of the nightly news on the major broadcast and cable news networks.

The results of the latter are compiled in the CMPA newsletter. CMPA engages in health communication research, investigating the way in which scientific issues are conveyed in the media.[4] CMPA also engages in survey research to determine the accuracy of media's reports of scientific opinion.[5]

CMPA conducts social scientific research on media coverage with the use of such techniques as content analysis and survey research. Its studies appear in academic journals and reference works as well as in popular media outlets.[6][7][8][9][10]

CMPA's signature activity is its"rapid response" studies of media coverage of current issues, which appear quickly enough to influence ongoing public debates, such as presidential campaigns, Senate confirmation hearings, and major policy debates in Congress.[11][12][13]

Although CMPA avoids taking stands on political issues,its studies have sometimes become part of the public debate over the media's role in politics and society. For example, in 1992 a CMPA study found that the average length of a presidential candidate's soundbite on the evening news had dropped to less than ten seconds, down from 42 seconds in 1968. In response CBS adopted a policy requiring longer soundbites on the CBS Evening News.[14]Edward S. Herman and Noam **Chomsky note that the CMPA, along with several other nonpartisan non-profit organizations, help to police the media through the creation of "flak," which they define as "negative responses to a media statement or program" and which they maintain is part of a project of "disciplining the media." ^[15]

CMPA studies of entertainment media have been used by members of the United States Congress such as Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) in their efforts to reduce gratuitous violence and sex in television entertainment.[16] CMPA's research on entertainment media has also included studies of how various groups have been portrayed on television, such as studies of Hispanic Americans' portrayals commissioned by the National Council of La Raza and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.[17]

Funding

The media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) has challenged CMPA's non-partisan claim, based on the argument that much of its funding has come from conservative sources, and that its founder, Dr. S. Robert Lichter, once held a chair in mass communications at the American Enterprise Institute and was a Fox News contributor.[18][19] After a Washington Post article referred to CMPA as "conservative," the Post published a "Clarification," which concluded, "The Center describes itself as nonpartisan, and its studies have been cited by both conservative and liberal commentators."[20]

The left leaning political organization MediaTransparency (now run by Media Matters for America, itself a liberal organization[21]) documented that between 1986 and 2005 CMPA received 55 grants totaling $2,960,916 (unadjusted for inflation). The organization, which collated information from returns filed by numerous conservative foundations, claimed that 86% of CMPA's total funding came from conservative-leaning foundations.[citation ^needed] In response to Media Transparency's claims,CMPA posted on its website a listing of $1,766,500 in grants received from 19 "non-conservative" and centrist foundations and non-profit organizations.[22] wayback, ^seems ^ok

References

  1. Political Humor in TV Talk Shows. In Schaefer, Todd and Thomas Birkland, eds. The Encyclopedia of Media and Politics in America Washington DC: CQ Press, 2007
  2. Niven, D., Lichter, S.R., and Amundson, D: The Political Content of Late Night Comedy. Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, Vol. 8, No. 3 (Summer 2003).
  3. Peter Johnson, “Rising News Diversity Makes News,” USA Today, Feb. 29, 2000
  4. Assessing Local Television News Coverage of Health Issues. Menlo Park, CA: Kaiser Family Foundation, 1997.
  5. Food for Thought: Reporting of Diet, Nutrition and Food Safety. Washington, DC: International Food Information Council, December 2005.
  6. The Center for Media and Public Affairs. In Schaefer, Todd and Thomas Birkland, eds. The Encyclopedia of Media and Politics in America. Washington DC: CQ Press, 2007
  7. Lichter, S.R: Ideological Bias. In Wolfgang Donsbach, ed., The International Encyclopedia of Communication. London: Blackwell/ICA, 2008
  8. Lichter, S.R: "The Presidency and the Press -- Ronald Reagan to George W. Bush." In Stephen Vaughan, ed. The Encyclopedia of American Journalism. New York: Routledge, 2007
  9. Dye, T., Ziegler, H., and Lichter, S.R: American Politics in the Media Age. Pacific Grove, CA: Brooks/Cole, 1992. Fourth edition.
  10. Harold Stanley and Richard Niemi Vital Statistics on American Politics. Washington D.C.: CQ Press, 2008, pp.183-185.
  11. Lichter, S.R: A Plague on Both Parties: Substance and Fairness in TV Election News. Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics. Vol. 6, No. 3 (Summer 2001) 8-29
  12. Farnsworth, S. and Lichter, S.R: The Mediated Congress. Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, Vol 10, no 2 (Spring 2005) 94-107
  13. Farnsworth, S. and Lichter, S.R: New Presidents and Network News. Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol 34, no 3 (September 2004) 674-690.
  14. Howard Kurtz, “Media Notes,” Washington Post, July 7, 1992; Rick Schindler, “CBS Vows to Serve Up Chewier Sound Bites,” TV Guide, July 18, 1992
  15. Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent. New York: Pantheon, 2002, pp. 2, 26-27
  16. David Hatch, “Every Four Minutes,” Electronic Media, Sept. 27, 1999
  17. Don't Blink: Hispanics in Television Entertainment. Washington, DC: National Council of La Raza, April 1996
  18. Press Release (May 14, 1992). "Study of Bias or Biased Study?". Retrieved 2008-09-29.
  19. :{Hart, Peter; Steve Rendall (July/August 1998). "Meet the Myth-Makers: Right-Wing Media Groups Provide Ammo for "Liberal Media" :(style="font-family:Merriweather"):}:Claims". Extra!.
  20. ^ "Clarification," Washington Post, February 9, 2000.
  21. ^ "SourceWatch: Media Matters for America". SourceWatch. Retrieved 2009-11-18.
  22. ^ http://cmpa.com/news/CMPA%20FUNDING.pdf Retrieved February 5, 2010.

External links

srcwtch

The Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) is a U.S.-based tax-exempt nonprofit 501(c)(3) media watch organization. On its website, CMPA claims to be politically neutral: "The Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) is a nonpartisan research and educational organization which conducts scientific studies of news and entertainment media. CMPA's goal is to provide an empirical basis for ongoing debates over media coverage and impact through well-documented, timely, and readable studies.[1]

CMPA also runs the Statistical Assessment Service, described on the front page of its Web site as a sister organization, which is considered a front organization.

History

The Center for Media and Public Affairs wasfounded in the mid 1980s byS. Robert Lichter and Linda Lichter.[2] According to Salon.com, "the seed money for [the] center was solicited by the likes of Pat Buchanan and Pat Robertson".[3]

Funding

Foundation funding

Media Transparency documents that between 1986 and 2005 CMPA received 55 grants totaling $2,960,916 (unadjusted for inflation).[4] The data reveals that the overwhelming proportion of CMPA's funding comes from conservative foundations.

The funding information, covering 1986-2009, lists the following donors (note: all figures are unadjusted for inflation):

Thus, out of the total of $3,323,416 in foundation grants, nearly all of it ($2,693,916) came from just four sources: the John M. Olin, Scaife, and Smith Richardson foundations. In other words, CMPA received 81% of its foundation funding from those four donors. Here is a sample of other right-wing causes funded by these 3 donors, as listed by their respective SourceWatch articles:

According to Salon journalist Joe Conason, the availability of this information does not indicate an openness on the part of the Center for Media and Public Affairs. In a Jan 2003 exchange of views with Lichter, Conason said "The IRS form 990 returns filed by [Lichter's] center redacts the names of all the individuals and organizations that contribute to it, thereby concealing them from public scrutiny. But the watchdogs at Media Transparency have collated the 990 returns filed by the conservative foundations, which disclose their contributions to Lichter's outfit."[3]

As at November 2010, the CMPA website contains no information about the Center's sources of funding.[5]

Total Recent Funding

In its 2008 Annual return to the Internal Revenue Service, CMPA reported that for that year it had total revenue of $479,390 which came in the form of contributions gifts and grants, except for $3,237.[6]

CMPA's IRS return reports that the group's revenue for the preceding four years were as follows:

CMPA’s 2008 ElectionNewsWatch Project

On February 1, 2008, CMPA issued a news release lauding the election coverage of:{ Fox:(style="background-color:#ffff66ff"):}:News:{. A CMPA concluded }::{"FOX stands out for having the heaviest and most issue-oriented election coverage. ... FOX was also twice as substantive as the broadcast networks. Almost one-third of all stories on FOX (30%) dealt with policy issues, nearly double the proportion (16%) on the networks. FOX also carried less coverage of the horse race and candidate tactics than any of broadcast networks."[7]}:

"Conservative-Funded Study: Fox News Gives Most Balanced Coverage"

The Huffington Post reported in December of 2007 that "A study released this month by the Center for Media and Public Affairs (CMPA) at George Mason University found that Fox News Channel's evening coverage was more "balanced" than that of the broadcast networks."Yet, one only had to look at the money behind the study to see that the "results" were tainted from the start.[8]

Criticism of PBS in 1992

According to a Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) research memo, a 1992 study of PBS by the Center for Media and Public Affairs concluded: "On the social and political controversies addressed by PBS documentaries across a full year of programs, the balance of opinion tilted consistently in a liberal direction."[2]

However, FAIR points out that thestudy excluded, on rather vague grounds, some of PBS's most conservative output. This included "talkshows such as William F. Buckley, Jr.'s Firing Line and Morton Kondracke's American Interests, news reports like the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, and business programs like Louis Rukeyser's Wall $treet Week. The Center claims this is to ensure 'a group of programs that were similar in style and content, to maximize the comparability of judgments.'"

According to the FAIR memo, these shows were the ones "most often criticized for having a conservative slant - programming that takes up more of the PBS schedule than the documentaries that the Center's study is limited to. Firing Line and American Interests - programs underwritten by the Center's biggest funders--provided approximately 50 hours of programming a year between them."[2]

Criticism of Fahrenheit 9/11

In June 2004, the CMPA's media director, Matthew Felling, waded into the debate on Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 with the following comments: "Of course, this movie is going to be Michael Moore's version of what he thinks President Bush is up to and what he thinks his capabilities are," he said. "We already know that he does not think that he is really cut out for the job. So Michael Moore will pick out everything he can to support that argument and we can only hope that Americans are well-versed enough in the successes of the Bush administration that they can balance it out on their own."[9]

Personnel

Office Bearers

As of 2011, the board consisted of:[10]

Staff

Former Staff

Contact

Center for Media and Public Affairs

and Statistical Assessment Service

2100 L St NW, Suite 300

Washington, DC 20037

STATS line (202) 223 3193

CMPA line (202) 223 2942

Fax (202) 872 4014

Web: http://www.cmpa.com

Articles and Resources

Sources

  1. Jump up↑ [1], "About Us"
  2. ↑ ^Jump ^up ^to:2.0^ 2.1 ^2.2 Jim Naureckas, Study of Bias or Biased Study?: The Lichter Method and the Attack on PBS Documentaries", Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting, May 14, 1992.
  3. ↑ ^Jump ^up ^to:3.0^ ^3.1 Joe Conason, "Letter: A question of bias", Salon, January 15, 2003.
  4. Jump up↑ "Center for Media and Public Affairs, Inc.", Media Transparency, accessed February 2008.
  5. Jump up↑ [2], "CMPA About Us"
  6. Jump up↑ [3], "CMPA Guidestar 990 Form"
  7. Jump up↑ Center for Media and Public Affairs, "Media Boost Obama, Bash "Billary": NBC Is Toughest on Hillary; FOX Has Heaviest Coverage", Media Release, February 1, 2008.
  8. Jump up↑ [4], "CMPA Election Study"
  9. Jump up↑ J. Malone, "New Michael Moore film fahrenheit 9/11 sparks controversy", Voice of America, June 22, 2004. (No longer available online).
  10. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ Form 990, 2011.
  11. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ [5], "Fox News: Robert Lichter"
  12. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ S. Robert Lichter, "Is There a Liberal Bias in the Media?", John M. Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs (Lecture), March 24, 1993.
  13. :{Jump up:(style="top:-99999px;clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);overflow:hidden;position:absolute !important;padding:0px !important;border:0px !important;height:1px !important;width:1px !important"):}:↑ "Staff Biographies", Center for Media and Public Affairs website, accessed July 2009.

Related SourceWatch resources

External links

Categories: 

==

inside higher ed

:{:{:{In the past 20 years this core group of funders has, by many reports, built and strategically linked an impressive array of almost 500 think tanks, centers, institutes and "concerned citizens groups" both within and outside of the academy. It is particularly telling to observe the funding sources of these organizations during the first 10-15 years of their existence, when their ideological identities were being established.}:

A small sampling of these entities include the Cato Institute,the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute,the Manhattan Institute, the Hoover Institution, theClaremont Institute, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni,Middle East Forum,Accuracy in Media, and the National Association of Scholars, as well as Horowitz's Center of the Study of Popular Culture.}:}:

:{:{:{The absence of formal organizational linkages between the entities within these networks creates an illusion of independent analytical voices reaching similar conclusions about strategic policy issues, a technique known in the public relations industry as “astroturfing.”}:

This network has developed an enormous capacity to generate “data” consistent with the targeted political agenda and world views of its core group of funders to quickly and redundantly represent these issues in the mainstream press by what appear to be the voices of independent analysts and to translate these viewpoints into public policy that serves the focused ideological agenda of this core group of funders. The Bradley Foundation under Michael Joyce's leadership has even established a publishing house, Encounter Books, to ensure that grantees like Horowitz have a quasi-academic outlet for their viewpoints.}:}:

The degree of interconnectedness within this network of organizations is considerable but almost invisible to the casual observer. For example, when ACTA’s president, Anne Neal, introduced herself to the Select Committee on Academic Freedom in Higher Education in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, she presented ACTA as “a bipartisan network of college and university trustees and alumni across the country dedicated to academic freedom.”

:{:{:{Full disclosure should have required some mention of the fact that ACTA (see funding sources above), which changed its name from the National Alumni Forum in 1998, was established by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute in 1994. The Intercollegiate Studies Institute in turn evolved from }::{William Bennett}::{’s }:Madison Center for Educational Affairs:{ and the Institute for Educational Affairs founded by }::{Irving Kristol}::{, Michael Joyce’s mentor, and William Simon, the first president of the John M. Olin Foundation.}:

Bennett and Kristol also sit on ACTA’s Board of Directors. The remarkably consistent record of funding across all of the incarnations of this organization and the high degree of redundancy with Horowitz’s own, highly partisan Center for the Study of Popular Culture is not consistent with Neal’s definition of ACTA as an independent, non-partisan organization.}:}:

:{:{:{Another example illustrative of the quietly incestuous nature of this network is presented by an article by the }:Boston Globe:{columnist Cathy Young. The article is entitled }:“Liberal bias in the ivory tower”:{ and by all appearances is an independent opinion piece written by a regular }:Globe:{ columnist.}:

At the end of the article Young identifies herself as “a contributing editor at Reason Magazine.” What is undisclosed in the article is that Reason Magazine is the publication of the Reason Foundation, whose funding sources are virtually the same as those funding Horowitz’s "Academic Bill of Rights" project and Neal’s ACTA.}:}:

:{Young’s premise for the article is stated in her opening sentence: “Yet another study has come out documenting what most conservatives consider to be blindingly obvious: the leftwing tilt of the American professoriate.” The study that she references was conducted by:{ Stanley}::{ Rothman, now emeritus professor at Smith College; }:S.Robert Lichter, emeritus professor at George Mason University; and Neil Nevitte of the University of Toronto, and was published in the online journal Forum. This study was also cited by Neal in her testimony in Pennsylvania.

Young does not inform her readers that Rothman is director of the Center for the Study of Social and Political Change, a center with funding sources that are remarkably redundant with Horowitz’s Center for the Study of Popular Culture. Lichter is also president of the Center for Media and Public Affairs, which again has funding sources that are redundant with those referenced earlier.}:

In addition, a recent article in Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting is highly critical of Lichter’s research methodology. Another example of such conflicted interests is provided by Professor Thomas Reeves. When Reeves writes in strong support of Horowitz’s proposals on the History News Network,he fails to note that he is a spokesman for the California Association of Scholars, a branch of the National Association of Scholars (see funding sources above) and that he is director of the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute, which was, again, brought into being by the Olin and Bradley Foundations.

This manufactured drumbeat against “academic bias” is amplified by Stanley Kurtz of the Hoover Institution (see funding sources above), Heather MacDonald, a John M. Olin fellow at the Manhattan Institute (see funding sources above), and Brian C. Anderson, editor of the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal and a former research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (see funding sources above).

The relentlessness with which columnists and experts with direct funding relationships with Olin, Scaife, Bradley, Koch and Coors level charges of academic bias and assert the need for legislative reform of higher education is remarkable. The goal of this narrowly focused and ideologically driven public relations campaign can only be understood in terms of its fostering of a political climate in which federal regulatory “reform” of what is universally recognized as the finest system of higher education in the world, will be tolerated.

Indeed, as has been discussed, such regulatory oversight may already be in the offing. The academy stands today as one of the last spaces in America where the democratic ideas that shape the social, economic and political fabric of the nation can be openly and independently debated on the basis of their merits and without coercion or distortion from vested economic and political interests. It is certainly in the national interest that it remain such.

---

STATS/genetic lit pjt:"where science trumps ideology" i shit you not

Our Team

Jon Entine, Executive Director

Jon’s interest in genetics arose from a family history of breast and ovarian cancer. He is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Health & Risk Communication and the Statistical Assessment Service (STATS) at George Mason University. He has been a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute since 2003, focusing on science and public policy. He has written or edited seven books, including: Abraham’s Children: Race, Identity and the DNA of the Chosen People (2007), Let Them Eat Precaution: How Politics is Undermining the Genetic Revolution in Agriculture (2005) and Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why We’re Afraid to Talk About It (2001). Jon is a columnist at Ethical Corporation magazine and founder of the sustainability consultancy, ESG MediaMetrics. Before launching his writing and consulting career, Jon was an Emmy-award winning producer and executive for 20 years at NBC News and ABC News. He received his degree in philosophy from Trinity College (CT) and studied at the University of Michigan under a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship.[crypto]

Katy Davis, Web Advisor and Public Relations

Katy Davis has worked as a public relations professional for the Center for Media and Public Affairs and STATS since 2012. She received her BS from the University of Florida in Public Relations in 2010. In 2011, she received her Masters from the University of Florida in Management.

John de Dios, Digital Media Director/Writer

John de Dios, with training in media and biology, is a freelance journalist and former journalism instructor. He has contributed to many news organizations including Scientific American, Fox News Latino, Tucson Weekly, Arizona Republic and Arizona Daily Star. He serves as a professional mentor to young journalists through various organizations, including Asian American Journalists Association, Native American Journalists Association, National Association of Hispanic Journalists. He previously served on the faculty ofThe New York Times Journalism Institute and as director for a Dow Jones News Fund Diversity Workshop hosted by the University of Arizona.

Rebecca Goldin, Research Director

Rebecca is Director of Research for STATSand holds a Ph.D. from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Mathematics, and a B.A., cum laude from Harvard University. She did postdoctoral work at University of Maryland as a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow before joining George Mason University, where she is currently an associate professor in the Department of Mathematical Sciences. She has received the Ruth I. Michler Memorial Prize from the Association of Women in Mathematics and was one of the winners of George Mason’s Emerging Scholar Awards, which recognizes excellence in academic achievement.

Meredith Knight, Contributing Columnist

Meredith Knight is a science and health writer based in Austin, Texas. She graduated from NYU’s Science, Health and Environmental Reporting program and has written for Scientific American MIND, Scientific American Online, the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and other publications.XiaoZhi Lim, Contributing Columnist

XiaoZhi Lim is a recent graduate of the Boston University Science Journalism Graduate Program and a native of Singapore. She has contributed to Boston University News Service, Inside Science TV and Bytesize Science. She likes to cover stories about energy, climate and environment, especially those where she gets to go places and do what real people do in the real world.

Tabatha M Powledge, Contributing Columnist

I’m a long-time science and medical journalist, publishing online and in print periodicals ranging from Scientific American to The Lancet. I was Founding Editor of The Scientist and a Senior Editor at Nature Biotechnology, and my books are Your Brain: How You Got It and How It Works and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Microbiology. I began On Science Blogs in 2009 and was invited to move it to the PLOS Blog Network in 2013. New posts on Fridays at http://blogs.plos.org/onscienceblogs/ . I’m a member of the Authors Guild, the Association of Health Care Journalists, and have been elected four times to the Board of Directors of the National Association of Science Writers.

Josh Schonwald, Food Consultant

Josh Schonwald is a Chicago journalist and the author of The Taste of Tomorrow: Dispatches from the Future of Food. Schonwald has written for numerous publications, including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Slate.

Kenrick Vezina, Gene-ius Editor

Kenrick Vezina has a M.S. in science writing from MIT and has spent his career as a science writer and educator. His academic background is in biology, and he has been interested in evolution and the the relationship between humanity and nature for as long as he can remember. In addition to the Gene-ius column at the Genetic Literacy Project, his work can be found across the web. He often contributes to Northern Woodlands magazine’s “Outside Story” column.

Our Advisors

Media Science Advisors

Kevin Davies, Editor-in-Chief of Bio•IT World

Kevin is the author most recently of The $1,000 Genome and Cracking the Genome (2010). He was the founding editor of Nature Genetics, the world’s leading genetics journal, which he headed for its first five years. He has also written for the Times (London), Boston Globe, New England Journal of Medicine, and New Scientist, among others. His first book, Breakthrough (1995), co-authored with Michael White, told the story of the race for the BRCA1 breast cancer gene. Davies holds an M.A. in biochemistry from the University of Oxford and a PhD in molecular genetics from the University of London. He held postdoctoral fellowships at MIT and Harvard Medical School before moving into science publishing as an editor with Nature magazine.

Elizabeth Finkel, Science Writer

Elizabeth holds a PhD in biochemistry and was a professional research scientist before becoming a journalist, focusing on human and agricultural genomics. She is author of Genome Generation (Melbourne University Publishing, 2011) and Stem Cells: Controversy at the frontiers of Science (2005), which won a Queensland Premier’s Literary award and was a finalist for the Australian government Eureka award for promoting the public understanding of science. She has won the Amgen and MBF awards for medical journalism, the Michael Daley award for best radio feature broadcast, the Bell Awards’ categories for ‘Best feature writer’ and ‘Best analytical writer’ and a 2011 National Press Club of Australia and Universities Australia Higher Education Journalist of the Year.

ENSTROM PAL:

Science & Risk Communication Advisors

Geoffrey Kabat, Senior Epidemiologist, Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Geoffrey is a cancer epidemiologist whose research has focused on the effects of smoking, alcohol, diet, hormones, electromagnetic fields and other factors. He has published over 80 scientific papers and writes regularly for the popular media. His book, Hyping Health Risks: Environmental Hazards in Everyday Life and the Science of Epidemiology (2008) is considered a classic in risk analysis and communication.

Gary L. Kreps, Chair, Department of Communication, George Mason University

Gary held the Mandell Endowed Chair in Health Communication from 2004 to 2010. He serves on the Governing Board of the Center for Social Science Research, and is a faculty affiliate of the National Center for Biodefense and Infectious Diseases, the Center for Health Care Ethics and Policy, the Center for International Medical Policies and Practices, Center for Health Information Technology, Center for Consciousness and Transformation, and the Center for Climate Change Communicationat GMU. Prior to his faculty appointment, he served for five years (1999–2004) as the founding Chief of the Health Communication and Informatics Research Branch at the National Cancer Institute. He was the Founding Dean of the School of Communication at Hofstra University, Executive Director of the Greenspun School of Communication at UNLV and in faculty and administrative roles at Northern Illinois, Rutgers, Indiana, and Purdue Universities.

Human Genetics Advisors

Henry Harpending, Thomas Chair Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, University of Utah

Henry earned his PhD at Harvard in 1972 and is credited with developing the “Out of Africa” theory of evolution. He has broken new ground in anthropology and human biology by applying mathematical models to genetic and morphometric variation, examining hypotheses such as population growth, divergence and gene flow. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and co-author with Gregory Cochran of The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution (2009). They found evidence that our species had only a few thousand members during the last interglacial and that there were several subsequent demographic expansions, the earliest among the ancestors of contemporary sub-Saharan Africans.

Caroline Lieber, Director, Human Genetics Graduate Program, Sarah Lawrence College

Caroline is head of the largest genetic counseling training program in the United States, with more than 600 graduates and links to 50 genetic centers around the country. She received her MS in Human Genetics from Sarah Lawrence and her BS from the University of California-Davis. She is also an ABGC licensed genetic counselor and member of the Transnational Alliance for Genetic Counseling.

Ariella Oppenheim, Professor Emeritus, Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School

Ariella has held the Henri and Erna Leir Chair in Molecular Biology & Cellular Medicine since 1999 and has been a faculty member since receiving her PhD in Biochemistry from the University of California, Davis in 1966. In 1998 she established the Ethics in Research Committee at the Hebrew University and chaired the Committee. She also participated in the formulation of Israel’s Genetic Information Law and was both a participant and head of ad-hoc committees of the Ministry of Health and of the Ministry of Science on ethical issues in genetics and gene therapy. She helped establish the Gene Therapy Institute at Hadassah in 1992, and since 2003 has been a member of the steering committee of the Israeli National Center For Gene Therapy. She is a member of the National Helsinki Committee, which serves as an advisory committee on ethics to the Ministry of Health.

Sharon Terry, President, CEO, Genetic Alliance

Sharon runs a network of thousands of genetic disease-specific advocacy organizations. A former college chaplain, she is the CEO of PXE International, a research advocacy organization for the genetic condition pseudoxanthoma elasticum (PXE), which she founded following the diagnosis of her two children. She is also co-founder of the Genetic Alliance Biobank, a centralized biological and data repository on genetic diseases. She serves on the boards of the Institute of Medicine Science and Policy Board, GRAND Therapeutics Foundation, the Center for Information & Study on Clinical Research Participation, The Biotechnology Institute, National Coalition of Health Professional Education in Genetics and the Coalition for 21st Century Medicine. She is on the editorial boards of Genetic Testing and Biomarkers, Biopreservation and Biobanking, and Journal of Postgenomics: Drug & Biomarker Development, and the Google Health and Rosalind Franklin Society Advisory Boards. She is the chair of the Coalition for Genetic Fairness, which was instrumental in the passage of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act.

Food Security Advisors

Peggy G. Lemaux, Chair, University of California Statewide Biotechnology Workgroup

Peggy is Director of the Lemaux Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley and a Cooperative Extension Specialist at the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology. She is founder and editor of KnowsGMOs, a science based information and resource guide. Her research efforts focus on the use of genomic technologies to understand, manipulate and improve cereal crops, such as wheat, barley, rice and sorghum. Her applied projects include engineering a faster germinating barley with improved starch characteristics intended for the brewing industry, a hypoallergenic wheat variety aimed at consumers with wheat allergies and the nutritional enhancement of sorghum for Africa with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges for Global Health. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Society of Agronomy and the American Society of Plant Biologists.

C.S. Prakash, Director, Center for Plant Biotechnology Research, Tuskegee University

C.S. oversees research on food crops of importance to developing countries and the training of scientists in plant biotechnology. His website AgBioworld.org is read by experts in 55 countries. He recently served on the USDA’s Agricultural Biotechnology Advisory Committee and serves on the Advisory Committee for the Department of Biotechnology for India. His contribution to agricultural biotechnology outreach was recognized by the magazine Progressive Farmer, which named him the Man of the Year for his service to Alabama agriculture. He was recently named by the Council for Biotechnology Information as one of a dozen “pioneers, visionaries and innovators behind the progress and promise of plant biotechnology”.

Chavali Kameswara Rao, Executive Secretary, Foundation for Biotechnology Awareness and Education

Chavali has over 40 years of academic experience in botanical sciences, particularly phytochemistry, plant diversity, databases of medicinal plants and computer applications in plant systematics. He was the chairman of the Departments of Botany Sericulture at the Bangalore University. FBAE is a non-profit striving to enhance public awareness and raise standards of education and training in biotechnology. He serves on several policy committees of the Department of Biotechnology and Ministry of Environment and Forests in India and life science research policy committees of the US National Academies of Sciences and the World Health Organization.

Legal and Ethics Advisors

Daniel Vorhaus, Editor, Genomics Law Report

Dan is a lawyer at Robinson Bradshaw. His legal work focuses on life sciences and biotechnology, mergers and acquisitions, intellectual property and technology, venture capital and emerging growth companies and general corporate and commercial transactions in the emerging field of law surrounding genomics and personalized medicine technologies. He has represented public and private companies in merger, acquisition and licensing transactions, private equity groups in complex acquisition, financing and licensing arrangements and investors, established and emerging companies, entrepreneurs and researchers in the development and commercialization of life sciences technologies. He is an advisor on the Harvard University-based Personal Genome Project. A Fulbright scholar, he is a graduate of Harvard Law School and was a Student Fellow at the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology and Bioethics.

Laurie Zoloth, Director, Center for Bioethics, Science and Society; Professor, Medical Ethics, Religion, Northwestern Universit

Laurie was Professor of Ethics and Director of the Program in Jewish Studies at San Francisco State University before coming to Northwestern. She is past president of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities and served on its founding board for two terms, receiving the Society’s award for Service to the Field. She is the former Chair of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Bioethics Advisory Board, an executive board member of The Society for Women’s Health Research, and served on the advisory boards of the Robert Wood Johnson’s Project on Excellence at the End of Life, the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s Working Group on Human Germ-Line Interventions and on Stem Cell Research, the Ethics Section of the Louis Finkelstein Institute for Jewish Social Ethics and the Park Ridge Center’s Project on Judaism and Bioethics. She received an NIH ELSI grant to explore the ethical issues after the mapping of the human genome and was named principal investigator of the International Project on Judaism and Genetics, which was co-sponsored by the AAAS and supported by the Haas Foundation and the Greenwall Fund. She is on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics, the Journal of Clinical Ethics and the American Journal of Bioethics.

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