Sheldon Rampton (born August 4, 1957) is an American editor and author. He was editor of ''

PR Watch The Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) is a progressive nonprofit watchdog and advocacy organization based in Madison, Wisconsin. CMD publishes ExposedbyCMD.org, SourceWatch.org, and ALECexposed.org. History CMD was founded in 1993 by progres ...

'', and is the author of several books that criticize the

public relations Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) to the public in order to influence their perception. ...

industry and what he sees as other forms of corporate and government propaganda.

Education

Rampton was born in

Long Beach, California Long Beach is a city in Los Angeles County, California. It is the 42nd-most populous city in the United States, with a population of 466,742 as of 2020. A charter city, Long Beach is the seventh-most populous city in California. Incorporate ...

. At the age of one, his family moved to

Las Vegas, Nevada Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vega ...

, where his father worked as a musician. Raised as a member of

the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, informally known as the LDS Church or Mormon Church, is a nontrinitarian Christian church that considers itself to be the restoration of the original church founded by Jesus Christ. The ...

(LDS Church), he spent two years in Japan as a Latter-day Saint

missionary A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Tho ...

from 1976 to 1978. Upon returning to the United States, however, he left the LDS Church, influenced in part by

Mormon Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into seve ...

feminist Sonia Johnson.

Career

Upon graduation in 1982, Rampton worked as a newspaper reporter before becoming a peace activist. During the 1980s and 1990s, he worked closely with the Wisconsin Coordinating Council on Nicaragua (WCCN), which opposed the

Reagan administration Ronald Reagan's tenure as the 40th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1981, and ended on January 20, 1989. Reagan, a Republican from California, took office following a landslide victory over ...

's military interventions in Central America and works to promote economic development, human rights, and mutual friendship between the people of the United States and

Nicaragua Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest Sovereign state, country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean Sea, Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to ...

. At WCCN, Rampton helped establish the Nicaraguan Credit Alternatives Fund (NICA Fund) in 1992, which channels loans from US investors to support microcredit and other "alternative credit" programs in Nicaragua. In 1995, Rampton teamed with

John Stauber John Stauber is an American progressive writer. Stauber has co-authored five books about government propaganda, private interests and the public relations industry. His work includes one book about how industry manipulates science ('' Trust Us, ...

as co-editors of

, a publication of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). They were described as liberal, and their writings are regarded by some members of the public relations industry as one-sided and hostile, but their work drew wide attention.

ActivistCash The Center for Organizational Research and Education (CORE), formerly the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) and prior to that the Guest Choice Network, is an American non-profit entity founded by Richard Berman. It describes itself as "dedicated ...

, a website hosted by Washington lobbyist Richard Berman, has castigated them as "self-anointed watchdogs," "scare-mongers," "reckless" and "left-leaning." Rampton and Stauber have in turn argued that the ActivistCash critique contains a number of "demonstrably false" claims. According to a review in the

Denver Post ''The Denver Post'' is a daily newspaper and website published in Denver, Colorado. As of June 2022, it has an average print circulation of 57,265. In 2016, its website received roughly six million monthly unique visitors generating more than 13 ...

, their 1995 book, ''Toxic Sludge Is Good for You,'' offered "a sardonic, wide-ranging look at the public relations industry." Rampton is also a contributor to the Wikipedia open content project, and was the person who coined the name " Wikimedia" which later became the name of the foundation that manages Wikipedia and its sister projects. Inspired by Wikipedia's collaborative writing model, Rampton founded Disinfopedia (now known as SourceWatch), another CMD project, to complement his PR Watch work to expose what Rampton perceives as deceptive and misleading

campaigns. After leaving the Center for Media and Democracy in 2009, Rampton became a website developer, joining an open government initiative led by

New York State Senate The New York State Senate is the upper house of the New York State Legislature; the New York State Assembly is its lower house. Its members are elected to two-year terms; there are no term limits. There are 63 seats in the Senate. Partisan com ...

chief information officer

Andrew Hoppin Andrew is the English form of a given name common in many countries. In the 1990s, it was among the top ten most popular names given to boys in English-speaking countries. "Andrew" is frequently shortened to "Andy" or "Drew". The word is derived ...

. In 2010, Hoppin and Rampton co-founded NuCivic, an

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

software company, which they sold in December 2014 to GovDelivery, a software services company now known as Granicus. Rampton currently works as a software engineer at Granicus.

Writings by Rampton

*With Liz Chilsen: **''Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities'' (1987) *With

: **'' Toxic Sludge Is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry'' (1995) **
Mad Cow U.S.A.: Could the Nightmare Happen Here?
' (1997) **''

Trust Us, We're Experts ''Trust Us, We're Experts: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles with Your Future'' is a book written by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber. It is published by Jeremy P. Tarcher Inc. of the Penguin Group. The book focuses on the role expert ...

: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles With Your Future'' (2001) **''Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq'' (2003)Taylor, Philip. "Propaganda to Believe In." (book review) The World Today 59, no. 8/9 (2003): 20-21. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40477061. **''

Banana Republicans ''Banana Republicans: How the Right Wing Is Turning America Into a One-Party State'' is a book by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber of the Center for Media and Democracy. It was published in 2004. In the book, Rampton and Stauber argue that a righ ...

'' (2004) **
The Best War Ever: Lies, Damned Lies, and the Mess in Iraq
' (2006)

References

External links

PR WatchSheldon Rampton's home page
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Rampton, Sheldon 1957 births Living people American media critics American social sciences writers Writers from California Former Latter Day Saints Princeton University alumni Propaganda theorists Public relations theorists Historians of public relations American Mormon missionaries in Japan 20th-century Mormon missionaries Framing theorists