Sheldon Rampton is the research director at the Center for Media and Democracy (www.prwatch.org) and the author of books including Friends In Deed: The Story of US-Nicaragua Sister Cities, Toxic Sludge Is Good For You, Mad Cow USA, Weapons of Mass Deception and Banana Republicans.

[2006] Sheldon Rampton is the research director for the Center for Media and Democracy (www.prwatch.org). A graduate of Princeton University, he has a diverse background as newspaper reporter, activist and author. Prior to joining the Center for Media and Democracy, he worked for the Wisconsin Coordinating Council on Nicaragua (www.wccnica.org) as outreach coordinator for the NICA Fund, a project that since 1992 has channeled millions of dollars in loans from socially responsible U.S. investors to support economic development efforts in low-income Central American communities. Since joining CMD, he has collaborated with John Stauber as co-author of four books:

· Toxic Sludge Is Good For You! Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry (1995)
· Mad Cow U.S.A. (1997)
· Trust Us, We’re Experts! 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)
· Banana Republicans: How the Right Wing Is Turning America Into a One-Party State (2004)

A fifth book, The Best War Ever: Lies, Damned Lies and the Mess in Iraq, will be published by Tarcher/Penguin this fall.

Rampton also designed SourceWatch (www.sourcewatch.org), CMD’s online “encyclopedia of people, organizations and issues shaping the public agenda,” and oversaw the development of Congresspedia (www.congresspedia.org), a wiki-based information resource on members of the U.S. Congress sponsored by CMD and the Sunlight Foundation (www.sunlightfoundation.com).