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Center for American Progress

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The Center for American Progress is a progressive American political policy research and advocacy organization. Its website describes it as "...a nonpartisan research and educational institute dedicated to promoting a strong, just and free America that ensures opportunity for all."[1]

Its President and Chief Executive Officer is John Podesta, former chief of staff to former United States President Bill Clinton. Located in Washington, D.C., the Center for American Progress has a campus outreach group, Campus Progress, and a sister liberal advocacy organization, the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

History and mission

The Center for American Progress was created in 2003 as an alternative to think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute. The Center describes its mission as:

  • developing a long term vision of a progressive America,
  • providing a forum to generate new progressive ideas and policy proposals,
  • responding effectively and rapidly to conservative proposals and rhetoric with a thoughtful critique and clear alternatives, and
  • communicating progressive messages to the American public.

Since its inception, the Center has gathered a group of high-profile senior fellows, including Lawrence Korb, Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan; Gene Sperling, Director of the National Economic Council under President Bill Clinton; Ruy Teixeira, political scientist and author of The Emerging Democratic Majority; and, most recently, former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle.

The Center manages a radio studio, and offers the studio for use to shows across the ideological spectrum. It is used daily by the Bill Press Show, a syndicated progressive talk radio program broadcast from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m Eastern Time weekday mornings. Jones Radio Networks is the syndicator.

The Center was often featured prominently on the Al Franken Show on the Air America Radio network, where Christy Harvey and Franken discussed at length alleged dishonesty and incompetence in the Bush Administration.

The Center has no information on its website about its funding, but the Washington Post reported that "...seed money pledged by such deep-pocketed Democrats as financier George Soros and mortgage billionaires Herbert and Marion Sandler..." assisted its formation.[2]

The Center helped Congressman John Murtha develop "strategic redeployment"[3], a comprehensive plan for Iraq that includes a timetable and troop withdrawals.

The Progress Report, Climate Progress and "SEEPROGRESS"

The Center for American Progress publishes a daily email newsletter entitled The Progress Report, which is a recap and analysis of major political news in the United States, providing a progressive perspective on the day's stories. The authors are Faiz Shakir, Nico Pitney, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, and Matthew Corley.

The newsletter has four main sections: 1) in-depth item on a major topic of the day, such as the economy or foreign policy; 2) "Under the Radar," less prominent stories of the day including links to op-eds and news; 3) "Think Fast," links to new stories; and 4) the sidebar, entitled the "Daily Grill," which compares major right wing figures' current remarks with their past remarks.

In addition, The Center for American Progress also publishes a daily global warming blog called Climate Progress. Edited by climate and energy expert Joseph J. Romm, the blog discusses climate science, climate technology solutions and political news related to climate change. It is a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

The Center for American Progress began experimenting with video delivered over the internet to complement their policy work in early 2006. This video strategy, currently known as SEEPROGRESS [1], is distributed through the Center's website as well as YouTube and other video distributors such as Google video, Blip.tv and Yahoo! video.

Campus Progress

Campus Progress, launched in February 2005, is the Center for American Progress’s comprehensive effort to strengthen progressive voices on college and university campuses nationwide and to empower new generations of progressive leaders.

Campus Progress has five components:

1. a daily web magazine, CampusProgress.org, offering journalism, analysis, opinions, cartoons, video and organizing tools. CampusProgress.org has 1.8 million readers and has published more than 700 pieces including interviews with Barack Obama, Helen Thomas, Stephen Colbert, Margaret Cho, Larry David and Seymour Hersh. Print editions of the web magazine are distributed on campuses across the nation. The site also features an active blog with hundreds of contributors.
2. support for student publications on more than fifty campuses including Yale, Carleton College, Hampton University, University of Michigan, Vanderbilt University, University of California, Irvine.
3. an events bureau that has sponsored over 350 speaking events, film screenings, debates and training programs.
4. national issue campaigns, as well as action grants that support student issue campaigns on individual campuses. Current Campus Progress campaigns focus on issues including student debt and access to higher education, the Iraq war, global warming and academic freedom. Action grants cover student campaigns on issues from Sudan to living wages, affirmative action to the death penalty.
5. the National Student Conference. The first annual conference was held on July 13, 2005, in Washington DC and featured President Bill Clinton.
From The Nation: “For the first time ever, campus progressives convened, conversed and organized at their own national conference ― something right-wing groups have done annually since the 1970s…The conference left students, from Young Democrats to radical activists, energized and teeming with hope. Almost everyone I spoke with left the conference believing that a real,thriving and broad-based progressive student movement was overdue, necessary and most importantly, possible.”
The second annual conference, held on July 12, 2006, in Washington, featured Senator Barack Obama, and was attended by over 1000 students from 48 states. The third annual conference was held in Washington on June 26, 2007, and featured Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

David Halperin, former speechwriter to President Clinton and to candidate Howard Dean, has served as the Director of Campus Progress since its inception.

Center for American Progress Action Fund

Formerly known simply as the American Progress Action Fund, the Center for American Progress Action Fund is a "sister advocacy organization" and is organizationally and financially separate from the Center for American Progress, although they share many staff and a physical address. Whereas the Center for American Progress is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, the fund is a 501(c)(4), allowing it to devote more funds to lobbying.[4] In 2003, George Soros promised to financially support the organization by donating up to three million dollars.[5]

Conservative criticism of The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio

The Center for American Progress has been criticized by conservative commentators for their report titled "The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio" [6]. The report, compiled during the spring of 2007, states that, "out of 257 news/talk stations owned by the top five commercial station owners reveals that 91 percent of the total weekday talk radio programming is conservative, and 9 percent is progressive." The report did not include analysis of the content of other radio providers, such as universities and public radio. The report suggests three steps to increase liberal radio voices in talk radio: restoring local and national caps on the ownership of commercial radio stations; ensuring greater local accountability over radio licensing; and require commercial owners who fail to abide by enforceable public interest obligations to pay a fee to support public broadcasting.

In response to the report, conservatives Rich Lowry, Alan Sears, and Paul Weyrich wrote opinion pieces for townhall.com contending that there are and have been many outlets for liberal voices in talk radio, including National Public Radio and, until recently, Air America Radio. They wrote that previous attempts to create "balance" on talk radio, such as The Fairness Doctrine, violate The First Amendment by restricting speech if it is not balanced by opposing viewpoints (despite the fact that the report specifically advises against renewing the Fairness Doctrine). [7] [8] [9]

References

  1. ^ Center for American Progress mission statement Accessed June 19, 2006
  2. ^ Washington Post article, CAP seed money source Accessed June 19, 2006
  3. ^ CAP article, strategic redeployment Accessed November 15, 2006
  4. ^ "Add to the Collective Genius," Accessed 27 December 2006.
  5. ^ "Soros' Deep Pockets vs. Bush". Retrieved 2007-10-04.
  6. ^ The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio
  7. ^ Alan Sears commentary 26 June 2007
  8. ^ Paul Weyrich commentary 26 June 2007
  9. ^ Rich Lowry commentary 26 June 2007
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