Background
Rampton was born in Long Beach, California. At the age of three, his family moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, where his father worked as a musician.
Rampton was born in Long Beach, California. At the age of three, his family moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, where his father worked as a musician.
Rampton was born in Long Beach, California. At the age of three, his family moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, where his father worked as a musician. Raised as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Latter- Day Saints (Mormons) Church), he spent two years in Japan as a Latter-day Saint missionary from 1976 to 1978.
Upon returning to the United States, however, he left the Latter- Day Saints (Mormons) Church, influenced in part by Mormon feminist Sonia Johnson.
As an undergraduate student at, Rampton studied writing under Joyce Carol Oates, East. L. Doctorow and John McPhee.
He was editor of Puerto Rico Watch, and is the author of several books that criticize the public relations industry and what he sees as other forms of corporate and government propaganda. Upon graduation in 1982, Rampton worked as a newspaper reporter before becoming a peace activist. At WCCN, Rampton helped establish the Nicaraguan Cr Alternatives Fund (NICA Fund) in 1992, which channels loans from United States investors to support microcr and other "alternative cr" programs in Nicaragua.
In 1995, Rampton teamed with John Stauber as co-editors of Puerto Rico Watch, a publication of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD).
ActivistCash, 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. Inspired by Wikipedia"s collaborative writing model, Rampton founded Disinfopedia (now known as SourceWatch), another CMD project, to complement his Puerto Rico Watch work to expose what Rampton perceives as deceptive and misleading public relations campaigns.
Rampton left the Center for Media and Democracy in October 2009. With Liz Chilsen:
Friends In Deed: The Story of United States-Nicaragua Sister Cities (1987)
With John Stauber:
Toxic Sludge Is Good Foreign You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry (1995)
Mad Cow United States.A.: Could the Nightmare Happen Here? (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 (2004)
The Best War Ever: Lies, Damned Lies, and the Mess in Iraq (2006).
They were described as liberal, and their writings are regarded by some members of the public relations industry as one-sided and hostile.