Project Censored: 30 years and counting

This year’s anniversary edition features a bounty in addition to its annual top 25-censored picks. Emblematic of the project’s mission, the No. 1 censored story for the 30th year focuses on information means and media, titled Future of Internet Debate Ignored by Media. It alerts readers to the largely underground debate regarding the future of the Internet as Congress sets its sights on re-writing the nation’s sweeping telecommunications laws.

Referred to as “network neutrality,” ensuring the Internet remains open to all voices and ideas became a fierce contest among telecommunication companies, public interest groups and Internet service providers. Meanwhile corporations pour millions into public relations and political coffers, insisting web access and its worldwide content must come only at a price, their price.

The next 24 censored stories are an assortment of disturbing disclosures including: Oceans of the World in Extreme Danger, US Operatives Torture Detainees to Death in Afghanistan and
Iraq, Hunger and Homelessness Increasing in US Pentagon Exempt from Freedom of Information Act and Chemical Industry is EPA’s Primary Research Partner. In addition to regular yearbook features such as Junk Food News and News Abuse, the expanded volume adds chapters on corporate media cross-ownership, media activist groups and bias by the Associated Press.

In the AP chapter corporate media malfeasance is illustrated by a broadcast blackout of an American Civil Liberties Union press release containing American military sources, which
announced dozens of deaths from US torture.

The ACLU posted to their website 44 autopsy reports of civilians who had died while in US military prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2002-2004, indicating widespread torture by US forces.
The AP wire service made the story available to US media nationwide. However, research showed 95 percent of the daily papers in the United States did not carry the
story nor did AP conduct follow-up coverage.

Censored 2007 also gives readers a glimpse at 29 years of No. 1 censored stories with an update on each and a retrospective by project founder, Carl Jensen, Ph.D. Teaching at Sonoma State in 1976, Jensen produced a cablevision program titled “CENSORED: The Great American Media Mystery.” It revealed mainstream media gave little coverage to important consequential
news and Project Censored was launched.

From 1977’s No. 1 Jimmy Carter and the Trilateral Commission to last year’s Bush Administration Moves to Eliminate Open Government, Project Censored has provided original research, vital information and commentary from a broad selection of non-conformist reporters and scholars.

No. 1 stories from past and present have addressed the investigative theme of news and efforts by corporate interests to curb and contain it. Three decades of Project Censored publications find corporate media has not been the First Amendment’s friend—2003, FCC Moves to Privatize Airwaves; 1996, Telecommunications Deregulation: Closing Up America’s “Marketplace of Ideas; 1993, The Great Media Sell-Out to Reaganism; 1992, CBS and NBC Spiked Footage of Iraq Bombing Carnage; 1991, The Gulf War: Truth was the First Casualty; 1990, Global Media Lords Threaten Open Marketplace of Ideas; and 1988, The Information Monopoly.

For 30 years students and faculty, community experts, research interns, guest writers and national evaluators have assisted Project Censored, which remains critical to the public dialogue that underpins US democracy. Pick up the book or a few of them for those who read and those who desperately need to do so. Contact http://www.projectcensored.org or (707) 664-2500.

Charlene Jones is a member of the Sacramento Media Group and writing team for Project Censored.

This article has been reprinted with permission from Because People Matter, a local alternative newspaper, based out of Sacramento. See BPM.org for more Sacramento news.