WE'VE ALWAYS HAD a sneaking suspicion the mainstream media miss enough news to fill a book.
Now there is one: CENSORED: The News That Didn't Make the News and Why.
For nearly two decades, Project Censored has looked at the stories that have failed to get the mainstream attention they deserve. Each year, a team of researchers pore over a thick stack of stories, picking out 25 of the most compelling reports. Those 25 are sent to a panel of judges, who choose the top 10.
"I think this list basically reflects the state of America," says Project Censored Assistant Director Mark Lowenthal, who will be at Tucson's Book Mark on Saturday, April 8, to sign copies of the book. "It documents a lot of the serious problems we're facing: worker safety; environmental and public health concerns; the rise of the right; corporate welfare."
Among the stories that made the list:
• Health Letter revealed that although the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health discovered in the early 1980s that nearly a quarter-million people were found to have been exposed to carcinogenic materials while on the job, the agency only had enough funds to inform less than a third of them of the possible danger. Today, 170,000 people are still in the dark and many may die before they can be warned.
• The Earth Island Journal uncovered a top-secret Pentagon plan to alter the earth's ionosphere. The $26-million project, taking place at a remote Alaskan Air Force base, hopes to use electromagnetic energy to "to 'burn' holes in the ionosphere and 'create an artificial lens' in the sky that could focus large bursts of electromagnetic energy 'to higher altitudes...than is presently possible,' " according to CENSORED.
• In These Times reported a group of conservative heavy-hitters, including Sen. Jesse Helms, Oliver North, Jerry Falwell and Ed Meese, have been running a hush-hush think-tank, the Council for National Policy, since 1981. Although the organization's meetings are top-secret, it's believed that it sets much of the agenda for the current conservative leadership in Washington.
• Newsday revealed the Defense Department has been handing out hundreds of millions of dollars to defense contractors to subsidize their acquisition of other corporations.
While these stories may not have been censored in the strictest sense of the word, Lowenthal says the failure of the media to pursue them amounts to de facto censorship.
"This year's list manifests how the corporate sector has growing influence over public policy," Lowenthal told a recent interviewer. "But the most disturbing aspect of this is the fact that this very same corporate sector now owns a vast majority of the nation's news media. Naturally, when you have corporate-owned news media, a multitude of conflicts arise. Sometimes these are handled in an honest and ethical manner, sometimes they're not."
Mark Lowenthal will discuss Project Censored and sign copies of his book from 1 to 3 p.m. on Saturday, April 8 at the Book Mark, 5001 E. Speedway. For a free pamphlet listing the top 25 stories, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to Project Censored, Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, CA 94928.
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