Media watchdog releases annual list of
most censored stories
By Shawn Gaynor
Asheville, NC, Sept. 8 (AGR) — Project Censored has released
its annual list of stories underreported by the media. Project Censored
is a media research group out of Sonoma State University which tracks
the news published in independent journals and newsletters. Reviewing
over a 1,000 news stories each year, Project Censored selects the 25
most significant stories that have “been overlooked, under-reported
or self-censored by the country’s major national news media.”
“By not addressing relevant issues facing everyday Americans, the
corporate media are weakening democracy in the US,” said Project
Censored director Dr. Peter Phillips.
“The corporate media agenda of maximum profits undermines the public
purpose of a free press by creating the fiscal necessity for cutting
costs and increasing the entertainment content,” continues Phillips.
In this atmosphere, stories that shed light on underlying social problems
are often brushed aside.
Once again the Asheville Global Report was among those publications
honored for being bold enough to shed light on subjects that the corporate
media would rather you not think about. In addition to being credited
for the number 2 story for the year (listed below), AGR also received
recognition for the story “US Army Major Refuses Order to Seize
Iraq TV Station,” by AGR volunteer Charlie Thomas which ran in
May of 2003 and is ranked #22.
The current judges include, Norman Solomon, Michael Parenti, Cynthia
McKinney, Howard Zinn, and 20 other national journalists, scholars and
writers.
For a full account of all 25 stories pick up the newly released Projected
Censored 2005 at your local independent book store.
Top 10 Most Censored News Stories
#1 Wealth Inequity in 21st Century Threatens Economy
and Democracy
Multinational Monitor, May 2003, Vol. 24, No. 5
Title: “The Wealth Divide” (An interview with Edward Wolff)
Author: Robert Weissman
Buzzflash, March 26 and 19, 2004
Title: “A Buzzflash Interview, Parts I and II” (with David
Cay Johnston)
Author: Mark Karlin
London Guardian, October 4, 2004
Title: “Every third person will be a slum dweller within 30 years,
UN agency warns”
Author: John Vidal
Multinational Monitor, July/August, 2003
Title: “Grotesque Inequality”
Author: Robert Weissman
Wealth inequality increased dramatically in the United States in the
late 1990s. The top 5% is now capturing an increasingly greater portion
of the pie while the bottom 95% is clearly losing ground, resulting
in the rapidly vanishing middle class. This trend is the product of
legislative policies carefully crafted and lobbied for by corporations
and the ultra-wealthy over the past 25 years. US economic trends have
a global footprint, and today, the top 400 income earners in the US
make as much in a year as the entire population of the 20 poorest countries
in Africa. A series of reports released in 2003 by the UN warn that
further increases in the imbalance in wealth throughout the world will
have catastrophic effects if left unchecked, such as the collapse of
the entire global economy.
#2 Ashcroft vs. the Human Rights Law that Holds Corporations
Accountable
One World.Net and Asheville Global Report, May 19, 2003
Title: “Ashcroft goes after 200-year-old Human Rights Law”
Author: Jim Lobe
Attorney General John Ashcroft is seeking to strike down one of the
world’s oldest human rights laws, the Alien Torts Claim Act (ATCA)
which holds government leaders, corporations, and senior military officials
liable for human rights abuses taking place in foreign countries. Organizations
such as Human Rights Watch (HRW) vehemently oppose the removal of this
law, as it is one of the few legal defenses victims of human rights
violations can claim against powerful organizations such as governments
or multinational corporations. By attempting to throw out this law,
the Bush Administration is effectively opening the door for human rights
abuses to continue under the veil of foreign relations diplomacy.
#3 Bush Administration Manipulates Science and Censors
Scientists
The Nation, March 8, 2004
Title: “The Junk Science of George W. Bush”
Author: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Censorship News: The National Coalition Against Censorship Newsletter,
Fall 2003, #91
Title: “Censoring Scientific Information”
Author: The National Coalition Against Censorship staff
Environment News Service and OneWorld.Net, February 20,
2004
Title: “Ranking Scientists Warn Bush Science Policy Lacks Integrity”
Author: Sunny Lewis
Office of U.S. Representative Henry A. Waxman, August 2003
Title: “Politics and Science in the Bush Administration”
Prepared by: Committee on Government Reform - Minority Staff
(Updated November 13, 2003)
In Washington DC more than 60 of the nation’s top scientists, including
20 Nobel laureates, medical experts, and former federal agency directors,
issued a statement Feb. 18, accusing the Bush Administration of deliberately
distorting scientific results for political ends. They are calling for
regulatory and legislative action to restore scientific integrity to
federal policymaking. Under the current administration, the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) has blacklisted scientists who pose a threat
to pro-business ideology, and many unqualified scientists with close
industry ties have been appointed to advisory boards.
# 4 High Uranium Levels Found in Troops and Civilians
Uranium Medical Research Center, January 2003
Title: “UMRC’s Preliminary Findings from Afghanistan and Operation
Enduring Freedom” and “Afghan Field Trip #2 Report: Precision
Destruction - Indiscriminate Effects”
Author: Tedd Weyman, UMRC Research Team
Awakened Woman, January 2004
Title: “Scientists Uncover Radioactive Trail in Afghanistan”
Author: Stephanie Hiller
Dissident Voice, March 2004
Title: “There Are No Words: Radiation in Iraq equals 250,000 Nagasaki
Bombs”
Author: Bob Nichols
New York Daily News, April 5, 2004
Title: “Poisoned?”
Author: Juan Gonzales
Information Clearing House, March 2004
Title: “International Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan At Tokyo,
The People Vs. George Bush”
Author: Professor Ms. Niloufer Bhagwat J.
Civilian populations in Afghanistan and Iraq and occupying troops have
been contaminated with astounding levels of radioactive uranium as a
result of post-9/11 United States’ use of tons of uranium munitions.
Four million pounds of radioactive uranium were dropped on Iraq in 2003
alone.
Most US weapons (missiles, smart bombs, bullets, tank shells, cruise
missiles, etc.) contain high amounts of uranium that on detonation release
a radioactive dust. Once ingested, these subatomic particles slice through
DNA. With a half-life of 4.5 billion years, it is a permanent contaminant
distributed throughout the environment.
Scientists from around the world testify to the huge increase in birth
deformities and cancers wherever uranium munitions have been used. The
effects of the US deployment will be felt in all the neighboring countries
in the Middle East and Asia, as well as in our returning troops.
#5 The Wholesale Giveaway of Our Natural Resources
In These Times, November 23, 2003
Title: “Liquidation of the Commons”
Author: Adam Werbach
High Country News, Vol. 35, No. 11, June 9, 2003
Title: “Giant Sequoias Could Get the Ax”
Author: Matt Weiser
The Bush Administration’s environmental policies are destroying
much of the environmental progress made over the past 30 years. Between
the “Clean Skies Initiative,” a recent policy that allows
power plants to emit more than five times more mercury and twice as
much sulfur dioxide, and the “Healthy Forests Initiative,”
which allows the wholesale liquidation of ancient forests by corporate
timber interests under the guise of fire prevention, resource extraction
and pollution is occurring at unprecedented rates.
#6 The Sale of Electoral Politics
In These Times, December 2003
Title: “Voting Machines Gone Wild”
Author: Mark Lewellen-Biddle
Independent/UK, October 13, 2003
Title: “All The President’s Votes?”
Author: Andrew Gumbel
Democracy Now!, September 4, 2003
Title: “Will Bush Backers Manipulate Votes to Deliver GW Another
Election?”
Reporter: Amy Goodman and the staff of Democracy Now!
Conflicts of interest exist between the largest suppliers of electronic
voting machines in the United States and key leaders in the Republican
Party. While the voting machines themselves present some technical issues,
the political affiliations within the voting machine industry pose even
more serious questions. The three major companies involved in implementing
the new, often faulty, technology at voting stations throughout the
country have strong ties to the Bush Administration, Republican leaders,
and major defense contractors.
It must be noted that under the Help America Vote Act control over the
electoral process has been taken away from local officials and placed
in the hands of a very small number of for-profit corporations. In effect
we are privatizing the US’s most public endeavor.
#7 Conservative Organization Drives Judicial Appointments
The American Prospect, Vol. 14, Issue 3, March 1, 2003
Title: “ A Hostile Takeover: How the Federalist Society is Capturing
the Federal Courts”
Author: Martin Garbus
Title: “Courts vs. Citizents”
Author: Jamin Raskin
In 2001 George W. Bush eliminated the longstanding influence of the
American Bar Association (ABA) in the evaluation of the prospective
federal judges. ABA’s judicial ratings had long kept extremists
from the right and left off the bench. In its place, Bush has been using
the Federal Society for Law and Public Policy Studies -- a national
organization whose mission is to advance a conservative agenda by moving
the country’s legal system to the right.
One of the most important issues in the country is the control of one
of the three branches of government, the judiciary. While Presidents
and Congress-members get elected every few years, judicial appointments
are for life. Our courts deal with nearly every aspect of life; work
conditions and wages, schools, civil rights, affirmative action, crime
and punishment, abortion and the environment, amongst others.
#8 Secrets of Cheney’s Energy Task Force Come
to Light
Judicial Watch, July 17, 2003
Title: “Cheney Energy Task Force Documents Feature Map of Iraqi
Oilfields”
Author: Judicial Watch Staff
Foreign Policy in Focus, January 2004
Title: “Bush-Cheney Energy Strategy: Procuring the Rest of the
World’s Oil”
Author: Michael Klare
Cheney Energy Task Force documents turned over in the summer of 2003
by the Commerce Department as a result of the Freedom of Information
Act lawsuit brought by Sierra Club and Judicial Watch contain maps of
Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals. The documents,
dated March 2001, also contain plans of occupation and exploitation
that predate September 11, confirming suspicions that the Bush Administration
energy policy is driving US military strategy.
#9 Widow Brings RICO Case Against US Government for
9/11
Scoop.co.nz, November 2003 and December 2003
Title: “911 Victim’s Wife Files RICO Case Against GW Bush”
Author: Philip J. Berg
Title: “Widow’s Bush Treason Suit Vanishes”
Author: W. David Kubiak
Ellen Mariani became widowed when her husband Louis Neil Mariani perished
in the collision between United Airlines flight 175 and the South Tower
of the World Trade Center. In addition to her refusal of the government’s
million-dollar settlement offer, Mrs. Mariani has filed a 62 page complaint
in federal district court charging that President Bush and officials:
(1) had adequate foreknowledge of 911, yet failed to warn the country
or attempt to prevent it; (2) have since been covering up the truth
of that day; (3) have therefore abetted the murder of plaintiff’s
husband and violated the Constitution and multiple laws of the United
States; and (4) are thus being sued under the Civil Racketeering, Influences,
and Corrupt Organization (RICO) Act for Malfeasant conspiracy, obstruction
of justice and wrongful death.
#10 New Nuke Plants: Taxpayers Support, Industry
Profits
Nuclear Information and Resource Service, November 17, 2003
Title: “Nuclear Energy Would Get $7.5 Billion in Tax Subsides,
US Taxpayers Would Fund Nuclear Monitor Relapse If Energy Bill Passes”
Authors: Cindy Folkers and Michael Mariotte
WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor, August 2003
Title: “US Senate Passes Pro-Nuclear Energy Bill”
Authors: Cindy Folkers and Michael Mariotte
Senator Peter Domenici (R-NM), along with the Bush Administration, is
looking to give the nuclear power industry a huge boost through the
new Energy Policy Act. The Domenici-sponsored bill will give nuclear
power plants credits costing taxpayers an estimated $7.5 billion, to
build six new privately owned, for-profit reactors across the country.
Safety standards will be lowered and liability will be passed on to
taxpayers. This is in addition to the $4 billion already provided for
other nuclear energy programs.
Iraq extends Al-Jazeera ban and raids
offices
By Luke Harding
Baghdad, Iraq, Sept. 6— Iraqi security officers stormed
al-Jazeera’s Baghdad offices and sealed the newsroom with red wax
at the weekend after the US-backed interim government banned the Arabic
television station from broadcasting in the country.
The raid followed a decision by the prime minister, Ayad Allawi, to
close the station temporarily in August because of its apparent failure
to support the US occupation. Officials said al-Jazeera had now been
shut indefinitely because it had ignored the original ban.
Several armed police officers were posted outside and in the lobby of
Baghdad’s Swan Lake Hotel, where al-Jazeera has its offices, on
Sept. 5.
“We have been told not to let anyone in; we are just following
orders,” Captain Abu Jibal told the Guardian. “If you take
any photos we’ll arrest you,” he said.
Robert Menard of Reporters Without Borders said the ban contradicted
“Iraqi officials’ statements on democracy.” Other media
groups, including the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists,
have criticised the earlier ban.
Al-Jazeera said the decision was “reminiscent of the way certain
other regimes have behaved.”
Last month Iraqi police seized around 60 journalists from a hotel in
Najaf, including reporters from the BBC, Guardian, Independent, Times
and Telegraph, and took them to the police station at gunpoint. Asked
later whether he condemned the incident, Mr Allawi refused to answer.
On Sept. 9 an al-Jazeera spokesman, Jihad Ballout, said his station
had abided by the original temporary ban and had used agency footage
from Iraq, like other media groups.
The future of al-Jazeera’s 100 reporters and other workers in Iraq
was unclear, he said. “We have never compromised our editorial
values. We believe that what happens in Iraq is very important for the
whole Arab world and needs to be covered comprehensively, objectively
and in a balanced way.”
The closure came during a weekend of further violence across the country.
At least three Iraqis were killed yesterday and more than a dozen wounded
as US troops renewed their attack on the northern town of Tal Afar,
near Mosul. On Sept. 4, at least 13 people died, including women and
children, and 60 were injured as clashes erupted across the town. Fighters
opened fire on an Sept. 4 helicopter, forcing it to make an emergency
landing. Officials said US and Iraqi forces were trying to flush out
a militant cell smuggling arms and people from Syria.
Around 500 Iraqis were also arrested on Saturday in the Sunni town of
Latifiya, 40 miles south of Baghdad, where the French journalists Christian
Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot were kidnapped last month.
France’s government said yesterday it remained hopeful they would
be freed, although its foreign minister, Michel Barnier, had returned
empty handed from a Middle East mission intended to secure their release.
“We have serious reasons to believe both of them are in good health
and that a favourable outcome is possible,” said Mr Barnier.
The body of an Egyptian hostage, kidnapped on Aug. 27, was found on
Sept. 4 near the town of Baiji, 112 miles north of Baghdad. Police said
it bore signs of torture.
Source: Guardian (UK)
