Project Censored 2006

[cornermouse]

Molly nails it again.

http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/1/2005/1213

...Happily, the perfect news peg, as we say in the biz, for Media Accountability Day already exists -- it's Project Censored's annual release of the 10 biggest stories ignored or under-covered by mainstream media. Project Censored is based at Sonoma State University, with both faculty and students involved in its preparation.

Of course, the stories are not actually "censored" by any authority, but they do not receive enough attention to enter the public's consciousness, usually because corporate media tend to underreport stories about corporate misdeeds and government abuses.

The No. 1 pick by Project Censored this year should more than make the media the blink -- it is a much-needed deep whiff of ammonia smelling salts for the comatose: Bush Administration Moves to Eliminate Open Government.

Gene Robertson, a great news editor, says we tend to miss the stories that seep and creep, the ones whose effects are cumulative, not abrupt. This administration has drastically changed the rules on Freedom of Information Act requests; has changed laws that restrict public access to federal records, mostly by expanding the national security classification; operates in secret under the Patriot Act; and consistently refuses to provide information to Congress and the Government Accountability Office. The cumulative total effect is horrifying...

It continues. Well worth reading.

[acmejack]

1. Well, I love Molly, but she missed on this one...

"Journalists Face Unprecedented Dangers to Life and Livelihood. That a lot of journalists are getting killed in Iraq is indisputable. I work with the Committee to Protect Journalists and am by no means persuaded we are targeted by anyone other than terrorists."