Censored 1996: The 1996 Project Censored Yearbook [Paperback]

Carl Jensen (Editor), Project Censored (Editor), Tom Tomorrow (Illustrator), Walter Cronkite (Introduction)

Book Description

Series: Censored | Publication Date: April 9, 1996

The yearly volumes of Censored, in continuous publication since 1976 and since 1995 available through Seven Stories Press, is dedicated to the stories that ought to be top features on the nightly news, but that are missing because of media bias and self-censorship. The top stories are listed democratically in order of importance according to students, faculty, and a national panel of judges. Each of the top stories is presented at length, alongside updates from the investigative reporters who broke the stories.
Beyond the Top 25 stories, additional chapters delve further into timely media topics: The Censored News and Media Analysis section provides annual updates on Junk Food News and News Abuse, Censored Déjà Vu, signs of hope in the alternative and news media, and the state of media bias and alternative coverage around the world. In the Truth Emergency section, scholars and journalists take a critical look at the US/NATO military-industrial-media empire. And in the Project Censored International section, the meaning of media democracy worldwide is explored in close association with Project Censored affiliates in universities and at media organizations all over the world.
A perennial favorite of booksellers, teachers, and readers everywhere, Censored is one of the strongest life signs of our current collective desire to get the news we citizens need—despite what Big Media tells us.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Censored 1996: The News That Didn't Make The News -- And Why covers the important stories you won't find in your newspaper or on the evening news. Cited in past years as a tip sheet for television expose shows, Censored 1996 is investigative journalism at work. Readers will learn how telecommunications deregulation is closing up America's "marketplace of ideas", why the budget doesn't have to be balanced on the backs of th poor, how child labor in the U. S. is worse today than during the 1930s, the truth about the privatization of the Internet, the billions that are being spent to add bang to nukes, Newt Gingrich's radical plan to gut the FDA, Russia's policy of injecting nuclear waste into the earth, the annual cost of medical fraud, the ozone-killing pesticide the U. S. chemical industry is fighting for, what the effect of NAFTA has really been so far. In addition to the top 25 censored stories, Censored 1996 features censored stories from past years that have since received mainstream media coverage, what the oceans of ink for "junk food news" covered at the expense of real news, an eclectic chronology of censorship since 605 B. C. , top censored books of the year, a censored resource guide of alternative media and organizations active in censorship issues, publishing outlets for the underexposed, and unexpurgated reprints of the Top Ten censored stories. Censored 1996 is an amazing eye-opener for those interested in journalism, political science, and the media. Highly recommended! -- Midwest Book Review

About the Author

PROJECT CENSORED, founded in 1976 by Carl Jensen, has as its principal objective the advocacy for and protection of First Amendment rights and the freedom of information in the United States. In 2008, Project Censored received the PEN/Oakland Literary Censorship Award for the publication of Censored 2009. For more information, visit www.projectcensored.org.
DR. CARL JENSEN is a professor emeritus of Sociology and Communications Studies at Sonoma State University in California and the author of Censored-The News That Didn't Make the News and Why from 1976 to 1996, and 20 Years of Censored News, in 1997. He founded Project Censored, the internationally recognized media research project, in 1976.

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Seven Stories Press; 20 Anv edition (April 9, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1888363010
• ISBN-13: 978-1888363012
• Product Dimensions: 5.6 x 1 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,206,756 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Censored 2000, April 2, 2000

By 

John Carmitchel (Pittsfield, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Censored 2000: The Year's Top 25 Censored Stories (Paperback)

The title of the book is Censored 2000, and the idea is good. One of the books is done every year--it tells of the stories the media prefers you don't know, shows a side to the news seldom seen, showing how the mindless time used for uplifting yet mindless stories about getting some cat out of a tree could be better used to show the facts of the Abu-Jamal case or something more controversial. It makes you think back to those nights you turned the news off with a disgusted sigh, saying, "There's no news." And whether you approve or disapprove of the stories, whether something tugs at you, saying This Couldn't Be...no matter how many times you are positive the book is a heap of lies...it makes you think about truth, the monopoly that may exist in the media. It can do what many other books try in vain to do and miss...it will make you think. And that is the greatest revelation your mind can receive. The book also contains an intro by Mumia Abu-Jamal, a black journalist who was convicted of killing a Philadelphian policeman, though much evidence shows this not to be true. Just reading the introduction makes the book completely worth any money you fork over for it.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Brain Food to Fight the Pablum of the Evening News, August 8, 2001

By 

doomsdayer520 (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Censored 2000: The Year's Top 25 Censored Stories (Paperback)

I've read several of these annual Project Censored books, and each time I have become more and more disillusioned with the weaknesses of the mainstream news media. The ever-growing corporate control of the network/cable news and newspapers has encouraged several reviewers of this book to cite conspiracy theories and yell out cheesy, predictable slogans like "take the power back!" and assume it's the end of the world. I won't go that far, but the fact that a shrinking number of corporations control a large percentage of the mainstream media, as amply illustrated in this book, is indeed a disturbing trend. I now believe very little of what I see on the TV news, without taking it with a very large grain of salt. The fact that many of the top 25 "censored" stories in this book are based on coverups of corporate lawbreaking or unethical behavior is very telling. The mainstream news has become a vehicle for corporate profits, and any journalistic scoops that could possibly threaten these profits are impossible to find on the TV news.

Some good features of this book are the intros by Walter Cronkite and Mumia Abu-Jamal, and the use of one of my favorite comic strips, "This Modern World" by Tom Tomorrow. Some of the essays by various media watchdogs and analysts are fascinating as well. But this book does have some drawbacks though, including a repetitive condemnation of the mainstream news organizations (you can say it a few times, but a million times is tedious), and there's an annoyingly long write-up of a corporate-backed police crackdown on an independent radio station in Pacifica, California. The Project Censored series overall would benefit from some more focus and less proselytizing. But it's not too hard to avoid those weaknesses and focus on the censored stories, which are mostly worth worrying about. And it's not just a leftist rant, either.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beyond Investigative Reporting, April 1, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Censored 2000: The Year's Top 25 Censored Stories (Paperback)

This book outlines the stories that didn't, but should have, made the news. Very informative! Finishing this book has made me even more 'curious' about the daily written, TV and radio news.