Customer Reviews

Censored 2001: Featuring 25 Years of Censored News and the Top Censored Stories of the Year

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This one is really hard to review. Kind of like trying to write a review of a newspaper combined with a news magazine combined with some essays combined with a rulebook... And it doesn't really fit clearly into any of those categories. Many of the articles were written in the style of newspaper articles, though with longer term perspectives. Others were clearly more like you'd see in a magazine, except for the lack of illustrations. The essays wandered through various venues and styles, but I'm not even sure where to fit things there. There was a very interesting interview with Walter Cronkite, but what category was it? The 'rulebook' part was spread through several sections, describing the mechanics of preparing the book, but including some comments from judges.

The content was quite interesting, actually. Lots of stories that you'd think would be worth coverage in the main newspapers, but which were ignored. Something of interest to almost everyone. The reasons the stories were ignored are mostly pretty obvious. Some are just negative stories, but in other cases apparently just not interesting enough to compete with the 'junk food news' that draws the ratings... Not so much active censorship as selective filtering.

Actually, I had a pretty profound reaction to this book. The news is NOT 'free'--someone is paying for it. The obvious conclusion is that advertising-funded 'free' news is a very bad thing. Advertising is fundamentally NOT about facts and reason. Effective advertising is about creating irrational needs, and though this was only tangentially discussed in the book, it becomes quite obvious when you think about it. That lack of focus on the bigger problems and some production glitches are the main reasons the book couldn't earn that tough fifth star.

This book is more important now than ever. As we sit with our eyes glued to the coverage of the "War" in Afghanistan, it is crucial that we observe the mainstream media with the awareness of how many years they have manipulated, lied, and deceived the American people. We cannot have a true democracy, we cannot make informed choices, we cannot live authentic lives when so much crucial information is kept from us because we don't, for whatever reason, "deserve" to know. Now, more than ever, it's important to realize the importance of alternative news outlets, and the most important part of this book is that it lists them -- all of them -- so you can find them all. Don't limit yourself to the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, The Enquirer, and ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN. There's a whole world out there that so far has not entirely been kept from us -- but you have to work to access it. It's well worth the effort, and the rest of us out here digging stuff up could really use your help! Welcome aboard!

I have been picking up these books for the last eight years. It is amazing what the mainstream media considers news and what they miss and ignore as news, thus they are missing the mainstream of interests of the American public or what should be the interests of the public. Instead, the mainstream goes after fluff and disasters news that is inoffensive to the corporate/business interest of this nation and does not reflect reality of public interest. If CENSORED ever published a nation-wide newspaper, along the lines of USA Today, I would subcribe to it, for relevant, news without spin and news with meaning to the mainstream public.

If you're new to this kind of stuff, this book would definitely serve as a great introduction.

When I first dug into this book I was astonished. Could censorship still exist in our country in the year 2001?? But the stories didn't lie. Story after story big and small chopped to fit what people should be hearing according to a small group of closed minded imbeciles. Who cares if the people only get part of the story, so long as they hear what WE want them to. It is an evil as old as time, and a cornerstone our countries founding fathers built this great nation against. The freedom of speech. It doesn't seam like much until it is taken away from you. Two stories that really glared out at me are what I'll talk about today. The bigger story, which was never brought to the national media, involved 2 boys and a crime spree which started over a parent taking the boys 2 way radios away. It ended with both boys having a very brutal brush with the law, and ended with the boys being taken into juvenile custody. The father of one of the boys was nearly imprisoned over the whole ordeal. It caused a huge rift in a small community, but because one of the boys grandfather is a U.S. Representative in that state, he had pressure brought to bear against the local law enforcement and news outlets. His censorship led to quick and quiet cover up to the story. The other story was on a much smaller scale, but just as horrendous. A man in a small town often wrote reviews for new appliances and such on a website that helped his fellow citizens greatly. His wisdom, experience, and humorous dialog with the readers made him very popular, well liked, and respected by those in the know. On one occasion he wrote a review that was a little risqué for the website, and they did the unthinkable. They edited his story to make it fit their attempt at a perfect world. The people read the review and confused by the oddity of his now senseless review, decided the man had no clue as to how to write a review and stopped reading his reviews. His freedom of speech had been striped from him, and he became the town joke. Eventually he couldn't take it anymore, his only way of making a difference taken from him, he took his own life. These are sad tales, but only two of many that this great book brings to light. Thankfully, I'm writing this review on Amazon.com the proud brave bastion of reviewing freedom. They offer us the ability to rate porn videos, books on fisting, pleasure manuals, and so much more. This may be the last great hope for freedom of speech, and I would just like to thank them for giving me the opportunity to help others without infringing upon my God given rights. You guys are the Bom Bay. Get this book, and help stomp out censorship everywhere! Let Freedom Ring!!