Customer Reviews

Censored 2004: The Top 25 Censored Stories (Censored: The News That Didn't Make the News -- The Year's Top 25 Censored Stories)

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Having followed the Project Censored yearly editions since the mid-90s, I have found that each volume has its own level of quality, even though the uncensored stories themselves are always of utmost importance. That is probably because of the changing staff of judges and college interns that Peter Phillips utilizes each year. A recent highpoint in the series is the 2003 edition, with powerful coverage of post-9/11 developments in journalism. On the other hand, 2001 saw an atrocious and poorly edited parade of whiny conspiracy theories and condescending tirades toward the public for not taking certain stories seriously. This new 2004 edition is somewhere in between, with some strong coverage fighting against poor editing and selection of material.

This book suffers from both poor technical and poor managerial editing. First, there are a considerable number of typos and technical errors. Meanwhile, after the year's top 25 stories are covered (and they're as important as always) the commentary section of the book is distressingly uneven from an editorial standpoint. We get fascinating and powerful essays on media behavior regarding the propaganda-heavy Iraq War, and the horrific challenges to the First Amendment unleashed by Homeland Security. But surrounding these are clunkers such as "Media Democracy in Action," which attempts to praise alternative news organizations but comes across as a wave of advertisements, especially in regards to Pacifica Radio and a community newspaper operated by Phillips. Meanwhile, the updates on censored stories from previous years are now being written by various members of the project team, with often unprofessional results indicating a need for more (or any) editorial control.

Once again, the stories uncovered by the team are of incredible importance to all Americans who are concerned about media behavior and knowledge of truly important events. For this reason, the work of Project Censored is as crucial as always. However, this edition of the series shows again that an entire large book requires a level of editorial and writing strength that the team is not always able to deliver. [~doomsdayer520~]

The collaborative effort of Peter Philips and "Project Censored", Censored 2004 collects the twenty-five most censored news stories of 2002 and 2003. A fierce wake-up call to issues commonly suppressed by the mainstream media, Censored 2004 is a "must-read" for journalism students, media critics, and non-specialist general readers with an interest in the problems of media bias, news story censorship, social reforms, and the interactive relationships of media and government, as well as the issues of media ownership, journalistic integrity, and an effectively informed citizenry.

When Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the United Nations Security Council on Feb. 5, 2003 seeking to justify invading Iraq, the UN's tapestry of Picasso's masterpiece Guernica -- arguably the world's most famous artistic treatment of the horrors of modern warfare, was covered with a drape. To date, no one has revealed who requested the move. But the blatant censorship of a powerful artistic depiction of the horrors of war sent a potent political message. Unlike most of the stories detailed in Censored, this one was accorded some small mention in the nation's press.But it aptly conveys the message of Project Censored: that the stories overlooked, ignored and sometimes suppressed by the mainstream, corporate-controlled major media are as effectively blocked as if suppressed by government fiat. For three decades, faculty and students at Sonoma State University have labored to produce Project Censored -- an annual compendium of important stories missed by most of the news media -- and to honor the squeaky wheels who did cover them. This is one more among their valiant efforts and well worth a read. Our democracy depends on a free press and these folks continue to do essential spadework.

Often criticized for lack of editing, leftist leanings, etc., Project Censored has nevertheless been providing the public with the kind of muckracking journalism we so desperately need in this era of corporate journalism. Packed with stories, sources, links, and a wonderful appendix of alternative media venues, this book should not be overlooked. Perhaps the most important publication in journalism.

This is a great compendium of some of the newsworthy items of the last few years you never heard or you wrote off as conspiracy theory. Inform yourself about the true state of our government and current events in the US and around the world. This is a good resource to get the story if you don't want to do a lot of digging on the alternative news sites. Compiled from reputable news journals and peer-reviewed, each news item is fairly brief but gives a good overview of the situation. Includes information about the reasons for the War in Iraq and touches on the foundation of the Project for a New America (PNAC), the USA PATRIOT Act, and lots more interesting tidbits. Also included are cartoons by Tom Tomorrow, the brilliant political cartoon satirist who I predict will one day be as popular a cartoonist as Gary Larsen and Scott Adams.

The group which puts out this series of books leans hard left, so the 25 stories all fit nicely with their view of the world. Some are legitimate, some would take a very slow news day to make any sort of splash, a few got all the coverage they deserved, a few are just before their time, and a few are pretty thin speculations that no self-respecting news paper or other outlet would touch. If you got a conservative group to come up with the stories, you would get the same level of legitimacy with 25 completely different issues. Better this year than a couple of the previous editions, but still a bit out there and still intellectually dishonest in its representation of its views. This is quite clearly 25 stories that fit the agenda of the group who wrote it, not just 25 stories that didn't get the coverage they deserved, a fact that makes them as culpable as the news outlets they criticize.

I noticed something funny about the stated criteria that the "Censored" people use for submissions to this annual blather-fest: to be considered as a "censored" feature, your submission has to have been published. So only published stories are eligible as proof of Amerikkkan "censorship." In reality, it's just those stories that the relevant media found to be either too loony, factually shaky, or just too ideologically driven to be suitable for publication in the major media outlets. So the New York Times won't run your story about "valuable lead mines in Kosovo are the secret reason NATO went to war against Serbia." Jeepers, these people are a half-stop removed from your typical smelly pants fascists and your Montana survivalists in terms of their level of sophistication.

Actually, on the subject of censorship generally, I am much less afraid of Ashcroft than I am of the trend in this country of strangling any expression that anyone deems to find offensive, and the guilty include people and organizations of both the left and the right.