Project Censored 2001
By AlterNet Staff, AlterNet
September 3, 2002
source: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=14016
Most people would agree that our world has changed dramatically over the past year. In the eye of our immediate political tornado is a growing drum beat for an invasion of Iraq; rampant corporate corruption; the erosion of civil liberties; a crashing stock market; pedophile priests and the anniversary of 9/11, the most traumatic American news event in at least 50 years.
Into this twister drops Project Censored's picks for news stories most ignored in 2001. These stories, most from a year or more ago, would have seemed more relevant if the juggernaut of recent history had not transformed our political landscape. And what seemed undercovered in 2001 is, in many cases, front and center today.
Still, the Project Censored list released this past week from its headquarters in Northern California's Sonoma State University campus, serves as a fascinating chronicle of recent political history. The stories the students and faculty have put forward (ranked by a team of progressive celebrity judges who read the top 25) certainly have the ring of familiarity -- media ownership concentration; the privatization of water, death squads in Columbia, the Bush family and bin Laden, inhumane sanctions in Iraq, the return of nukes, the privatization of education, the negative effects of NAFTA, the housing crisis in the U.S. and CIA shenanigans in Macedonia.
One might ask, would any well-informed person consider these stories in any way "censored"? But that would be missing Project Censored's point, says project director Peter Phillips: "We define censorship as any interference with the free flow of information in American Society," he says. "Corporate media in the United States is interested primarily in entertainment news to feed their bottom-line priorities. Very important news stories that should reach the American public often fall on the cutting room floor to be replaced by sex-scandals and celebrity updates."
Phillips' broad definition of censorship includes the fact that these stories often emerge and disappear only to lurk below the surface, often for months or years, before being noticed by our less than fearless corporate media. Today, in 2002, some of the stories that made it onto Project Censored's list are getting a lot of exposure -- the topic of the #2 story by Maude Barlow, the chilling trend toward the privatization of global water resources, was recently featured in a four-part series in the New York Times.
A striking feature of this year's lineup is that several of the inclusions come from British sources, including the London Guardian, and the Ecologist, where Barlow's story appeared. Over the years, but particularly since 9/11, many domestic media mavens know that they can't get a full picture of international news without regularly reading the Guardian, the Independent and checking in with BBC radio and TV. In fact, one of the media success stories of 2002 is Greg Palast's book, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy," which is selling briskly in the U.S. Palast, an American writing in Britain, is one of the authors of the No. 4 story (also from the Guardian), about the Bush administration's ties to the Saudis and the bin Laden family.
It's useful to keep in mind that the media, as much as any other institution, reflects a certain reality of the public. A University of Washington Report cited by A. Clay Thompson found that post-9/11 media coverage became a virtual showcase for traditional American values, and overwhelmingly "shifted blame away from the U.S., emphasized the U.S. role as the only superpower on the international stage and demonized the enemy."
But lately, the media has established a toehold in maturity, energetically covering corporate scandals, the atrocities in Afghanistan and the failures of health care. The corporate media is no monolith; it swings and sways to myriad pressures, with journalists often trying hard to get their stories out while lobbyists and corporate owners push to shape the story in their interests. Journalism is in many ways a combat zone.
But no matter whether the media is acting as a lapdog or a watchdog, one story that virtually never gets any coverage is the massive concentration of media ownership and the effect that media lobbyists, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), have on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and by extension what consumers of U.S. media read, watch and listen to.
When Bush appointed Michael Powell to be head of the FCC, broadcasters must have thought they died and went to heaven. Powell, the son of Secretary of State Colin, seems intent on deregulating the media system as much as humanly possible. This is the theme of Project Censored's No. 1 story, corporate takeover of the airwaves. Certainly given the stakes and the media's inability to cover itself, one can't quarrel with the choice. Media ownership and deregulation could rank as the No. 1 ignored story every year.
Project Censored focused its beam on the narrow issue of the radio spectrum, the subject of Jeremy Rifkin's story in the London Guardian. Brendan Koerner's Mother Jones story was a comprehensive overview on the entire picture of media deregulation and San Francisco's feisty Media Alliance publication Media File also weighed in on the subject.
Jeffrey Chester, director of the Center for Digital Democracy and arguably the nation's most knowledgeable person on media reform, commends Project Censored for putting communications policy at the top of its list, but still suggests that the public would be better served with a sense of the bigger picture.
"It's not just the proposed privatization of radio (wireless) spectrum," Chester says. "The FCC is now engaged in several inter-related efforts that will harm communities and our democracy. They include new proposed policies that extend the monopoly power of cable and telephone companies onto the Internet itself. Soon the Net will be operated like any cable system, with the pipe owner determining every Web site's digital destiny. Proposals to commercially annex wireless spectrum are a part of a corporate strategy to monopolize as much of the digital age as possible."
Sources: Jeremy Rifkin, London Guardian, April 28, 2001; Brendan Koerner, Mother Jones, September 2001; Dorothy Kidd, Media File, May 2001.
#2. GATS' For-Profit Model Threatens to Gobble Up World's Water The world is under attack, and not in the most conventional modes. A little-known agreement called the General Agreement on Trade in Services, or GATS, a byproduct of the World Trade Organization (WTO) threatens to open the world's public services to corporate takeover. That means community services such as water, health care, education, libraries, museums and much more, turn into lucrative investments in the hands of global corporations.
Think it can't happen? It already has. In the spring of 2000, the Bolivian government sold off the city of Cochabamba's public water system to San Francisco-based Bechtel "in the name of economic efficiency," writes author Maude Barlow. Several furious protests ensued until finally the government agreed to return the water supply to public control.
If you think the U.S. is immune to such episodes, you're mistaken. In New Orleans, negotiations are underway to privatize the city's water supply. The $1 billion deal would be the largest private water contract in U.S. history. And Barlow writes that Rick Scott, president of Columbia, the world's largest for-profit hospital corporation, "has publicly vowed to destroy every public hospital in North America," saying doctors, "are not 'good corporate citizens.'" Merrill Lynch has already predicted public education will be privatized.
Source: Maude Barlow, The Ecologist, Feb. 2001.
By AlterNet Staff, AlterNet
September 3, 2002
source: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=14016
Most people would agree that our world has changed dramatically over the past year. In the eye of our immediate political tornado is a growing drum beat for an invasion of Iraq; rampant corporate corruption; the erosion of civil liberties; a crashing stock market; pedophile priests and the anniversary of 9/11, the most traumatic American news event in at least 50 years.
Into this twister drops Project Censored's picks for news stories most ignored in 2001. These stories, most from a year or more ago, would have seemed more relevant if the juggernaut of recent history had not transformed our political landscape. And what seemed undercovered in 2001 is, in many cases, front and center today.
Still, the Project Censored list released this past week from its headquarters in Northern California's Sonoma State University campus, serves as a fascinating chronicle of recent political history. The stories the students and faculty have put forward (ranked by a team of progressive celebrity judges who read the top 25) certainly have the ring of familiarity -- media ownership concentration; the privatization of water, death squads in Columbia, the Bush family and bin Laden, inhumane sanctions in Iraq, the return of nukes, the privatization of education, the negative effects of NAFTA, the housing crisis in the U.S. and CIA shenanigans in Macedonia.
One might ask, would any well-informed person consider these stories in any way "censored"? But that would be missing Project Censored's point, says project director Peter Phillips: "We define censorship as any interference with the free flow of information in American Society," he says. "Corporate media in the United States is interested primarily in entertainment news to feed their bottom-line priorities. Very important news stories that should reach the American public often fall on the cutting room floor to be replaced by sex-scandals and celebrity updates."
Phillips' broad definition of censorship includes the fact that these stories often emerge and disappear only to lurk below the surface, often for months or years, before being noticed by our less than fearless corporate media. Today, in 2002, some of the stories that made it onto Project Censored's list are getting a lot of exposure -- the topic of the #2 story by Maude Barlow, the chilling trend toward the privatization of global water resources, was recently featured in a four-part series in the New York Times.
A striking feature of this year's lineup is that several of the inclusions come from British sources, including the London Guardian, and the Ecologist, where Barlow's story appeared. Over the years, but particularly since 9/11, many domestic media mavens know that they can't get a full picture of international news without regularly reading the Guardian, the Independent and checking in with BBC radio and TV. In fact, one of the media success stories of 2002 is Greg Palast's book, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy," which is selling briskly in the U.S. Palast, an American writing in Britain, is one of the authors of the No. 4 story (also from the Guardian), about the Bush administration's ties to the Saudis and the bin Laden family.
It's useful to keep in mind that the media, as much as any other institution, reflects a certain reality of the public. A University of Washington Report cited by A. Clay Thompson found that post-9/11 media coverage became a virtual showcase for traditional American values, and overwhelmingly "shifted blame away from the U.S., emphasized the U.S. role as the only superpower on the international stage and demonized the enemy."
But lately, the media has established a toehold in maturity, energetically covering corporate scandals, the atrocities in Afghanistan and the failures of health care. The corporate media is no monolith; it swings and sways to myriad pressures, with journalists often trying hard to get their stories out while lobbyists and corporate owners push to shape the story in their interests. Journalism is in many ways a combat zone.
But no matter whether the media is acting as a lapdog or a watchdog, one story that virtually never gets any coverage is the massive concentration of media ownership and the effect that media lobbyists, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), have on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and by extension what consumers of U.S. media read, watch and listen to.
When Bush appointed Michael Powell to be head of the FCC, broadcasters must have thought they died and went to heaven. Powell, the son of Secretary of State Colin, seems intent on deregulating the media system as much as humanly possible. This is the theme of Project Censored's No. 1 story, corporate takeover of the airwaves. Certainly given the stakes and the media's inability to cover itself, one can't quarrel with the choice. Media ownership and deregulation could rank as the No. 1 ignored story every year.
Project Censored focused its beam on the narrow issue of the radio spectrum, the subject of Jeremy Rifkin's story in the London Guardian. Brendan Koerner's Mother Jones story was a comprehensive overview on the entire picture of media deregulation and San Francisco's feisty Media Alliance publication Media File also weighed in on the subject.
Jeffrey Chester, director of the Center for Digital Democracy and arguably the nation's most knowledgeable person on media reform, commends Project Censored for putting communications policy at the top of its list, but still suggests that the public would be better served with a sense of the bigger picture.
"It's not just the proposed privatization of radio (wireless) spectrum," Chester says. "The FCC is now engaged in several inter-related efforts that will harm communities and our democracy. They include new proposed policies that extend the monopoly power of cable and telephone companies onto the Internet itself. Soon the Net will be operated like any cable system, with the pipe owner determining every Web site's digital destiny. Proposals to commercially annex wireless spectrum are a part of a corporate strategy to monopolize as much of the digital age as possible."
Sources: Jeremy Rifkin, London Guardian, April 28, 2001; Brendan Koerner, Mother Jones, September 2001; Dorothy Kidd, Media File, May 2001.
#2. GATS' For-Profit Model Threatens to Gobble Up World's Water The world is under attack, and not in the most conventional modes. A little-known agreement called the General Agreement on Trade in Services, or GATS, a byproduct of the World Trade Organization (WTO) threatens to open the world's public services to corporate takeover. That means community services such as water, health care, education, libraries, museums and much more, turn into lucrative investments in the hands of global corporations.
Think it can't happen? It already has. In the spring of 2000, the Bolivian government sold off the city of Cochabamba's public water system to San Francisco-based Bechtel "in the name of economic efficiency," writes author Maude Barlow. Several furious protests ensued until finally the government agreed to return the water supply to public control.
If you think the U.S. is immune to such episodes, you're mistaken. In New Orleans, negotiations are underway to privatize the city's water supply. The $1 billion deal would be the largest private water contract in U.S. history. And Barlow writes that Rick Scott, president of Columbia, the world's largest for-profit hospital corporation, "has publicly vowed to destroy every public hospital in North America," saying doctors, "are not 'good corporate citizens.'" Merrill Lynch has already predicted public education will be privatized.
Source: Maude Barlow, The Ecologist, Feb. 2001.