Project Censored

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Project Censored is a non-profit, sociological project of an investigative nature within the Sonoma State University Foundation. It is being managed through the School of Social Sciences at the university.

According to their official website, Project Censored "tracks the news published in independent journals and newsletters. From these, Project Censored compiles an annual list of 25 news stories of social significance that have been overlooked, under-reported or self-censored by the country's major national news media."

1 Project function
2 Published works
3 Prominent praises
4 Criticism
5 External links

[edit] Project function

Project Censored identifies and researches news stories which it believes have been underreported, mis-reported, or censored in the mainstream media. With this research, the group claims to advocate and protect of the First Amendment rights granted by the United States Constitution and freedom of information within the United States of America. The project is built around the "Sociology 435: Media Censorship" course based at the university. This course requires long hours of researching library databases. Each student is invited to develop skills of finding and researching such news stories and make full use of them for the purpose of conducting coverage reports on more than 200 under-published stories yearly. One of the goals of the project is to encourage the development of a national interconnected community-based media news service that will offer a "diversity" of news and information to local mainstream audiences through various media. Support and encouragement is provided to journalists, faculty, and student investigation of the principle objectives as stated above.

According to the group, a story covered by Project Censored should:

contain information that the general population has a right and a need to know, but to which it has limited access.
be timely, ongoing, and have implications for a significant number of residents of the United States of America.
have clearly defined concepts and be backed with solid verifiable documentation.
have been published electronically or in print, in a circulated newspaper, journal, magazine, newsletter, or similar publication by a foreign or domestic source.
have direct connections and implications for people within the United States of America, possibly including activities US citizens are engaged in abroad.

To date, the participants number nearly 200 and include the program staff of the School of Social Sciences at Sonoma State University, its students, its faculty, research interns, community experts, funders, and volunteer judges. Major sources of funding are provided by hundreds of individual donors, Working Assets, Anita Roddick, and The Body Shop International, as well as the Office of the President, the Office of the Provost, and the School of Social Science at Sonoma State University.

Project Censored was founded in 1976 by Dr. Carl Jensen. He retired in 1996, and since then the project has been directed by Dr. Peter Phillips.

[edit] Published works

Project Censored publishes an annual trade paperback review of the “Top 25 Censored Stories of the Year.” Features of the book include Junk Food News, comic strips by Tom Tomorrow, updates on previous top stories, essays, and interviews. It is printed in New York, Toronto, London, and Sydney. Other projects include For the Record, a weekly radio program featuring underpublished stories, hosted by Pat Thurston.

[edit] Prominent praises

Walter Cronkite said: "Project Censored is one of the organizations that we should listen to, to be assured that our newspapers and our broadcasting outlets are practicing throrough and ethical journalism." [1]

[edit] Criticism

Though the group never explicitly takes a political stance, almost every story that Project Censored highlights has a leftist political slant, with stories criticizing big business, economic inequality, damage to the environment, war and the armed forces, and evildoing by rightist politicians, among other leftist "hot-button" issues. (Prominent leftist activist Noam Chomsky is the group's most prominent advocate). Some critics complain that Project Censored cannot honestly claim to advocate a free and diverse media system while at the same time taking such a fiercely one-sided position in its own reporting. They believe that the group should be more forthcoming about its leftist position. ^{[citation needed]}

In response, Project Censored and its supporters have stated that conservatives have been invited to serve as judges each year, but have largely refused; that such right-wing topics as criticism of "big government" have been well publicized by Republicans in Congress and covered by the corporate-owned media, and so do not qualify as under-reported; and that Project Censored has in fact featured stories from The Spotlight, a right-wing newspaper. [2] Project Censored's work seeks to correct the bias of the mainstream media, and from their perspective, "any bias in the upper echelons of journalism looks to be skewed toward established political, economic and social power bases." [3]

It is also at times criticized for reporting on stories which are arguably not "under-reported" or "censored" at all, as they have appeared in The New York Times and other high-profile publications. In addition, the group periodically is criticized for shoddy reporting or misrepresentation of facts, the same fallacies the group itself claims to battle. For example, Project Censored has been criticized for consistently whitewashing Serbian atrocities in Bosnia and Kosovo. [4] Occasionally these claims come from other leftist publications that are concerned ^{[citation needed]} that the Project's alleged mis-reporting will give an already fragile news development even less credibility.