Tag: mainstream media

“Project Censored” List: Top 25 Most Censored News Stories Of The Year

“Published each year by Seven Stories Press, featuring dispatches from the ongoing revolution in independent journalism, each book reports the year’s top-25 independent news stories, which corporate media have ignored, misrepresented, or censored; analyzes corporate “junk food” news and “news abuse;” highlights organizations that exemplify media democracy in action; and investigates hot topics in journalism and politics.” – Source

The presentation of the Top 25 stories of 2021-2022 extends the tradition originated by Professor Carl Jensen and his Sonoma State University students in 1976, while reflecting how the expansion of the Project to include affiliate faculty and students from campuses across North America has made the Project even more diverse and robust. The Top 25 stories of 2021-2022 have been selected from several hundred candidate stories submitted by 207 student researchers from ten US college and university campuses. – Source

About Project Censored

 “Project Censored educates students and the public about the importance of a truly free press for democratic self-government. We expose and oppose news censorship and we promote independent investigative journalism, media literacy, and critical thinking. Through our website, weekly radio program, annual book, and other programs, we provide this service to the United States, Canada, UK, and the world.

2021-2022 Theme: Billionaire’s Press

Writing for the Santa Fe reporter, “Project Censored, The billionaires’ press dominates censorship beat” Paul Rosenberg explained “Since its founding in 1976, Project Censored has been focused on stories—like Watergate before the 1972 election—that aren’t censored in the authoritarian government sense, but in a broader, expanded sense reflective of what a functioning democracy should be, censorship defined as “the suppression of information, whether purposeful or not, by any method—including bias, omission, underreporting, or self-censorship—that prevents the public from fully knowing what is happening in society.” It is, after all, the reason that journalism enjoys special protection in the First Amendment: Without the free flow of vital information, government based on the consent of the governed is but an illusory dream.”

“Yet, from the very beginning, as A.J. Liebling put it, ‘Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.’”

“In their introduction to Project Censored’s annual State of the Free Press, [ ] Mickey Huff and Andy Lee Roth [ ] observe, “History shows that consolidated media, controlled by a handful of elite owners, seldom serves the public interest.”

“Despite the promise of boundless access to information, Silicon Valley mirrors legacy media in its consolidated ownership and privileging of elite narratives. This new class of billionaire oligarchs owns or controls the most popular media platforms, including the companies often referred to as the FAANGs—Facebook (Meta), Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google (Alphabet)”.

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Mainstream Media Spun These News Stories as Conspiracy Theories — But They Turned Out to Be True

In a recent episode of “The Kim Iversen Show,” political commentator Kim Iversen reviewed the top 10 stories in 2022 that she said the mainstream media spun as “conspiracy theories” — but turned out to be true after all.

Iversen said the conspiracy theorist label was usually given “simply for saying something that went against the establishment liberal orthodoxy — not because it was quackery rooted in falsehoods.”

“The reality is, so many that they [the mainstream media] claim to be ‘conspiracy theories’ are actually true,” Iversen said, adding:

“Anytime someone’s labeled as a conspiracy theorist, it might just mean it’s time to actually investigate and look a little deeper into whatever it is they’re claiming because so often nowadays conspiracy theorists are not conspiracy theorists at all. They’re truth-tellers — fact-tellers, researchers — and they’re connecting the dots and getting a lot of things right.”

“Maybe we can make a New Year’s resolution to make 2023 the year of truth,” she suggested.

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CNN Recruits Washington’s Worst Warmonger The Instant He Leaves Congress

CNN has shattered the speed of light in its haste to recruit former representative Adam Kinzinger to its punditry lineup the millisecond he left congress.

Kinzinger, who prior to being redistricted out of his House seat received handsome campaign contributions from arms manufacturers Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman, was arguably the most egregious warmonger on Capitol Hill.

Nobody in congress lobbied as aggressively to start World War Three as Kinzinger did last year; he tried to advance a bill authorizing hot war against Russia if Moscow crossed specified red lines in Ukraine but couldn’t get cosponsors because even his fellow congressional hawks thought it was too insane. He was the loudest voice in the US government publicly advocating a no-fly zone over Ukraine in the early weeks of the war, an idea that was slammed by the mass media as it would necessarily have entailed the US military shooting down Russian war planes and aggressively tempted nuclear war.

Kinzinger was such a demented omnicidal maniac in 2022 that while still in office he became an official member of the empire-backed online troll farm known as “NAFO”, which was founded by an actual neo-Nazi whom Kinzinger openly supported both before and after revelations emerged of the founder’s expressions of hatred for Jews and fondness for Hitler. While still a sitting congressman he was flagging trolls with hashtags inviting them to swarm the social media comments of critics of US foreign policy who opposed his psychopathic warmongering.

Before the war in Ukraine Kinzinger was calling for the re-invasion of Afghanistan immediately following the US troop withdrawal and raging about public opposition to “endless war.” Before that he was cheerleading Trump’s assassination of Iranian military leader Qassem Soleimani, calling for US interventionism in Venezuela, defending the US-backed war on Yemen, calling for the invasion of Syria, and just generally pushing for more war and militarism at every opportunity. Before that, he was helping the empire kill Iraqis as a member of the US Air Force.

Kinzinger is such an obnoxious warmonger online that I myself have called him “the single worst Twitter account that has ever existed,” long before his CNN gig was a twinkle in his eye.

So it’s no wonder a warmongering propaganda network snapped him up the instant he became available, ensuring that his warmongering receives as large a platform as possible. As Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp quipped regarding CNN’s hire, “All those calls for WWIII must have landed him this gig.”

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‘The View’ is the biggest source of misinformation in America

Barbara Walters died last week at 93, but the legendary journalist’s legacy lives on: “The View,” the daytime-TV talker she created in 1997, is the most-watched — and most-talked-about — show in its genre.

Some legacy, though: What Walters envisioned as “women of different generations, backgrounds and views” discussing “the topics of the day, mixing humor with intelligent debate,” devolved after she departed as co-host in 2014 into a four-against-one daily catfight with few laughs and even fewer smarts.

The New York Times calls it “the most important political TV show in America.” If so, America is in trouble — because “The View” is the biggest source of misinformation in the country.

More than 2.4 million people watch “The View” every day — and are less informed for it every day.

The show’s moderator is one of its worst offenders. Whoopi Goldberg made headlines last year by declaring “the Holocaust isn’t about race.” Her co-hosts gave her little pushback. Sara Haines added a “No” in agreement while Joy Behar asked her what it was about. “This is white people doing it to white people. So, this is y’all go fight amongst yourselves,” Whoopi said. Sunny Hostin remained silent, and the show’s producers — recognizing a train wreck — played exit music and broke to a commercial.

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Twitter Files: Company Exaggerated Russian Influence to Appease Media, Democrats

Twitter deliberately exaggerated the extent of Russian influence on its platform in an attempt to appease the media and Democrats, even after internal investigations into the matter proved a “dud,” according to journalist Matt Taibbi, who released another batch of the Twitter Files today.

Twitter initially tried to stay out of the spotlight on the Russia issue in 2017, hoping Facebook would remain the main target of scrutiny from the media and Democrats. Twitter’s PR department even agreed on a media strategy to “keep the focus on FB.”

But after being slammed by Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) for an “inadequate” response to allegations of Russian meddling, Twitter’s public policy VP said the company should “keep producing material” on Russian interference to satisfy the Democrats. As a result, Twitter formed a “Russia Task Force,” to investigate Russian influence on the platform.

But the task force found little evidence of significant Russian involvement on the platform. In October 2017, the task force reported that it had found “no evidence of a coordinated approach, all of the accounts found seem to be lone-wolf type activity (different timing, spend, targeting, <$10k in ad spend).”

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Second ABC News Producer Dies Suddenly by Undisclosed Causes

Another producer for ABC 10News in San Diego, California, died suddenly last week by undisclosed causes.

Erica Gonzalez, one of ABC’s talented morning show producers, passed away last week.

“As some of you have heard, our dear family member, Erica has gained her Angel wings, unexpectedly,” according to her fundraising campaign.

“Our family is hurting and in disbelief. We are currently in the process of bringing her home from San Diego to El Paso, TX,” it reads.

The cause of her death was not disclosed by ABC 10News or her family.

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New Yorker publishes insane ‘case for wearing masks forever’

An activist group calling themselves the “People’s CDC” are calling on all levels of government to reenact mask mandates, claiming that “the vaccine-only strategy promoted by the CDC is insufficient,” according to a profile by the New Yorker.

The group has made it their mission to distribute widely what they claim to be “real” information about the pandemic, often going against CDC recommendations. The article, titled “The Case for Wearing Masks Forever, written by Emma Green and published Wednesday, describes the People’s CDC as a “ragtag coalition of public-health activists” who “believe that America’s pandemic restrictions are too lax.”

The group sends out a weekly “Weather Report,” as they call it, which gives a summary of the data they want to publish to support their case. These reports often include a call to action for readers to petition governments to reinstate mask mandates and to fight for free tests and treatments.

They have recently argued that all events should be held outdoors with high-grade masking rules in place. 

With nearly 20,000 Instagram followers, the group prides itself as a resource for people who want to petition their governments for more Covid restriction.

The organizer of the group’s media team, Lucky Tran, recently argued on Twitter that “a lot of anti-mask sentiment is deeply embedded in white supremacy,” the kind of accusation that is quite commonly seen coming from far-left activist groups.

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‘What’s next? Proper nutrition is a KKK plot?’ Time magazine is mocked for saying EXERCISE is racist as interview claims women lifting weights in early 1900s was ‘a white supremacy project’

Time magazine has been ruthlessly mocked for an article saying the origins of exercise are rooted in racism.

The piece, titled ‘The White Supremacist Origins of Exercise,’ preaches the activity as a pastime started in the early 1900s by white Americans who sought to strengthen their race amid increasing immigration and the abolition of slavery.

Those statements were made by progressive private school teacher Natalia Petrzela, who was interviewed by the publication after engaging in an in-depth study into the origins of calorie-burning activities in the US.

The Columbia grad, a self-professed ‘fitness scholar’ who works as a history teacher at a famously progressive private school in Manhattan, supports movements such as Defund the Police and Black Lives Matter.

She has penned books expressing her ideals, in which she preaches the use of terms like ‘cisgender’ and ‘white privilege.

Released on Thursday, the article was heavily mocked on Twitter, with dozens taking to the platform to insist stories like these are destroying the publication’s reputation.

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14 Signs of Totalitarianism

We all know the cons of Twitter, but one of the pros is discovering new and interesting people.

One of my favorite new follows is Benjamin Carlson, a public relations guru and former editor at The Atlantic. Carlson’s tweets are among the best you’ll find on Twitter, and he clearly has a keen understanding of the intersections between media and government, power and propaganda (both current and historically).

One of his recent tweets caught my eye, and I share an adaptation of it below.

1. Dissent is equated to violence

2. Media is controlled

3. The legal system is co-opted by the state

4. Power is exerted to quash dissent

5. State police protect the regime, not the people

6. Rights—financial, legal, and civil—are contingent on compliance

7. Mass conformity of beliefs and behaviors is demanded

8. Power is concentrated in inner ring of elite institutions and people

9. Semi-organized violence is permitted (in some cases)

10. Propaganda targets enemies of the state regime

11. Entire classes singled out for persecution

12. Extra-legal actions are condoned against internal regime opponents

13. Harsh legal enforcement against unfavored classes

14. Private and public levers of power are used to enforce adherence to state dogmas

The list is a bit troubling. At the very least, some of these techniques are playing out before our eyes. This is certainly not to say that the US is a totalitarian state, however.

There are many definitions of totalitarianism, and I don’t believe one can seriously argue that the United States has arrived there. But authoritarianism is certainly in the air, and it emanates most strongly from our nation’s capital.

While both the political Right and the political Left accuse each other of harboring tyrannical ambitions, the philosopher Karl Popper offered a clue as to when a legitimate government crosses the line and becomes a tyrannical one.

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NY Times Goes Mega-Karen Over Formerly-Banned Twitter Discussion

The New York Times‘ Stuart. A Thompson, who covers ‘misinformation and disinformation’ for the once-respected rag, has gone full ‘Karen’ over free speech on Twitter.

So, what are people freely discussing on the platform?

“Covid-19 misinformation and vaccine doubts“

Karen please.

Other topics that Stuart and the Times feel should be verboten;

“Election fraud”

and…

“QAnon”

“On Twitter, reinstated users have returned to familiar themes in QAnon lore, raising questions about prominent Democrats and their association with Jeffrey Epstein, a former financier who was charged with child sex trafficking and is a central figure in QAnon conspiracies,” Thompson writes.

Why shouldn’t people be able to talk about prominent Democrats who hung out with a giant convicted pedophile, Stuart?

Nice ratio guys. Way to read the room.

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