Bendib Khalil - Censored 2016: media freedom on the line: the top censored stories and media analysis of 2014-15

1. CHAPTER 1: The Top Censored Stories and Media Analysis of 201415
   Compiled and edited by Andy Lee Roth.
   • Introduction
   • Note on Research and Evaluation of Censored News Stories
   1. Half of Global Wealth Owned by the 1 Percent
   2. Oil Industry Illegally Dumps Fracking Wastewater
   3. 89 Percent of Pakistani Drone Victims Not Identifiable as Militants
   4. Popular Resistance to Corporate Water Grabbing
   5. Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Deepens
   6. Methane and Arctic Warmings Global Impacts
   7. Fear of Government Spying is Chilling Writers Freedom of Expression
   8. Who Dies at the Hands of US Policeand How Often
   9. Millions in Poverty Get Less Media Coverage than Billionaires Do
   10. Costa Rica Setting the Standard on Renewable Energy.
   11. Pesticide Manufacturers Spend Millions on PR Response to Declining Bee Populations
   12. Seeds of Doubt: USDA Ignores Popular Critiques of New Pesticide-Resistant Genetically Modified Crops
   13. Pentagon and NATO Encircle Russia and China
   14. Global Forced Displacement Tops Fifty Million
   15. Big Sugar Borrowing Tactics from Big Tobacco
   16. US Military Sexual Assault of Colombian Children
   17. Media Whitewash Senates CIA Torture Report
   18. ICREACH: The NSAs Secret Search Engine
   19. Most Comprehensive Assessment Yet Warns against Geoengineering Risks
   20. FBI Seeks Backdoors in New Communications Technology
   21. The New Amazon of the North: Canadian Deforestation
   22. Global Killing of Environmentalists Rises Drastically
   23. Unprocessed Rape Kits
   24. NSAs AURORAGOLD Program Hacks Cell Phones around World
   25. Greenlands Meltwater Contributes to Rising Sea Levels
2. CHAPTER 2: Dj Vu: What Happened to Previous Censored Stories?
   by Susan Rahman, with research and writing from College of Marin students Nathan Bowman, Isabelle Elias, Kayla Johnson, Katie Kolb, Nik Kretzschmar, Quintton McCahey, Quiyarra McCahey, Caitlin McCoy, Miya McHugh, Carl Nestler, Brande Neyhard, Molly Owens, Elizabeth Ramirez, David Rodas, Karina Rodriguez, Ana Sanderson-Burglin, Joe Suzuki, and Christian Vicente; with further research assistance by Diablo Valley College students Darian Edelman and Ellie Kim
3. CHAPTER 3: A Vast Wasteland: The Ongoing Reign of Junk Food News and News Abuse
   by Nolan Higdon, Mickey Huff, and Ellie Kim, with contributions by Brad Barna, Crystal Bedford, Emma Durkin, Darian Edelman, Ariana Flotroy, Janet Hernandez, Daniel Park, Olivia Phillips, Rebecca Rodriguez, Edwin Sevilla, Jaideep Singh, Jack Elliott Smith, Hajin Lily Yi, and Mark Yolango
4. CHAPTER 4: Media Democracy in Action
   compiled by Andy Lee Roth and Mickey Huff, with contributions by Steven Wishnia (Dissent NewsWire), Alexander Reid Ross (Earth First! Newswire), and Sue Udry (Defending Dissent Foundation); Beatrice Edwards (Government Accountability Project); Adam Jonas Horowitz (Nuclear Savage); Ian Thomas Ash (A2-B-C); Arlene Engelhardt and Mary Glenney (From a Womans Point of View); Crystal Bedford, Lisa Davis, Darian Edelman, Lauren Freeman, and Ellie Kim (Project Censored student interns); and Jyarland Daniels, and Rebekah Spicuglia (Race Forward/Colorlines)
5. CHAPTER 5: A Vision for Transformative Civic Engagement:
   The Global Critical Media Literacy Project
   by Julie Frechette, Nolan Higdon, and Rob Williams
6. CHAPTER 6: Modern Herlands: The Significance of Gilmans Herland for the Next 100 Years
   by Sheila Katz
7. CHAPTER 7: Dark Alliance: The Controversy and the Legacy, Twenty Years On
   by Brian Covert
8. CHAPTER 8: Twenty-FirstCentury Fascism: Private Military Companies in Service to the Transnational Capitalist Class
   by Peter Phillips, Ray McClintock, Melissa Carneiro, and Jacob Crabtree.
9. CHAPTER 9: Existence Is Resistance: Women in Occupied Palestine and Kashmir
   by Tara Dorabji and Susan Rahman
10. CHAPTER 10: The Contours of Long-Term Systemic Crisis and the Need for Systemic Solutions
    by Gar Alperovitz, James Gustave Speth, and Joe Guinan
11. Report from the Media Freedom Foundation President
    by Peter Phillips
12. Index.

This volume marks a landmark year for Project Censoredboth the fortieth anniversary of its founding in 1976, and the first year without its founder, Carl Jensen, to whom this foreword is dedicated.

Project Censoreds annual story review process has been designed so that its evaluators select what they believe to be the best examples of stories of great significance that received little or no coverage by corporate media. These stories are subsequently highlighted in the Projects annual book, with this volume covering the most significant but underreported stories of 2014 and 2015.

Of course, those who nominate stories for Project Censoreds consideration have learned of them somehow. Thus, the stories were not censored in the sense of being absolutely unavailable to all Americans. Most often, they first appeared in print and in online publications of lesser circulation. Since the rise of the Internet, their circulation and impact may have been substantially enhanced by personal text messages, e-mails, website, blogs, YouTube videos, and Facebook, Twitter, and similar social media causing them to go viralall of which makes their absence from corporate media the more remarkable.

Indeed, with the assistance of Google and other specialized searching tools, any skilled, serious journalist or researcher whoknows what she is looking for has access to orders of magnitude more sources than were available forty years ago.

Nonetheless, when it comes to media, most Americans, most of the time, are not doing research. To the extent they seek out news at all, they are still getting most of their information, and misinformation, from the remnants of ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC, plus the twenty-four-hour news channels and local newspapers. And the bulk of what the cable channels bring into our homes is not even that close to journalism. As Barbara Kingsolver describes it, The image that strikes me... is that of a faucet into the house that runs about 5 percent clear water and 95 percent raw sewage.