Bendib Khalil - Censored 2019: fighting the fake news invasion: the top censored stories and media analysis of 2017-18

The year 2018 marks a new chapter in the story of how the oligarchs try to kill the alternative press and adversarial reporting. Media titans and politicians are finding new ways to censor independent journalism on virtually every web platform under the banner of combating fake news and foreign propaganda. For truth-tellers and researchers facing this new assault, Project Censored and its annual book represent a vitally important tool for highlighting the crucial issues to know and struggles to follow, an essential guide for truth in a post-truth society. Abby Martin, The Empire Files, from the foreword to Censored 2019

Todays fake news becomes tomorrows fake history. Since 1976, Project Censored has been both calling out media propaganda and censorship as well as highlighting the best of the independent press. If journalism is the rough draft of history, this book goes a long way to getting the record right the first time, stopping fake news in its tracks and ensuring that we have fewer Untold Histories in the future. Peter Kuznick and Oliver Stone, co-authors of The Untold History of the United States book and documentary series

A crucial contribution to the hope for a more just and democratic society. Noam Chomsky

Project Censored is a national treasure in American life, serving to remind us of how crucial it is to be vigilant about making the truth heard in the public sphere... Censored gives new meaning to the notion that critical citizens are at the core of a strong democracy and that informed resistance is not an option but a necessity. Henry A. Giroux, author of American Nightmare: Facing the Challenge of Fascism

Project Censored brings to light some of the most important stories of the year that you never saw or heard about. This is your chance to find out what got buried. Diane Ravitch, author of The Death and Life of the Great American School System

As trivia, celebrity gossip, blow-by-blow descriptions of the latest foibles of the political elites, entertainment, and corporate-approved stories replace journalism, real news happens increasingly on the fringes, where it is more easily marginalized and ignored. Project Censored rescues the most important stories you should have read but probably never saw from oblivion.Chris Hedges, bestselling author of War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning and Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle

The systematic exposure of censored stories by Project Censored has been an important contribution. Howard Zinn, author of A Peoples History of the United States

Project Censored is a lifeline to the worlds most urgent and significant stories. The Projects list of the top stories that get very little mainstream media traction should in fact drive the reporting agendas of every major news outlet.Naomi Wolf, author of the bestselling books The Beauty Myth; The End of America; and Give Me Liberty

[Project Censored] is a clarion call for truth telling. Daniel Ellsberg, The Pentagon Papers

Project Censored... has evolved into a deep, wide, and utterly engrossing exercise to unmask censorship, self-censorship, and propaganda in the mass media. Ralph Nader, consumer advocate, lawyer, and author

[Project Censoreds] efforts to continue globalizing their reporting network could not be more timely or necessary. Kristina Borjesson, award-winning freelance journalist

Most journalists in the United States believe the press here is free. That grand illusion only helps obscure the fact that, by and large, the US corporate press does not report whats really going on, while tuning out, or laughing off, all those who try to do just that. Americansnow more than everneed those outlets that do labor to report some truth. Project Censored is not just among the bravest, smartest, and most rigorous of those outlets, but the only one thats wholly focused on those stories that the corporate press ignores, downplays, and/or distorts.Mark Crispin Miller, author, professor of media ecology, New York University

Project Censored continues to do the work theyve been persistently pursuing since 1976: Exposing the secrets that those in power would prefer to keep hidden and the corruption that should be scandalous, but isnt, because the corporate media wont cover it. David Rovics, musician and activist

As Project Censoreds publisher, Ive been amazed at the resilience and joyfulness this organization has shown, year after year. Forever young, and ever more important, Project Censored makes us all better-informed and more empowered as citizens. Dan Simon, Seven Stories Press

Project Censored is one of the organizations that we should listen to, to be assured that our newspapers and our broadcasting outlets are practicing thorough and ethical journalism. Walter Cronkite, anchor, CBS Evening News, 19621981

One of the most significant media research projects in the country. I.F. Stone, American muckraker

CENSORED 2019

FIGHTING THE FAKE NEWS INVASION

The Top Censored Stories and Media Analysis of 201718

Mickey Huff and Andy Lee Roth
with Project Censored

Foreword by
Abby Martin
Cartoons by
Khalil Bendib

Seven Stories Press

New York Oakland London

Copyright 2018 by Mickey Huff and Andy Lee Roth

Foreword 2018 by Abby Martin

A Seven Stories Press First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, by any means, including mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Seven Stories Press
140 Watts Street
New York, NY 10013
www.sevenstories.com

ISBN 978-1-60980-869-3 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-60980-870-9 (electronic)

ISSN 1074-5998

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Book design by Jon Gilbert

Printed in the USA

DEDICATED TO
Thomas Field
(19632018)

An inspiring student and a natural teacher,
Tom loved independent journalism.
His knowledge and wit enriched recent Censored volumes.
He embodied the spirit of Project Censored.

Contents

Artists Statement
by Anson Stevens-Bollen

FOREWORD

The Post-Truth Dilemma

Abby Martin

Donald Trumps stunning electoral victory sent the entrenched Washington, DC, establishment into a tailspin, blaming everyone and everything for Hillarys historic lossincluding me.

Thats right. The US governments official intelligence report on alleged Russian meddling zeroed in on my show Breaking the Set on RT America, which ended two years prior to the election, and accused it of fomenting radical discontent that contributed to Clintons downfall.

The actual content analyzed from the show was not about Vladimir Putin or Russia but about fracking, poverty, racism, and war. What the US intelligence apparatus was really saying is that covering these issues is a dangerous threat to democracy and should be vilified as sinister Russian propaganda.

My generation woke up to the dangers of corporate media consolidation and obedience to sell the Bush Doctrine. Trust in mass media was already at a new low during the 2016 election. But when Trump exploited the idea that the liberal media was out to destroy him, being suspect of the corporate press suddenly became a partisan issue.