Bendib Khalil - Censored 2018 - press freedoms in a post-truth society - the top censored s

It is immensely gratifying to be able to congratulate Project Censored on the fortieth anniversary of its remarkable achievements, both in bringing to us critically important stories that have had little or no media attention and in engaging young activists who will be able to carry on this very valuable work. 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 and what it means to criticize those who censor in order to defile both the truth and democracy itself. Project Censored has once again produced a work that is as crucial to educating the American public as it is to making a valuable call to save American democracy. This is a brilliant, startling, and informative book that every young person, adult, student, and concerned citizen should read. Censored 2018 inspires, energizes, and 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, McMaster University Professor for Scholarship in the Public Interest and the Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy, McMaster University, Canada

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 Wages of Rebellion

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 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

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 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, author

Project Censored provides the kind of fearless and honest journalism we so desperately need in these dangerous times. Peter Kuznick, professor of history, American University, and coauthor, with Oliver Stone, of The Untold History of the United States

[Project Censored] shows how the American public has been bamboozled, snookered, and dumbed down by the corporate media. It is chock-full of ah-ha moments where we understand just how weve been fleeced by banksters, stripped of our civil liberties, and blindly led down a path of never-ending war. Medea Benjamin, author of Drone Warfare, and cofounder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK

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

At a time when the need for independent journalism and for media outlets unaffiliated with and untainted by the government and corporate sponsors is greater than ever... we are fortunate to have an ally like Project Censored. Dahr Jamail, independent journalist

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

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

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

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

CENSORED 2018

PRESS FREEDOMS IN A POST-TRUTH WORLD

The Top Censored Stories and Media Analysis of 201617

Andy Lee Roth and Mickey Huff
with Project Censored

Foreword by
Deepa Kumar
Cartoons by
Khalil Bendib

Seven Stories Press

New York Oakland London

Copyright 2017 by Mickey Huff and Andy Lee Roth

Foreword 2017 by Deepa Kumar

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 978-1-60980-781-8 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-60980-782-5 (electronic)

ISSN 1074-5998

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Book design by Jon Gilbert

Printed in the USA

DEDICATED TO
Chelsea Manning and her allies,
in celebration of her freedom

Contents

Annual Report from the Media Freedom Foundation President
by Mickey Huff

FOREWORD

Sifting and Winnowing in the Post-Truth Era

Deepa Kumar

Oxford Dictionaries selected post-truthdefined as relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal beliefas its 2016 word of the year. Oxford explained its choice by stating that, while the word has been in use for about a decade, two events, Brexit and the Trump election victory, marked a spike in the public use of the term.

Donald Trump has indeed displayed a shocking disregard for science, for facts, and for any evidence-based research. He dismissed decades of scientific research on global warming, calling it a hoax, and even disputed the size of the audience at his inauguration. His list of lies and falsehoods is so long that various news media organizations have taken to counting and documenting them. The New York Times wrote that it has logged at least one false or misleading claim per day on 91 of his first 99 days.1

While this work is essential in an era in which emotion and personal belief, as Oxford states, have overtaken objective facts, to scrutinize only the Far Rightthe forces of Brexit or the Trump administrationmisses a deeper dynamic in which right-wing and establishment liberalism have both played a part in the generation of a post-truth society.