Mickey Huff - Project Censoreds State of the Free Press 2023

A JOINT PRODUCTION OF THE CENSORED PRESS AND SEVEN STORIES PRESS

Copyright 2022 by Mickey Huff and Andy Lee Roth

Foreword copyright 2022 by Heidi Boghosian

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.

The Censored Press

Press PO Box 1177

Fair Oaks, CA 95628

censoredpress.org

Seven Stories

140 Watts Street

New York, NY 10013

sevenstories.com

ISBN 978-1-64421-237-0 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64421-238-7 (electronic)

ISSN 1074-5998

College professors and high school and middle school teachers may order free examination copies of Seven Stories Press titles. Visit .

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Printed in the USA

Book design by Jon Gilbert

PRAISE FOR PREVIOUS PROJECT CENSORED YEAR BOOKS

Today we mostly shut out news about our darker side, which is why we need Project Censored. Someone has to remind us to look in the mirror.

MATT TAIBBI, author of Hate Inc., from the foreword to State of the Free Press 2021

Project Censored has shined the light for more than forty years on those critical stories and investigative reports that government officials, major media companies, and assorted gatekeepers of respectable journalism too often ignore.

JUAN GONZLEZ, co-host of Democracy Now! and professor of journalism and media studies at Rutgers University

Now, more than ever, press freedom is at stake. In opposition to the undemocratic censorship of information, I proudly stand with Project Censored.

SHARYL ATTKISSON, Emmy Awardwinning investigative journalist and host of Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson

Project Censored sets the standard for the Fourth Estate, shedding light on important stories that would otherwise remain obscure and allowing citizens to demand justice and solutions.

TED RALL, syndicated cartoonist and columnist

In an era when truth and transparency are under assault, Project Censored offers a vitally important guide on how to think critically and provides the proper media literacy tools for everyone to survive this post-truth era.

MNAR MUHAWESH, editor-in-chief, MintPress News

If you want a break from fake news and wish instead to witness real journalism revealing important stories rarely, if ever, covered in the establishment press, read this book!

DAN KOVALIK, author of Cancel This Book and The Plot to Overthrow Venezuela

Media titans and politicians are finding new ways to censor independent journalism 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, highlighting the crucial issues to know and struggles to follow.

ABBY MARTIN, The Empire Files

Todays fake news becomes tomorrows fake history. If journalism is the rough draft of history, [Project Censored] 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

For more than forty years, Project Censored has been our watchdog on the establishment media, casting its eye on how the information that we receiveand dont receiveshapes our democracy. We need it more than ever today!

CHRISTOPHER FINAN, executive director, National Coalition Against Censorship

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

NOAM CHOMSKY

[Project Censored] is a clarion call for truth telling.

DANIEL ELLSBERG, The Pentagon Papers

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 Slaying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save Americas Public Schools

Project Censored is a national treasure in American life.... 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

Project Censored rescues the most important stories you should have read but probably never saw from oblivion.

CHRIS HEDGES, author of Empire of Illusion

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... 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 Censored is not just among the bravest, smartest, and most rigorous of [independent news] outlets, but the only one thats wholly focused on those stories that the corporate press ignores, downplays, or distorts.

MARK CRISPIN MILLER, author and professor of media ecology, New York University

This book, like Project Censored, locates cans of worms and opens them. It creates an awareness where one is needed. Censored will prove alternately enjoyable, alarming and infuriating.

HUGH DOWNS, pioneering broadcast journalist

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

DEDICATION

To Russ Kick

July 20, 1969 September 12, 2021

Photo by Ross Smith

Champion of information freedom and

government transparency.

Curator of The Memory Hole website

and Graphic Canon book series.

Challenger of official narratives

and political orthodoxies.

Contents

FOREWORD

Fighting Words

HEIDI BOGHOSIAN

Journalists to police: Were press, were press! Police to journalists: We dont care.

Violence against American journalists is on the uptick. The vitriol underlying those physical attacks comes as much from private citizens as from law enforcement. In 2021, more than one in five television news directors reported attacks on newsroom staff.

What does such violence have to do with censorship? Project Censoreds definition of modern censorship includes, in part, manipulation of coverage due to political or legal pressures that impede the robust flow of information essential to a democratic society. Political and legal pressures also contribute to a climate of intimidating rhetoric that fuels violence. The chilling effects of violenceor the threat of iton freedom of expression are undeniable.

Assaults and battery of reporters reflect the nations growing acceptance of violence as a legitimate form of public expression. Gianforte won the House seat and in 2021 became governor.