Project Censored - Articles

Analysis of Project Censored: Are We a Left-Leaning, Conspiracy-Oriented Organization?

2009-06-19T05:50:00-08:00

By Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff
“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.” –Frederick Douglass
One continuing criticism of Project Censored is that we are a left leaning organization. Which is an interesting claim in that over 200 faculty and students from multiple disciplines and political orientations work with Project Censored each year. Over 1,500 students have been trained in media research techniques since we began in 1976, and it would be hard to find a more mainstream, mostly Californian college student body… You can read this entire article here: Analysis_of_Project_Censored.pdf

Infotainment Society: Junk Food News and News Abuse for 2008/2009

2009-06-17T19:17:00-08:00

By Mickey Huff and Frances A. Capell

The late New York University media scholar Neil Postman once said about America, “We are the best entertained least informed society in the world.” Since the mid 1980’s, Project Censored has examined this phenomenon in the culture of the 24/7-television news cycle. Looking beyond what the corporate news media undercover or ignore, Project Censored surveys what they do spend precious airtime and column inches on while not covering the top censored stories or others in the public interest. Which news stories have been found consistently by such surveys in this so-called information age? “Junk Food News,” said Project Censored founder Dr. Carl Jensen. “It’s like a Twinkie, not very nourishing for the consumer.” This is how Jensen described it back in 1984 when he first began looking at how tabloid sensationalism had inundated the nightly news with the “Where’s the Beef” campaign. Jensen still considers Junk Food News a major problem in journalism and corporate media, particularly on today’s cable and television news. In that tradition, Project Censored “celebrates” the 25th anniversary of Junk Food News this year… Please continue reading this article here: Junk_Food_News.pdf

A Black President Doesn’t Mean Racism is gone in America

2009-05-29T02:05:00-08:00

By Peter Phillips
Racial inequality remains in the US. People of color continue to experience high rates of poverty, significant unemployment, police profiling and repressive incarceration. School segregation is a continuing concern among race scholars as well.
According to a new Civil Rights report published at UCLA, “Reviving the Goal of an Integrated Society: A 21st Century Challenge,” by Gary Orfield, schools in the US are currently 44% non-white, and minorities are rapidly emerging as the majority of public school students. Latinos and Blacks are the two largest minority groups. However, Black and Latino students attend schools more segregated today than during the civil rights era. Schools are still separate and not equal more than fifty years after the US Supreme Court case: Brown VS Board of Education. Orfield’s study shows that most severe segregation in public schools is in the Western states, including California, not in the south as many people believe.
This new form of segregation is primarily based on how urban areas are geographically organized—as Cornel West so passionately describes— into vanilla suburbs and chocolate cities.
Schools remain highly unequal, both in terms of money, and qualified teachers and curriculum. Unequal education leads to a diminished access to colleges and future jobs. Non-white schools are segregated by poverty as well as race. These “chocolate” low-income public schools are where most of the nation’s drop-outs occur, leading to large numbers of virtually unemployable young people of color struggling to survive in a very troubled economy.
There is a white people’s side of segregation as well. Diminished opportunity for students of color invariable creates greater privileges for whites. White privilege is a concept that is overtly difficult for many whites to accept. Whites like to think of themselves as hard working and whatever they achieve is due to deserved personal efforts. In many cases this is in fact partly true, hard work in college often pays off in many ways. What is difficult for many whites to accept is that geographical/structural racism still serves as a significant barrier for many students of color. Whites often say racism is in the past, and we need not think about it today. Yet, inequality stares at us daily from the barrios, ghettos, and from behind prisons walls. Inequality continues in privileged universities as well.
An example of white privilege is how Sonoma State University in California (SSU) has recently achieved the status of having the whitest and likely the richest student population of any public university in the State of California. Research shows, that beginning in the early 1990s, the SSU administration specifically sought to market the campus as a public ivy institution—offering an ivy-league experience at a State College price. Part of this public ivy packaging was to advertise SSU as being in a destination wine country location with high physical and cultural amenities. These marketing efforts were principally designed to attract upper-income students to a Falcon Crest like campus.
To achieve the desired outcome of becoming a wine-country public ivy SSU administration implemented a special admissions screening process that used higher SAT-GPA indexes than the rest of the California State University (CSU) system. According to Lani Guinier and Gerald Torres in The Miner’s Canary, high SAT scores correlate directly to both race and income with little relationship to actual success in college.
SSU also conducted recruitment at predominately white upper-income public and private high schools throughout the West Coast and Hawaii. The result was that SSU freshmen students with family incomes over $150,000 increased by 59 percent since 1994 and freshmen students from families below $50,000 declined by 21 percent (2007 dollars). The campus remained over three-quarters white during this fifteen-year period, while the rest of the CSU campuses significantly increased ethnic diversity.
We are at a time in society when a majority of the population has elected a Black president of the United States. This presidency is a hugely symbolic achievement for race relations in the US. We must not, however, ignore the continuing disadvantages for people of color and the resulting advantages gained by whites in our society. Institutional policies and segregation contribute to continuing inequalities that require ongoing review and discussion. Efforts against racism must continue if we are to truly attain the civil rights goal of equal opportunity for all.
Peter Phillips is a Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University. His recent research study Building a Public Ivy: Sonoma State University: 1994-2007, is on line at: http://www.projectcensored.org/articles/story/building-a-public-ivy/

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2009-04-29T19:19:00-08:00

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2009-04-29T18:01:01-08:00

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2009-04-29T17:56:03-08:00

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2009-04-29T17:23:00-08:00

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Building a Public Ivy

2009-03-17T01:02:02-08:00

1994-2007: A Study of Student Racial Diversity and Family Income at SSU Compared to Other California State Universities

Abstract

Building a Public Ivy
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Sonoma State University

1994-2007

A Study of Student Racial Diversity and Family Income at SSU Compared to Other California State Universities

By Peter Phillips

Research by Nelson Calderon, Sarah Maddox, Carmela Rocha

And

The Spring 2008 Investigative Sociology Class at Sonoma State University:
Ashley Aldern, Reham Ariqat, Elizabeth Bourne, Nate Bradley, Niki Brunkhurst,
Meredith Carey, Lea Carre, Kimberly Copperberg, Erica Elkington, Erin Garnett,
Keri Kirby, Tara Loch, Lisa McKee, Particia Ochoa, Phillip Parfitt,
Kelsey Percich, Nina Reynoso, Juana Som, Miasha Terry, Ruby Virelas,
Nicholas Vos, Daniel Wyatt

Funding for this Study came from California Faculty Association (CFA) SSU Chapter, CFA State Affirmative Action Council, and SSU Center for Community Engagement

SSU Professor Rick Luttmann Provided Math Consultation

Abstract

Sonoma State University (SSU) has recently achieved the status of having the whitest student population of any public university in the State of California. In addition, SSU has the wealthiest freshmen of most, if not all, four-year public universities in California. Research shows, that beginning in the early 1990s, the SSU administration specifically sought to market SSU as a public ivy institution—offering an ivy-league experience at a state college price. Part of this public ivy packaging was to advertise SSU as being in a destination wine country location with high physical and cultural amenities. These marketing efforts were principally designed to attract upper-income students to Sonoma County.
Motivation for these changes was to turn SSU into a residential campus, increase the SSU donor base, and improve time-to-degree efficiency— all measures of success encouraged by the California State University (CSU) Board of Trustees and the CSU state-level administration.
To achieve the desired outcome of becoming a wine-country public ivy the SSU administration implemented a dual program, that included a special admissions screening arrangement using higher SAT-GPA indexes then the rest of the CSU system, and recruitment at predominately white upper-income public and private high schools throughout the West Coast and Hawaii.
The resulting lack of diversity and the allocation of resources away from the instructional mission of the University contributed to 74 percent of the SSU faculty voting no confidence in the President in 2007.
A survey of students of color at SSU describes continuing incidents of racial discrimination and generally less racial comfort on campus compared to students of color at the two closest CSU universities.

Read the entire study here: DiversityStudyPhillips.pdf

Deconstructing Deceit: 9/11, The Media, and Myth Information

2009-03-05T01:05:01-08:00

Deconstructing Deceit: 9/11, The Media, and Myth Information
By: Mickey S. Huff and Dr. Paul W. Rea, with online revision research assistance from Project Censored intern Frances Capell

This investigative report concerns itself with the ongoing phenomena of media myth making and the events of September 11th, 2001. Corporate mainstream media have resurrected powerful myths from America’s past to shape public perception in the present. Through the prism of 9/11 as case study, one can see how the corporate mass media are in fact doing more myth making than news reporting, which amounts to a form of censorship. Here, Professors Huff and Rea examine central historic American myths the corporate media and even much of the alternative independent media have extended into the post-9/11 era especially about the events of 9/11 themselves. This analysis looks at how media mythmaking surrounding the events of 9/11, exploiting the strong emotions these events aroused, has prevented a dispassionate inquiry of its causes or of those responsible.

Read the complete article here DeconstructingDeceitOnlineEd.pdf

Barack Obama Administration Continues US Military Global Dominance

2009-02-19T17:06:02-08:00

By Peter Phillips

The Barack Obama administration is continuing the neo-conservative agenda of US military domination of the world— albeit with perhaps a kinder-gentler face. While overt torture is now forbidden for the CIA and Pentagon, and symbolic gestures like the closing of the Guantanamo prison are in evidence, a unilateral military dominance policy, expanding military budget, and wars of occupation and aggression will likely continue unabated.

The military expansionists from within the Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Clinton, G. W. Bush administrations put into place solid support for increased military spending. Clinton’s model of supporting the US military industrial complex held steady defense spending and increased foreign weapons sales from 16% of global orders to over 63% by the end of his administration.

The neo-conservatives, who dominated the most recent Bush administration, amplified this trend of increased military spending. The neo-cons laid out their agenda for military global dominance in the 2000 Project for a New American Century (PNAC) report Rebuilding America’s Defenses. The report called for the protection of the American Homeland, the ability to wage simultaneous theater wars, to perform global constabulary roles, and to control space and cyberspace. The report claimed that in order to maintain a Pax Americana, potential rivals — such as China, Iran, Iraq, and North Korea — needed to be held in check. This military global dominance agenda required forward deployment of US forces worldwide and increasing defense/war spending well into the 21st century. The result was a doubling of the US military budget to over $700 billion in the last eight years. The US now spends as much on war/defense as the rest of the world combined, making Americans the highest war-tax payers in the world.

Barack Obama’s election brought a moment of hope for many. However, the Obama administration is not calling for decreased military spending, or a reversal of US military global dominance. Instead, Obama retained Robert Gates, thus making Obama the first president from an opposing party, in US history, to keep in place the outgoing administrations’ Secretary of Defense/War. Additionally, Obama is calling for an expanded war in Afghanistan and only minimal long-range reductions in Iraq.

The US military industrial complex is deeply embedded inside the Washington beltway. According to the most recent reports from OpenSecrets.org, 151 members of Congress in 2006 had up to $195.5 million of their personal assets invested in defense companies.

Major defense contractors were seriously involved in the 2008 elections. Lockheed Martin gave $2,612,219 in total political campaign donations, with 49% to Democrats ($1,285,493) and 51% to Republicans ($1,325,159). Boeing gave $2,225,947 in 2008 with 58% going to Democrats, and General Dynamics provided $1,682,595 to both parties. Northrop Grumman spent over $20 million in 2008, hiring lobbyists to influence Congress, and Raytheon spent $6 million on lobbyists in the same period. In a revolving door appointment, Obama nominated Raytheon’s senior vice president for government operations and strategy, William Lynn, for the number two position in the Pentagon. Lynn was formally the Defense Department’s comptroller during the Clinton administration.

The International Monetary Fund’s prediction for global economic growth in 2009 is 0.5 percent—the worst since World War II. The United Nations’ International Labor Organization estimates that some 50 million workers will lose their jobs worldwide this year. There are an estimated 62,000 U.S. companies expected to close in 2009, and while official unemployment is at 7 percent in the US, when you add people no longer looking for jobs and part-time workers, joblessness is closer to 14 percent. The military-industrial-political elite are worried about the potential of increasing global insecurity. The answer inside the Obama Administration is to continue high defense/war spending to insure military control of both domestic and foreign instabilities.

The military, industrial, congressional, and administrative elite profit from defense spending, both financially and ideologically. Insider profit taking from pentagon spending is widespread in Washington. But perhaps more important is the belief that this global military machine is seen as necessary for the protection of US corporate interests and the American upper classes in an increasingly destabilized world. Given that belief, the Obama administration is unlikely to change the defense spending policies of the previous US administrations without significant disruptive pressure from anti-war activists and global empire resisters.

Peter Phillips is a Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and Director of Project Censored a media research organization. His 2006 study on the Global Dominance Group in the US is available on line at: http://www.projectcensored.org/articles/story/the-global-dominance-group/