In the last 35 years, the so-called mainstream media have been co-opted into a propaganda machine for the transnational corporate power structure, which serves a US/NATO Military Industrial Media Empire instead of We the People.

Project Censored resists the goals of global empire at the expense of human rights, we resist top down managed news in favor of a truly free press, and we resist censorship in all its guises.

Media Democracy in Action is our belief and we will firmly continue to build media from the bottom up by supporting independent news sources and validating content with our expanding number of affiliate colleges and universities worldwide.  Functioning democracies are the result of an informed and participatory public and we need an informed electorate now more than ever to protect our civil liberties, our economy, and our Constitution.

Please Support this effort by making an Anniversary Gift to Project Censored.  Gifts of $35 or more will be shown our gratitude with a copy of Censored 2012 upon release in September, with an introduction by former director Dr. Peter Phillips, and signed to you personally by current Project Censored director Mickey Huff.

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Preview of Censored 2012 (Available NOW)

For Censored 2012, we continue to divide our annual publication into three sections as we broaden, grow, and diversify efforts to illuminate examples of censorship in the corporate mainstream US press.  Further, we continue to promote ways to improve our systems of reporting and communicating to the public at large about the most crucial issues we face as a society.

The first section of this year’s book, on the News that Didn’t Make the News and Why, houses the traditional top censored news stories from the past year, which are now analyzed in what we call Censored News Clusters.  Within these Clusters, Project Censored’s team of media experts and their student interns analyze and connect the dots between stories based on similar themes or topics rather than simply list the top stories as ranked in importance by Project Censored judges.  For the first time, we focus on the connections between censored stories as the structure of this chapter, flushing out why some topics are prone to such underreporting, and what we might do about this problem, rather than simply list and summarize top censored stories.

In the second chapter, Censored Déjà vu, we check for any new or increased coverage of previously underreported top stories.  Most receive little if any coverage in the corporate mainstream press, but if they do, we monitor and remark upon it here, ever in hopes that the corporate media may be improved, but not waiting for such to take place as we advocate for the coming media revolution.

In chapter three, Adam Bessie joins the Project Censored director, Abby Martin of Media Roots and student interns to analyze the ubiquity of Junk Food News and the growing problem of News Abuse, including framing and propaganda in US media.  This year we include a case study in how pubic workers (teachers especially) have been negatively portrayed in the corporate press as a major example of News Abuse.

Chapter four, with San Francisco State University professor of Holistic Studies Kenn Burrows, brings out the best in underreported news as we look at the positive, the signs of health and community building as published in the independent press, which the corporate media tend to deride, downplay, or outright ignore.  The problems we face do not merely include the sordid things that are going on around us that the corporate media do not report, they also include the many positive things that are going on often right in front of us that the corporate media do not recognize, hence contributing to a sense of disconnection among many in society.

Chapter five brings back our media activism showcase which includes examples of media democracy in action, highlighting what other activists, scholars, and organizations are doing to achieve the media revolution, supporting the First Amendment, in maintenance of self governance and democracy.  This year we welcome the Park Center for Independent Media, PR Watch, Media Alliance, Media Roots, Courage to Resist and more.

Section two focuses on what we call the Truth Emergency. This Truth Emergency we face is a result of the lack of factual reporting by the so-called mainstream media over the past decade.  Americans are subjected to mass amounts of propaganda, from misinformation to disinformation, on a daily basis about some of the most significant issues of the day.  Whether this involves the post-9/11 wars in the Middle East, the health care debate, election fraud or economic collapse, most Americans are unaware of all the facts of how we got where we now are as a society.  It is the duty of the constitutionally protected free press to report factually to the public on these matters.  However, as our work shows dating back to 1976, that is not happening.  One way of combating this Truth Emergency is by understanding the nature of propaganda.  This year, our Truth Emergency section is a primer on Propaganda Studies, which includes a brief history, theory, application, and case studies all presented to enhance media literacy among the general public.  We are pleased to bring some of the best and brightest in the field to offer insight on this ever-important area of study.  Randal Marlin gives a brief history of propaganda; Jacob Van Vleet looks at one of the key theorists of propaganda, Jacques Ellul.  Robert Abele offer a philosophical and structural analysis of propaganda for readers while Elliot D. Cohen and Anthony DiMaggio look at specific areas, like the importance of Net Neutrality and astroturf activism in the so-called Tea Party, where understanding communication politics and media literacy really matter if a society is to be truly democratically functional, able to operate outside the propaganda matrix of the corporate media and establishment public relations machine.

The final section of the book is Project Censored International, which is a collection of various studies and media commentary that not only look at problems of global media censorship, but also examine how these important issues are handled, or ignored here in the US corporate press.  This section brings us a diverse group of scholars and activists, including Cynthia Boaz, Ann Garrison, Jon Elmer with Nora Barrows-Friedman, Robin Andersen, Margaret Flowers, and Ina May Gaskin.  The significant issues in this section include the Fair Sharing of the Common Heritage, introduced by Mary Lia, on moving toward an embrace of the human commons; understanding non-violence and how media depict such movements for peace and social justice; and the deconstruction of various myths– from the incredibly biased reporting on Africa to distorted views of recent disaster coverage, plus the ongoing skewed coverage concerning Israel/Palestine. This section continues on issues of health with an analysis of the top down denial of mass public support for single payer healthcare, and we round out Censored 2012 by looking at how corporate media distort life itself, from birth, by examining how corporate media have either ignored or demonized the efficacy of natural childbirth and midwifery in the US, despite that the facts surrounding homebirth culture clearly refute the mainstream coverage.

All in all, this is a work in progress and it involves hundreds of dedicated scholars, and students at over two dozen college and universities all over the world.  These are people from all walks of life across the globe who have at least one thing in common:  the belief in democracy and the role a free press plays in creation, protection, and maintenance of it.  Thanks to all who made this work possible, to all the tireless and selfless contributors, to all the readers and supporters of a free and vibrant people’s press, one that is always and only uncensored.

Your support is greatly appreciated:

Media Freedom Foundation/Project Censored Board of Directors

Mickey Huff, Peter Phillips, Elaine Wellin, Mary Lia, Carl Jensen, Cynthia Boaz,

Bill Simon, Derrick West, Dave Mathison, Nora Barrows-Friedman, Andy Roth, Miguel Molina, Dennis Bernstein, Kenn Burrows, and Noel Byrne

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Order an autographed copy of Censored 2012, available now for $35 in honor of Project Censored 35th anniversary

Mickey Huff and I have been volunteer hosts on the Thursday Morning Mix show on KPFA (8:00-9:00 AM) since late December.

We have covered some very important topics including: US Economy and the Collapse of the Dollar, Immigrants Rights,  Racism and White Privilege, Media as Entertainment, and the Crisis in Higher Education in California.

We volunteered because KPFA is in a funding crisis and needs to be fully supported.

We believe that there is no topic that should not be covered on KPFA community free speech radio, especially the most censored news stories that we feature on our website (www.projectcensored.org) and in our annual yearbook—Censored 2011.

We will be offering special premiums during our Thursday show this week February 17,  and the two weeks following February 24 and March 3.

On these shows we will play segments of speeches from the Understanding Deep Politics Conference in Santa Cruz last May. These unique nine hour DVDs features, Peter Dale Scot, Michael Parenti, Dahlia Wasfi, Ellen Brown,  David Ray Griffin, Annie Machon and others. The talks  openly discuss the underlying issues of covert power in the US that had led us into war, conflicts, economic decline,  9/11, election fraud, torture, renditions, and loss of civil liberties. This entire set of DVDs will be offer for a pledge of $120 to support KPFA.

In addition, we will be featuring a 54 minute DVD of Richard Gage from Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth presenting scientific information at Sonoma State University last fall on the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings 1-2 & 7. The Gage DVD will be offered for a $60 donation to KPFA. There no conspiracy theories on this DVD, only hard scientific facts that raise troubling questions regarding the truth of 9/11 Commission report.

The book premium of the day is our Censored 2011 yearbook for an $80 support gift to KPFA. Learn about the most censored news stories of 2009-10 and the on-going truth emergency in the US and the world.

Every American deserves an opportunity to address questions and get full transparent answers to the important socio-political issues of the day. Without full information we often do not know what questions to ask the higher powers or how to challenge their hidden authority.

Listen to our KPFA Morning mix Show 94.1 FM from 8-9:00 AM Thursdays or on-line at www.kpfa.org. Call in to pledge support to KPFA at: 510-848-5732 or Toll free: 1-800-439-5732 and  keep free speech radio alive and on the air.  Out of area folks can listen and pledge on-line at www.kpfa.org

Or Mail a check to:

Development:

In Support of the Morning Mix Project Censored Show

KPFA Radio,

1929 MLK Jr. Way,

Berkeley, CA 94704

Let us know if we may thank you on the air!

Sincerely,

Peter Phillips

Co-Host of the Project Censored Morning Mix Show

President: Media Freedom Foundation—e-mail: Peter [at] KPFA.org

Mickey Huff,

Director Project Censored/Media Freedom Foundation

Co-Host of the Project Censored Morning Mix Show—E-mail: Mickey [at] KPFA.org

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 here.

A new report (9/2/08) from The World Bank admits that in 2005 three billion one hundred and forty million people live on less that $2.50 a day and about 44% of these people survive on less than $1.25. Complete and total wretchedness can be the only description for the circumstances faced by so many, especially those in urban areas. Simple items like phone calls, nutritious food, vacations, television, dental care, and inoculations are beyond the possible for billions of people.

Starvation.net logs the increasing impacts of world hunger and starvation. Over 30,000 people a day (85% children under 5) die of malnutrition, curable diseases, and starvation.  The numbers of unnecessary deaths has exceeded three hundred million people over the past forty years.

These are the people who David Rothkopf in his book Superclass calls the unlucky. “If you happen to be born in the wrong place, like sub-Saharan Africa, …that is bad luck,” Rothkopf writes. Rothkopf goes on to describe how the top 10% of the adults worldwide own 84% of the wealth and the bottom half owns barely 1%. Included in the top 10% of wealth holders are the one thousand global billionaires. But is such a contrast of wealth inequality really the result of luck, or are there policies, supported by political elites, that protect the few at the expense of the many?

Farmers around the world grow more than enough food to feed the entire world adequately. Global grain production yielded a record 2.3 billion tons in 2007, up 4% from the year before, yet, billions of people go hungry every day. Grain.org describes the core reasons for continuing hunger in a recent article “Making a Killing from Hunger.” It turns out that while farmers grow enough food to feed the world, commodity speculators and huge grain traders like Cargill control the global food prices and distribution. Starvation is profitable for corporations when demands for food push the prices up. Cargill announced that profits for commodity trading for the first quarter of 2008 were 86% above 2007.  World food prices grew 22% from June 2007 to June 2008 and a significant portion of the increase was propelled by the $175 billion invested in commodity futures that speculate on price instead of seeking to feed the hungry. The result is wild food price spirals, both up and down, with food insecurity remaining widespread.

For a family on the bottom rung of poverty a small price increase is the difference between life and death, yet neither US presidential candidate has declared a war on starvation. Instead both candidates talk about national security and the continuation of the war on terror as if this were the primary election issue. Given that ten times as many innocent people died on 9/11/01 than those in the World Trade centers, where is the Manhattan project for global hunger? Where is the commitment to national security though unilateral starvation relief? Where is the outrage in the corporate media with pictures of dying children and an analysis of who benefits from hunger?

American people cringe at the thought of starving children, often thinking that there is little they can do about it, save sending in a donation to their favorite charity for a little guilt relief. Yet giving is not enough, we must demand hunger relief as a national policy inside the next presidency. It is a moral imperative for us as the richest nation in the world nation to prioritize a political movement of human betterment and starvation relief for the billions in need. Global hunger and massive wealth inequality is based on political policies that can be changed. There will be no national security in the US without the basic food needs of the world being realized.

Peter Phillips is a professor of sociology at Sonoma State University and director of Project Censored a media research group.  His new book Censored 2009 is now available from by Seven Stories Press.

The United States is directly responsible for over one million Iraqi deaths since the invasion five and half years ago.  In a January 2008 report, a British polling group Opinion Research Business (ORB) reports that, “survey work confirms our earlier estimate that over 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have died as a result of the conflict which started in 2003…. We now estimate that the death toll between March 2003 and August 2007 is likely to have been of the order of 1,033,000. If one takes into account the margin of error associated with survey data of this nature then the estimated range is between 946,000 and 1,120,000”.

The ORB report comes on the heels of two earlier studies conducted by Johns Hopkins University published in the Lancet medical journal that confirmed the continuing numbers of mass deaths in Iraq.  A study done by Dr. Les Roberts from January 1, 2002 to March 18 2003 put the civilian deaths at that time at over 100,000. A second study published in the Lancet in October 2006 documented over 650,000 civilian deaths in Iraq since the start of the US invasion.  The 2006 study confirms that US aerial bombing in civilian neighborhoods caused over a third of these deaths and that over half the deaths are directly attributable to US forces.

The now estimated 1.2 million dead, as of July 2008, includes children, parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, cab drivers, clerics, schoolteachers, factory workers, policemen, poets, healthcare workers, day care providers, construction workers, babysitters, musicians, bakers, restaurant workers and many more. All manner of ordinary people in Iraq have died because the United States decided to invade their country. These are deaths in excess of the normal civilian death rate under the prior government.

The magnitude of these deaths is undeniable. The continuing occupation by US forces guarantees a mass death rate in excess of 10,000 people per month with half that number dying at the hands of US forces— a carnage so severe and so concentrated at to equate it with the most heinous mass killings in world history. This act has not gone unnoticed.

Recently, Dennis Kucinich introduced a single impeachment article against George W. Bush for lying to Congress and the American people about the reasons for invading Iraq. On July 15 The House forwarded the resolution to the Judiciary Committee with a 238 to 180 vote.  That Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction and Iraq’s threat to the US is now beyond doubt. Former US federal prosecutor Elizabeth De La Vega documents the lies most thoroughly in her book U.S. Vs Bush, and numerous other researchers have verified Bush’s untrue statements.

The American people are faced with a serious moral dilemma. Murder and war crimes have been conducted in our name. We have allowed the war/occupation to continue in Iraq and offered ourselves little choice within the top two presidential candidates for immediate cessation of the mass killings. McCain would undoubtedly accept the deaths of another million Iraqi civilians in order to save face for America, and Obama’s 18-month timetable for withdrawal would likely result in another 250,000 civilian deaths or more.

We owe our children and ourselves a future without the shame of mass murder on our collective conscience. The only resolution of this dilemma is the immediate withdrawal of all US troops in Iraq and the prosecution and imprisonment of those responsible. Anything less creates a permanent original sin on the soul of the nation for that we will forever suffer.

Peter Phillips is a Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and director of Project Censored a media research group.  He is the co-editor with Dennnis Loo of the book Impeach the President: The Case Against Bush and Cheney.

“You cannot kill truth by murdering journalists,” said Tubal Páez, president of the Journalist Union of Cuba. One hundred and fifty Cuban and South American journalists, ambassadors, politicians, and foreign guests gathered at the Jose Marti International Journalist Institute to honor the 50th anniversary of the death of Carlos Bastidas Arguello —the last journalist killed in Cuba.  Carlos Bastidas was only 23 years of age when he was assassinated by Fulgencia Batista’s secret police after having visited Fidel Castro’s forces in the Sierra Maestra Mountains. Edmundo Bastidas, Carlos’ brother, told about how a river of changed flowed from the Maestra (teacher) mountains, symbolized by his brother’s efforts to help secure a new future for Cuba.

The celebration in Havana was held in honor of World Press Freedom Day, which is observed every year in May. World Press Freedom day was proclaimed by the UN in 1993 to honor journalists who have lost their lives reporting the news, and to defend media freedom worldwide.

During my five days in Havana, I met with dozens of journalists, communication studies faculty and students, union representatives and politicians. The underlying theme of my visit was to determine the state of media freedom in Cuba and to build a better understanding between media democracy activists in the US and those in Cuba.

I toured the two main radio stations in Havana, Radio Rebelde and Radio Havana. Both have Internet access to multiple global news sources including CNN, Reuters, Associated Press and BBC with several newscasters pulling stories for public broadcast. Over 90 municipalities in Cuba have their own locally run radio stations, and journalists report local news from every province.

During the course of several hours in each station I was interviewed on the air about media consolidation and censorship in the US and was able to ask journalists about censorship in Cuba as well. Of the dozens I interviewed all said that they have complete freedom to write or broadcast any stories they choose.  This was a far cry from the Stalinist media system so often depicted by US interests.

Nonetheless it did became clear that Cuban journalists share a common sense of a continuing counter-revolutionary threat by US financed Cuban-Americans living in Miami. This is not an entirely unwarranted feeling in that many hundreds of terrorist actions against Cuba have occurred with US backing over the past fifty years. In addition to the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion, these attacks include the blowing up of a Cuban airlines plane in 1976 resulting in the deaths of seventy-three people, the starting in 1981 of an epidemic of dengue fever that killed 158 people and several hotel bombings in the 1990s one of which resulted in the death of an Italian tourist.

In the context of this external threat, Cuban journalists quietly acknowledge that some self-censorship will undoubtedly occur regarding news stories that could be used by the “enemy” against the Cuban people. Nonetheless, Cuban journalists strongly value freedom of the press and there was no evidence of overt restriction or government control.

Cuban journalists complain that the US corporate media is bias and refuses to cover the positive aspects of socialism in Cuba. Unknown to most Americans are the facts that Cuba is the number one organic country in the world, has an impressive health care system with a lower infant mortality rate than the US, trains doctor from all over the world, and has enjoyed a 43% increase in GDP over the past three years.

Ricardo Alarcon, President of the National Assembly, discussed bias in the US media, “how often do you see Gore Vidal interviewed on the US media?” he asked. Vidal has recently said that the US is in its ‘worst phase in history.’ “Perhaps Cuba uses corporate news to excess,” he said, “Cuban journalists need to link more to independent news sources in the US.” Alarcon went on to say that Cuba allows CNN, AP and Chicago Tribune to maintain offices in Cuba, but that the US refuses to allow Cuban journalists to work in the United States.

As the Cuban socialist system improves, the US does everything it can to artificially force cold-war conditions by funding terrorist attacks, maintaining an economic boycott, launching a new anti-terrorism Caribbean naval fleet, and increasingly limiting US citizen travel to Cuba. It is time to reverse this cold-war isolationist position, honor the Cuban peoples choice of a socialist system and build a positive working relationship between journalists in support of media democracy in both our countries.

Peter Phillips is a professor of Sociology and Sonoma State University and director of Project Censored a media research organization. He traveled to Cuba as an invited guest of the Journalist Union of Cuba May 10 to 15, 2008.

Will November 2008 bring a meaningful change to America? Will getting rid of George W. Bush and Richard Cheney without impeachment or indictment really make a difference? Will a 600 billion dollar war/defense budget be cut in half and used for desperately needed domestic spending? Will the ninety-three billion dollars profits in the private health insurance companies¬¬—those parasitic intermediates between you and your doctor—be used instead for full health care coverage for all? Will Habeas Corpus and Posse Comitatus be restored to the people? Will torture stop and the US withdraw from Iraq immediately? Will all students in public universities be able to enroll for free? Will the US national security agencies stop mass spying on our personal communications? Will the neo-conservative agenda of total military domination of the world be reversed?

The answer to these questions in the context of the current billion dollar presidential campaign is an absolute no. Instead we have a campaign of personalities and platitudes. There is a race candidate, a gender candidate and a tortured veteran candidate, each talking about change in America, national security, freedom, and the American way. The candidates are running with support of political parties so deeply embedded with the military industrial complex, the health insurance companies, Wall Street, and corporate media that it is undeterminable where the board rooms separate from the state rooms.

The 2008 presidential race is a media entertainment spectacle with props, gossip, accusations, and public relations. It is impression management from a candidates’ perspective. How can we fool the most people into believing that we stand for something? It is billions of dollars of gravy for the media folks and continued profit maximunization for the war machine, Wall Street, and insurance companies no matter who is determined the winner in November.

We must face the fact that the US government’s primary mission is to protect the wealthy and insure capital expansion worldwide. The US military—spending more than the rest of the militaries of the world combined—is the muscle behind this protect-capital-at-all-costs agenda, and will be used against the American people if deemed necessary to support the mission.

Homeland Security, the North American Command, mass arrest practices with the FALCON raids, new detentions centers, and broadened “terrorism” laws to included interference with business profits are all now in place to insure domestic tranquility through extra judicial means if needed.

The two party corporate political system is having a HOMELAND presidential campaign—Hillary, Obama, McCain,Election, Lacking, Actual, National, Debate. It is time for real change, but it will only come with a social movement of reform in the tradition of the progressive, labor, civil rights, anti-war movements of the last century. We need to use all of our activist, legal, and political resources to reverse these threats to freedom. Naomi Wolf says it is not too late to prevent totalitarianism, but we have to act fast.

Peter Phillips is a Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and director of Project Censored. Access to verifying facts and analysis for the issues mentioned above is available at www.projectcensored.org. Reprints and postings allowed with credit to original author.

http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/net-report.html

Many economists now doubt that government measures can prevent a major recession given the severe slump in the housing market, the subprime mortgage crisis, growing unemployment, declining consumer spending, and record high oil prices. Even harder times for working people are undoubtedly at hand, yet mainstream corporate media continues to lavish more attention on the Super Bowl and celebrity misadventures than measures to protect Americans from grave personal economic harm. We are spun, mislead, propagandized and amused to death by our media conglomerates and as a result the US has become the best entertained and least informed society in the world.

There is a literal truth emergency in the United States, not only regarding distant wars, torture camps, and doctored intelligence, but also around issues that most intimately impact our lives at home. For example, few Americans know that there has been a thirty-five year decline in real wages for most workers in the country, while the top 10% now enjoy unparalleled wealth with strikingly low tax burdens.

George Seldes once said, “Journalism’s job is not impartial ‘balanced’ reporting. Journalism’s job is to tell the people what is really going on.” Michael Moore’s top-grossing movie Sicko is one example of telling the people what is really going on. Health care activists know that US health insurance is an extremely large and obscenely lucrative industry with the top nine companies “earning” $93 billion in profits in 2006 alone. The health-care industry represents the country’s third-largest economic sector, trailing only energy and retail among the 1,000 largest US firms.

Nevertheless, 16%of Americans still have no health insurance whatsoever and that number will not soon decline, as insurance costs continue to rise two to three times faster than inflation. The consequences are immediate and tragic. Unpaid medical bills are now the number one cause of personal bankruptcy in the country, and the Institute of Medicine estimates that nearly eighteen thousand Americans die prematurely each year because they lack coverage and access to adequate care.

US private health care services differ markedly from other industrialized countries where single payer systems provide everyone with medical care as a basic human right.  Unfortunately, objective media coverage and comparisons of single-payer public health care with our current profit-driven corporate system are almost non-existent at this time. To protect their bloated bottom lines, private insurance companies and HMOs invest heavily in lobbyists and corporate-friendly political candidates that promote their “indispensable” role in any future health care reforms.  Besides their insider political influence, these firms deploy massive advertising budgets to discourage media investigations of the economic interests shaping our health policies today

Tens of thousands of American engaged in various social justice issues constantly witness how corporate media marginalize, denigrate or simply ignore their concerns. Activist groups working on issues like 9/11 truth, election fraud, impeachment, war propaganda, civil liberties/torture, and many corporate-caused environmental crises have been systematically excluded from mainstream news and the national conversation leading to a genuine truth emergency in the country as a whole.

Now, however, a growing number of activists are finally saying “enough!” and joining forces to address this truth emergency by developing new journalistic systems and practices of their own. They are working to reveal the common corporate denominators behind the diverse crises we face and to develop networks of trustworthy news sources that tell the people what is really going on.  These activists know we need a journalism that moves beyond forensic inquiries into particular crimes and atrocities, and exposes wider patterns of corruption, propaganda and illicit political control to rouse the nation to reject a malignant corporate status quo.

This Truth Emergency Movement held its first national strategy summit in Santa Cruz, California Jan. 25-27, 2008. Organizers gathered key media constituencies to devise coherent decentralized models for distribution of suppressed news, synergistic truth-telling, and collaborative strategies to disclose, legitimize and popularize deeper historical narratives on power and inequality in the US. In sum this truth movement is seeking to discover in this moment of Constitutional crisis, ecological peril and widening war, ways in which top investigative journalists, whistleblowers and independent media activists can transform the way Americans perceive and defend their world.

Peter Phillips is a professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and director of Project Censored, a media research organization. David Kubiak taught mass media and memetics for 10 years at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan and is the former executive director of 911truth.org.  For information on the Truth Emergency movement see: http://truthemergency.us/