The Media Freedom Foundation

The Media Freedom Foundation (MFF) is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation established in 2000 to support First Amendment organizations and investigative research. The MFF raises funds for and works closely with Project Censored, and other investigative research and media related organizations.

Board of Directors

Mickey Huff

is the third director of Project Censored, founded in 1976, and the president of the nonprofit Media Freedom Foundation. Since 2009, he has coedited the annual volume of the Censored book series for Seven Stories Press in New York, now in partnership with The Censored Press, the Project’s new publishing imprint. He has contributed numerous chapters to these works since 2008. His most recent books include United States of Distraction: Media Manipulation in Post-Truth America (and what we can do about it), co-authored with Nolan Higdon, published by City Lights Books in San Francisco (2019) and Project Censored’s State of the Free Press 2021, co-edited with Andy Lee Roth (2020). In 2019, he was recognized by the Society of Professional Journalists, Northern California Chapter, for their annual James Madison Freedom of Information, Beverly Kees Educator Award. He continues to co-author articles on media and propaganda for several scholarly journals and news publications, as well as book chapters. He co-directed Project Censored’s latest documentary on fake news and critical media literacy, “United States of Distraction: Fighting the Fake News Invasion,” edited and narrated by Abby Martin (2020). His next publications include Project Censored’s State of the Free Press 2022, co-edited with Andy Lee Roth (The Censored Press/Seven Stories Press, 2021); and a forthcoming textbook fusing critical thinking, conflict management, and constructive communication practices  through a critical media literacy lens titled, Let’s Agree to Disagree, co-authored with Nolan Higdon (Routledge, 2022).

Huff is professor of social science, history, and journalism at Diablo Valley College where he co-chairs the History Area and is chair of the Journalism Department. He has been a lecturer in communications at California State University, East Bay and has taught sociology of media at Sonoma State University. Huff is executive producer and host of The Project Censored Show, a weekly syndicated public affairs program he founded with former Project Censored director Peter Phillips in 2010. The program originates from the historic studios of KPFA, Pacifica Radio, in Berkeley CA, and airs on 50 stations around the US and is also now a podcast online. 

Additionally, Huff sits on the board for the nonprofit Behind the Headlines and serves on the editorial board for the journal Secrecy and Society. For the past several years, Huff has worked with the national outreach committee of Banned Books Week, working with the American Library Association and the National Coalition Against Censorship, of which Project Censored is a member. He is a co-founding member of the Global Critical Media Literacy Project and is on the advisory board at Credder.com, which is a crowd contested media, interactive platform online that allows users to rate news articles and sources for trustworthiness using critical media literacy skills. He has been interviewed by numerous media outlets around the world and is regularly invited to give lectures and workshops at conferences and other public events regarding critical media literacy, propaganda, and censorship issues as well as contemporary historiography in the US. He is a longtime musician and composer and lives with his family, and two heavy metal pets (Lemmy the dog and Ozzy the cat) in Fair Oaks, California. He can be contacted at [email protected].

Adam Armstrong holds a B.A. in International Relations from CSU Chico and worked as a Community Economic Development Specialist as a Peace Corps Volunteer in an indigenous village in Panama for over 2 years. As a documentary filmmaker, Adam has lived and traveled in over 20 countries and along the way has worked and volunteered at homeless shelters in Central America and in the U.S. Adam has been on the Project Censored staff for over 10 years. To reach Adam please e-mail him at [email protected]

Dr. Nicholas L. Baham III is a Professor of Ethnic Studies at California State University East Bay and teaches courses in African American Studies and Genders & Sexualities in Communities of Color. His academic research focuses on marginalized African American communities structured around non-traditional religious beliefs, sexual practices, and artistic expression. His book, The Coltrane Church: Apostles of Sound, Agents of Social Justice was published in 2015 by McFarland Press. Dr. Baham is an emerging James Baldwin scholar who is currently working on an edited volume on James Baldwin’s influence on West Coast Black politics. Dr. Baham is a co-creator of the James Baldwin Digital Annotation Project and has presented papers entitled “Rough Sex and Racial Reconciliation in James Baldwin’s Another Country” and “Blackness Without Bullshit: James Baldwin and the Queering of Malcolm X” at several international James Baldwin conferences. In addition to his work on the Coltrane Church and the legacy of James Baldwin, Dr. Baham has also developed a reputation as an emerging scholar of Black Sexualities and is working on a forthcoming oral history project of African Americans in the Bay Area kink or BDSM scene. He can be followed on his blog of African American politics and culture called The Upper Room at nicholasbaham.blogspot.com.

Ben Boyington, M.Ed. (@BenBo370), is a teacher and media literacy advocate based in New Hampshire. Outside the classroom explorations of media, English, film, and history that Boyington creates with his students, he is interested in the integration of critical media literacy education from kindergarten through doctoral studies. In pursuit of this interest, he designs workshops and trains teachers in media literacy strategies and concepts, working both on his own and with Drs. Allison Butler and Nolan Higdon at Mass Media Literacy. Boyington founded his high school media studies work on the idea that skepticism and activism are essential to citizenship. He believes that depth of understanding comes from integration, design, and teaching others, and that heutagogy is more important than pedagogy. His research into the 1:1 screen initiative is published in Media Education for a Digital Generation (Routledge, 2016).

Kenn Burrows, MPH has been a health consultant and college educator for over thirty years, and a core faculty member of the Institute for Holistic Health Studies (IHHS) at San Francisco State University since 1995. Nationally known for his commitment to an integral approach to health studies, Burrows is a strong advocate for integrating the personal, environmental, social, and political aspects of health. His dedication to an expanded model of healthcare is reflected

in numerous educational and outreach activities, including: founding and directing The Holistic Health Learning Center, a unique interdisciplinary library and community action center for HH students at SF State. Since 1997 he has taught the popular course: Holistic Health: Human Nature and Global Perspectives—which explores evolutionary history and the world’s wisdom traditions with applications for today’s global challenges and post-modern society. Since 2004 he has produced: The Future of Health Care, a national conference held biennially at the university. The 2016 conference: Re-Visioning Human Potential, Education and Healthcare was co-hosted by The Society for Humanistic Psychology.  Since 2001, the Gandhi-King Season for Nonviolence—a 64-day (1/30-4/4) educational campaign showing how nonviolent behavior can empower our personal and collective lives.

He is also a member of the executive board of Media Freedom Foundation which oversees Project Censored, a national effort educating the public about media censorship and critical media literacy. In this capacity, Mr. Burrows and his students have been regular contributors to the annual book published by Project Censored: Censored—The Top Censored Stories and Media Analysis of the Year.

Prior to coming to SF State, Mr. Burrows taught at Foothill Community College for twelve years and operated Stress-Care, a corporate training and consulting company. His current research and teaching interests include: holistic philosophy (inquiry into the complexity, vitality and beauty inherent in nature/whole systems), stress and self-care skills, and dialogic methods and appreciative inquiry to support positive social capacity in groups and individuals.

Allison Butler is a Senior Lecturer, Director of Undergraduate Advising, and the Director of the Media Literacy Certificate Program in the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts Amherst in Amherst, MA, where she teaches courses on critical media literacy and representations of education in the media. Butler co-directs the grassroots organization, Mass Media Literacy (www.massmedialiteracy.org), where she develops and runs teacher trainings for the inclusion of critical media literacy in K-12 schools. She holds an MA and a PhD from New York University. She is the author of numerous articles and books on media literacy, most recently, Educating media literacy: The need for teacher education in critical media literacy (Brill, 2020) and Key scholarship in media literacy: David Buckingham (Brill, 2021). 

Eleanor Goldfield is a creative radical, journalist and filmmaker. Mutual aid and community organizing are cornerstones of Eleanor’s work and personal life, informing both her journalistic and artistic projects.

Her written and photo journalism has appeared in independent publications across the U.S. and internationally. She is one of the 2020 recipients of the “Women and Media Award” presented by The Women’s Institute for Freedom of the Press.

Recently, she released her first solo EP, titled “No Solo,” after more than a decade fronting the political hard rock band Rooftop Revolutionaries.

Her recent documentary film, “Hard Road of Hope,” which covers the radical history and present struggles in West Virginia has been widely acclaimed.

Currently, Eleanor is the co-host and associate producer of the Project Censored Show, host of the podcast Act Out!,  co-host of the podcast Common Censored along with Lee Camp, and also The Silver Threads Podcast with Carla Bergman.

Doug Hecker was born in San Francisco, Ca in 1966 and moved to Petaluma in 1971 where he currently lives. Doug has been married to Marlene for 22 years and has three children, Davis, Madelyn, Dawson, and has a horse, two goats and a dog. Doug has been coaching youth sports for over 17 years including baseball, soccer, basketball and cycling. He studied communications, sociology, investigative journalism, screenwriting and film while attending Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park, Ca. It was there where he attended the Project Censored class taught by the former director, Peter Phillips. Doug graduated with a bachelor’s degree in communications with an emphasis on journalism. Doug and his film partner, Christopher Oscar, released their documentary film in 2013, Project Censored The Movie, which has won several awards at film festivals, including Best Directors of a feature documentary at the Madrid International Film Festival in Spain. Doug has been a realtor for over 17 years. Doug’s favorite things to do are: anything and everything w/his family, cycling, motorcycles, coaching youth sports, camping and backpacking and working around his house. Doug has been contributing a percentage of every real estate transaction to the Committee on the Shelterless (C.O.T.S.)
in Petaluma for over 12 years.

Andy Lee Roth is the associate director of Project Censored. He coordinates the Project’s Campus Affiliates Program, a news media research network of several hundred students and faculty at two dozen colleges and universities across North America. His research and writing have been published in a variety of outlets, including Index on Censorship, In These Times, YES! Magazine, Media, Culture & Society, and the International Journal of Press/Politics. He earned a PhD in sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a BA in sociology and anthropology at Haverford College.

Veronica Santiago Liu is the founder and general coordinator of the collective that operates Word Up Community Bookshop/Librería Comunitaria, a nonprofit bookstore and community space in Washington Heights, NYC. Prior to that she was managing editor then senior editor for more than a decade at Seven Stories Press, where she currently contributes as editor at large. Veronica was the former in-house editor of the Project Censored yearbooks at Seven Stories Press.

T. M. Scruggs is professor emeritus in ethnomusicology at the University of Iowa, who has published in print, audio, and video format on Central American, Cuban, and Venezuelan music and dance and US jazz. He is involved in community radio in Nicaragua, Venezuela, and the United States, including the KPFA (Berkeley, CA) Local Station Board, and the Pacifica National Board. Scruggs serves as the executive producer for The Real News Network and as a board member of Truthout and the Media Freedom Foundation.

Founder

In 1976, Dr. Carl Jensen founded Project Censored at Sonoma State University as a media research program with a focus on student development of media literacy and critical thinking skills as applied to the news media censorship in the US. Each year the Project researches, vets, and compiles the Top Twenty Five most censored and under-reported news stories in the US, and offers scholarly analysis and critiques, which are published by Seven Stories Press.

Sociologist Dr. Peter Phillips became director in 1996 and continued to expand the annual book and educational outreach. In 2000, the Project came under the oversight of the non-profit Media Freedom Foundation, founded by Jensen and Phillips, to ensure its independence.

President emeritus and founder, Media Freedom Foundation, former director Project Censored 1996-2010

Peter Phillips is a Professor of Political Sociology at Sonoma State University since 1994, former Director of Project Censored 1996 to 2010 and President of Media Freedom Foundation 2003 to 2017.  He has been editor or co-editor of fourteen editions of Censored, co-editor with Dennis Loo of Impeach the President: The Case Against Bush and Cheney 2006, editor of two editions of Progressive Guide to Alternative Media and Activism 1999 & 2004. He was a co-host of the weekly Project Censored show on Pacifica Radio with Mickey Huff 2010 to 2017 originating from KPFA in Berkeley and airing on forty stations nationwide. He teaches courses in Political Sociology, Sociology of Power, Sociological of Media, Sociology of Conspiracies and Investigative Sociology. He was winner of the Firecracker Alternative Book Award in 1997 for Best Political Book, PEN Censorship Award 2008, Dallas Smythe Award from the Union for Democratic Communications 2009, and the Pillar Human Rights Award from the National Associations of Whistleblowers 2014. He lives in a redwood forest near Bodega California with his wife Mary Lia.

Project Censored/Media Freedom Foundation
PO Box 1177
Fair Oaks, CA 95628

Telephone:
(707) 241-4596