If You Don’t Like the News, Go Out and Make Some of Your Own
For many years, that was the spunky sign-off of Scoop Nisker, the roguishly independent newscaster of San Francisco’s underground FM radio. And under the equally irrepressible leadership of educator/activist Mickey Huff, that is the mantra of Project Censored, the independent media project founded back in 1976 by Sonoma State University professor Carl Jensen. Under Huff, the media project not only issues its annual list of the most important news stories overlooked by the mainstream media, but ways that media consumers can become more actively critical of the major news producers and ways that independent media producers are competing for the public’s attention.
Project Censored has just released its latest State of the Free Press 2021 paperback, including its annual list of ignored stories and a provocative Foreword by Matt Taibbi, which is worth quoting. (You can order the book here.)
“In some ways the modern corporate press is worse than it’s ever been in taking on powerful interests, and less interested than ever in addressing wealth inequality or the problems of poor people,” writes Taibbi. A new ideological wrinkle has been added to the mainstream media’s longtime disinterest in depressing or complex stories. Today’s news media is “not merely in the business of ignoring (Project Censored-type stories), it’s now actively engaged in teaching audiences to DISBELIEVE (my emphasis) in the very existence of such stories.” In other words, news and issues that should be on the front pages or at the top of news broadcasts are dismissed as fake or politically incorrect.
Taibbi cites Project Censored’s fourth overlooked story this year, “Congressional Investments and Conflict of Interest.” Because legislators on both sides of the aisle (including, yes, Dianne Feinstein, who has been much on my thoughts lately) were busted for using their insider Washington status to make killings on the stock market, the politically polarized press didn’t know how to sustain public outrage over this bipartisan corruption. But there is no more blatant an example of Washington swamp sleaziness than the story of powerful Senators and Congress members cashing in on Wall Street — including on the pandemic panic — while the rest of us were struggling to keep a roof over our heads.
Wake your own outrage about the failures of our media. The press is supposed to be the watchdog of democracy. But too often it’s slumbering in a cushy bed or snarling at the wrong targets. Order your copy of the new Project Censored paperback today.
