The Top 25 Censored Media Stories of 2002-2003

[tamiO]

I am having a great time reading over these stories and I thought maybe some of you would enjoy it, too. I am not sure I would call the stories censred; it seems that they just haven't been picked up by major media outlets here in the United States.

I am curious as to whether members from outside these great United States have heard seen coverage of some of these stories.

http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2004/index.html

[arcticpenguin]

You don't any political bias on that site, do you? :rolleyes:

I'd like to hear what happened to the 'mystery ships'. Remember those? Way back before the invasion of Iraq, there were these mysterious ships said to be circulating the oceans carrying who knew what, it was rumored that they were carrying the WMD. I neveer heard any follow-up.

[tamiO]

Originally posted by arcticpenguin
You don't any political bias on that site, do you? :rolleyes:

I'd like to hear what happened to the 'mystery ships'. Remember those? Way back before the invasion of Iraq, there were these mysterious ships said to be circulating the oceans carrying who knew what, it was rumored that they were carrying the WMD. I neveer heard any follow-up.

Yes, that site is definitely democratic/liberal.

I never heard about the mystery ships, though. Fnord.

[c0rbin]

From the "About" page of the Project Censored web site:

http://www.projectcensored.org/aboutus/index.html

The Primary Objective of Project Censored is to explore and publicize the extent of censorship in our society by locating stories about significant issues of which the public should be aware, but is not, for one reason or another. Thereby, the project hopes to stimulate responsible journalists to provide more mass media coverage of those issues and to encourage the general public to demand mass media coverage of those issues or to seek information from other sources.


(Emphasis mine)

Judging from the title of the site, I was under the impression that they were censored. What other reason would Project "Censored" want to high light an issue?

I am not a knee-jerk Bush supporter, but I find the bias here overwhelming.

[Chaos]

Well, I´ll take a look...

#1: The Neoconservative Plan for Global Dominance
Extensive coverage
#2: Homeland Security Threatens Civil Liberty
Extensive coverage
#3: US Illegally Removes Pages from Iraq U.N. Report
Some coverage
#4: Rumsfeld's Plan to Provoke Terrorists
Never heard about that
#5: The Effort to Make Unions Disappear
Never heard about that
#6: Closing Access to Information Technology
Never heard about that
#7: Treaty Busting by the United States
Old hat; coverage since early 2001
#8: US/British Forces Continue Use of Depleted Uranium
Weapons Despite Massive Evidence of Negative Health Effects
Some coverage
#9: In Afghanistan: Poverty, Women's Rights, and Civil Disruption Worse than Ever
some coverage
#10: Africa Faces Threat of New Colonialism
Never heard about that
#11: U.S. Implicated in Taliban Massacre
Extensive coverage
#12: Bush Administration Behind Failed Military Coup in Venezuela
No coverage; I knew they recognized the coup government, though
#13: Corporate Personhood Challenged
No coverage
#14: Unwanted Refugees a Global Problem
no coverage
#15: U.S. Military's War on the Earth
no coverage
#16: Plan Puebla-Panama and the FTAA
never heard about that
#17: Clear Channel Monopoly Draws Criticism
never heard about that
#18: Charter Forest Proposal Threatens Access to Public Lands
never heard about that
#19: U.S. Dollar vs. the Euro: Another Reason for the Invasion of Iraq
never heard about that
#20: Pentagon Increases Private Military Contracts
never heard about that
#21: Third World Austerity Policies: Coming Soon to a City Near You
never heard about that
#22: Welfare Reform Up For Reauthorization, but Still No Safety Net
Very little coverage; a one-page article in TIME, though
#23: Argentina Crisis Sparks Cooperative Growth
never heard about that
#24: Aid to Israel Fuels Repressive Occupation in Palestine
no coverage
#25: Convicted Corporations Receive Perks Instead of Punishment
no coverage

That´s all only for the German media, though; I´m not sure what´s going on in the rest of the continent.

[Blue Monk]

This site looks interesting to me. The ‘censored’ aspect is a bit of hyperbole I admit but scanning the articles I believe there may be some quality reporting here. I reserve the right to change my mind, however, when I get a chance to go over the articles more carefully.

One must remember that simply because and article takes a particular point of view, whether it be liberal or conservative or whatever, that in and of itself does not mean that the reporting is biased.

A piece can only be considered biased if the point of view of the author prevents them from producing an accurate picture. As long as the facts are true and properly cited and all relevant information supplied then the reporting is unbiased, regardless of the conclusion the author may draw from those facts.

As a liberal I often find very useful articles by conservatives that are unbiased in their reporting and though I may not agree with the author’s conclusion the information they provide can be useful and if the author makes their case well enough they may even alter my viewpoints.

The ‘US Dollar vs. the Euro’ is an interesting read, if for no other reason than to illuminate an aspect of the Iraqi war that until now I had never even considered. That is not to say that I agree with the article but it raises some very interesting issues that I feel justify further scrutiny. Fortunately the authors have provided the sources for their information.

[tamiO]

Blue Monk

Very well said. I am just now reading the Euros to Dollars article and was thinking the same thing. I am not affiliated with any party, in fact, the whole idea of parties does not appeal to me.

I suppose I should have clarified that I did not agree with AP that they are biased, I only said they were democratic and liberal. Democratic as in fair. The site does hype a bit there with the word censored, this is why I was curious if people outside our country saw more coverage of some of these topics than I did.

I have heard people (who live in the US) complain about the accuracy of news coverage in other countries and it often seems that it is only because they are "foreign" news stories. A bit of a bigoted approach to think that only the US Press is to be respected.

[Grammatron]

Originally posted by Blue Monk
This site looks interesting to me. The ‘censored’ aspect is a bit of hyperbole I admit but scanning the articles I believe there may be some quality reporting here. I reserve the right to change my mind, however, when I get a chance to go over the articles more carefully.

One must remember that simply because and article takes a particular point of view, whether it be liberal or conservative or whatever, that in and of itself does not mean that the reporting is biased.

A piece can only be considered biased if the point of view of the author prevents them from producing an accurate picture. As long as the facts are true and properly cited and all relevant information supplied then the reporting is unbiased, regardless of the conclusion the author may draw from those facts.

As a liberal I often find very useful articles by conservatives that are unbiased in their reporting and though I may not agree with the author’s conclusion the information they provide can be useful and if the author makes their case well enough they may even alter my viewpoints.

The ‘US Dollar vs. the Euro’ is an interesting read, if for no other reason than to illuminate an aspect of the Iraqi war that until now I had never even considered. That is not to say that I agree with the article but it raises some very interesting issues that I feel justify further scrutiny. Fortunately the authors have provided the sources for their information.

This is silly. If you really want to ruin EU economy then have OPEC switch to Euro, that would indeed drive the Euro up and dollar down, but it would also make EU goods unaffordable to most nations. It also has a potential for a really bad world wide economic effect; I don't see anyone being a winner in that situation.


The site itself is pretty ridicules; most of those "censored" stories are nothing but over-hyped opinion pieces with little to no evidence to back them. I'm in US and I am aware of all of them, but that's probably because I take interest in global events so I'm by no means an average American. Take #8 for instance: US/British Forces Continue Use of Depleted Uranium Weapons despite Massive Evidence of Negative Health Effects." There is no such evidence! There are warning that it might be bad and it warrants further study, but that is it. There are no studies sited just anecdotal evidence and random quotes. Makes you wonder how those articles were published in the first place.

Edited to correct mistakes

[Dancing David]

I hate to disappoint you Tami, that stuff is a round in the media, but americans are a complacent lot, they would rather there were headlines like
Monster Teens Run Amok
Have Larger Breasts Now

Bat Boy Hero, Flying Shuttle Mission.

Now if you had a naked female broadcaster go beserk with a gun and shoot people while she hopped up and down and told the news. THEN they might get some coverage.

[tamiO]

Originally posted by Dancing David
I hate to disappoint you Tami, that stuff is a round in the media, but americans are a complacent lot, they would rather there were headlines like
Monster Teens Run Amok
Have Larger Breasts Now

Bat Boy Hero, Flying Shuttle Mission.

Now if you had a naked female broadcaster go beserk with a gun and shoot people while she hopped up and down and told the news. THEN they might get some coverage.

I was aware of some of the stories when they came out. The one that really got me was the Alleged Taliban massacre. I did not know that the UN had launched an investigation into the charges and I never even heard any of that story reported by the major news networks.

You are so right about the complacency. My friends get their news from the local paper or Fox. If they read any news online it is likely to be right wing fundy christian driven news.

[Dancing David]

Amnesty always makes me think.

there is this story about the suicide deaths of UK soldiers in training, and there are like twenty of these cases. Which makes me wonder about the US military.


DeepCut Barracks (http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGEUR450072003?open&of=ENG-GBR)

Or this one about the UK soldiers in Kenya.

Kenya (http://http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGEUR450212003?open&of=ENG-GBR)

And for fairness here is one about GTmo detainee

Taxi Driver at GTmo (http://web.amnesty.org/pages/usa-190803-action-eng)

[Blue Monk]

[I]originally posted by Grammatron[I]
This is silly. If you really want to ruin EU economy then have OPEC switch to Euro, that would indeed drive the Euro up and dollar down, but it would also make EU goods unaffordable to most nations. It also has a potential for a really bad world wide economic effect; I don't see anyone being a winner in that situation.

Well, you'd have to elaborate on this because I don't understand but even if you do I may still not get it as Economics is far from my bag, hehe. My understanding was that the gist of the article was that Iraq and OPEC were already leaning toward the Euro which would drive the dollar down and that that would be bad for us and that was the point, not ruining the EU economy.

I agree with you about the depleted uranium scare but decided to do a little light fact checking against the article.

In the opening it says…
British and American coalition forces are using depleted uranium (DU) shells in the war against Iraq and deliberately flouting a UN resolution which classifies the munitions as illegal weapons of mass destruction.

Checking the UN website I could find no such resolution. There was a great deal of discussion on the matter following the Kosovo conflict but it was tabled until a more detailed study could be done. The general feeling was that it posed little risk but not much was known of the long-term effects.

As near as I can tell with out spending my whole evening researching the matter was pretty much laid to rest, based largely on a study conducted by the World Health Organization that concluded that although possible long term effects could not be ruled out 100% their findings indicated any such problems as extremely remote, where even actual ingestion would be inadequate to pose any significant health risk and though the studies suggest a possible connection between inhalation and an increase in risk for lung cancer, the amount required, if there is in fact any connection, would be in the magnitude of grams which would be near impossible under any normal conditions.

Here's a link to a World Health Organization Fact Sheet/Summary of it's report revised January 2003.

Depleted Uranium (http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs257/en/)

I won't dwell on the claims made by Helen Caldicott other than to state her Nobel Prize was for Peace and not Medicine and although she has impressive creditials her views are base on anedotal information and not shared by her peers and are directly discounted by the World Health Organization.

An August 2002 UN report states that the use of the DU weapons is in violation of numerous laws and UN conventions.

I won't quote the entire article but the preceding statement is simply not true.

The document in question can be read here (http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2001/gadis3209.doc.htm)

It is merely a press release and it states in several places that draft proposals or texts were introduced on the effects of depleted uranium. This is clearly not a UN resolution banning depleted uranium as the article states.

I started with this article because I was pretty sure it was nonsense but I wanted to be fair and check their facts to make sure I, indeed, was not being kept in the dark but this is very shoddy reporting.

I proclaim this one bogus.

edited to fix my garbled html. doh!

[Renfield]

That release is two years old. Has anything happened since then?

[Blue Monk]

Originally posted by Renfield
That release is two years old. Has anything happened since then?

Oh yeah, I just referenced that one because that is the document they refer to in the article as being a 'Resolution' which of course it is not.

If you want to see more recent stuff go to the UN website www.un.org (http://www.un.org) and do search on 'depleted uranium.' The most current stuff is listed first but it's pretty much more of the same, namely, that there is a need to study the issue to be sure there are not any overlooked long-range effects but that all studies to date indicate that there is little to no risk involved.