Post by nana on Apr 9, 2005 19:16:25 GMT -5
'Underreported news gives government chance to hide the truth'
By Martin L. Haines, Asbury Park Press 04/7/05
A free press, guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, is an essential ingredient of our liberties. Free speech, perhaps our most important right, includes the right and the obligation to criticize our government. That right is of little value unless we know the facts that only a free and responsible press can provide. Today, saddled as we are with a government more interested in restricting the dissemination of news than the opposite, a free press is crucial.
Sometimes news is overreported. Any incident involving sex, however trivial or remote, receives wide publicity. The display of Terri Schiavo's sad picture was not only needlessly repetitious but also became a thoughtless invasion of her privacy.
While overreporting is sometimes destructive and always annoying, it is underreporting that dangerously restricts the exercise of our right to free speech. It is the failure of major news sources to report stories critical of our government. It is a form of censorship that permits governments to act in secret.
We can learn a lot about underreporting by reading "Project Censored 2005" at www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/ and its annual predecessors.
"Project Censored 2005" is written by Peter Phillips and managed by the Sociology Department of Sonoma State University in California. Its central feature is a report on the 25 most underreported news stories of 2004. Each story is updated by its author, usually with references to more resources. The book also provides information on censorship in general and its use throughout the world.
The 25 stories are chosen through an exhausting process of elimination, beginning with the selection of perhaps 1,000 stories, whittled down by various reviews, culminating in the final selections by a panel of judges experienced in the gathering and reporting of news.
The stories in "Project Censored 2005" reveal otherwise hidden government activities — disturbing reflections of our society's drastic unraveling by a conscienceless administration.
The No. 1 censored story covers the greatly increasing wealth inequality in our country. In 2003, the top 1 percent of the U.S. population owned about one third of the country's wealth, a result of "legislative policies carefully crafted and lobbied for by corporations and the super-rich over the past 25 years," Phillips wrote.
The most shocking story deals with the uranium contamination of our own troops and the civilian populations of Iraq and Afghanistan, caused by U.S. military operations. The contamination results from the post-9/11 use of tons of radioactive depleted and non-depleted uranium munitions. Four million pounds were dropped on Iraq in 2003 alone.
Most American weapons contain high amounts of radioactive uranium. When detonated, radioactive dust is released over wide areas and inhaled by troops and civilians. The dust enters the body and stays there, causing cancers, birth defects and other deadly and disabling illnesses, for which there is neither treatment nor cure. Its use continues — without government acknowledgment.
Other troublesome U.S. actions have been taken to favor the rich, disfavor the poor and satisfy the demands of the conservative right and big corporate campaign contributors:
The giveaway and destruction of our natural resources. Restrictive rules concerning power plant emissions have been greatly relaxed. Projects giving logging companies access to old growth trees are being funded by the government. An energy policy created in secret by self-serving, energy using and selling corporations is being pressed upon Congress.
Voting machine use and electoral policies are suspect. Four corporations control the manufacture of machines and all are headed by personnel with strong connections to the current administration — clear conflicts of interest, which are ignored. Software used to control the counting and reporting of votes is withheld from public scrutiny.
Judicial appointments, once vetted by the American Bar Association, which rated candidates and kept extremists, liberal or conservative, off the bench, are now passed upon by the Federalist Society. The society is an ultra-conservative organization devoted to "fulfilling the radical right's agenda on race, religion, class, money, morality, abortion and power," Phillips wrote.
The administration claims frequently that it is bringing democracy to Iraq. In fact, we have censored its news publications and suppressed its labor unions, serious failures to honor democratic principles.
The sciences, as nearly as possible, are explorations of truth. Truth sometimes frustrates government plans. When it does, the sciences, not the plans, have been scrapped by the Bush administration.
There is much more valuable information in "Project Censored 2005." All of it is eye-opening information needed to keep a free society free.
Martin L. Haines, of Moorestown, is a retired Superior Court judge and a former State Bar Association president.
Copyright © 2005 Asbury Park Press.
Reprinted from :
www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050407/OPINION/504070340/1030
By Martin L. Haines, Asbury Park Press 04/7/05
A free press, guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution, is an essential ingredient of our liberties. Free speech, perhaps our most important right, includes the right and the obligation to criticize our government. That right is of little value unless we know the facts that only a free and responsible press can provide. Today, saddled as we are with a government more interested in restricting the dissemination of news than the opposite, a free press is crucial.
Sometimes news is overreported. Any incident involving sex, however trivial or remote, receives wide publicity. The display of Terri Schiavo's sad picture was not only needlessly repetitious but also became a thoughtless invasion of her privacy.
While overreporting is sometimes destructive and always annoying, it is underreporting that dangerously restricts the exercise of our right to free speech. It is the failure of major news sources to report stories critical of our government. It is a form of censorship that permits governments to act in secret.
We can learn a lot about underreporting by reading "Project Censored 2005" at www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/ and its annual predecessors.
"Project Censored 2005" is written by Peter Phillips and managed by the Sociology Department of Sonoma State University in California. Its central feature is a report on the 25 most underreported news stories of 2004. Each story is updated by its author, usually with references to more resources. The book also provides information on censorship in general and its use throughout the world.
The 25 stories are chosen through an exhausting process of elimination, beginning with the selection of perhaps 1,000 stories, whittled down by various reviews, culminating in the final selections by a panel of judges experienced in the gathering and reporting of news.
The stories in "Project Censored 2005" reveal otherwise hidden government activities — disturbing reflections of our society's drastic unraveling by a conscienceless administration.
The No. 1 censored story covers the greatly increasing wealth inequality in our country. In 2003, the top 1 percent of the U.S. population owned about one third of the country's wealth, a result of "legislative policies carefully crafted and lobbied for by corporations and the super-rich over the past 25 years," Phillips wrote.
The most shocking story deals with the uranium contamination of our own troops and the civilian populations of Iraq and Afghanistan, caused by U.S. military operations. The contamination results from the post-9/11 use of tons of radioactive depleted and non-depleted uranium munitions. Four million pounds were dropped on Iraq in 2003 alone.
Most American weapons contain high amounts of radioactive uranium. When detonated, radioactive dust is released over wide areas and inhaled by troops and civilians. The dust enters the body and stays there, causing cancers, birth defects and other deadly and disabling illnesses, for which there is neither treatment nor cure. Its use continues — without government acknowledgment.
Other troublesome U.S. actions have been taken to favor the rich, disfavor the poor and satisfy the demands of the conservative right and big corporate campaign contributors:
The giveaway and destruction of our natural resources. Restrictive rules concerning power plant emissions have been greatly relaxed. Projects giving logging companies access to old growth trees are being funded by the government. An energy policy created in secret by self-serving, energy using and selling corporations is being pressed upon Congress.
Voting machine use and electoral policies are suspect. Four corporations control the manufacture of machines and all are headed by personnel with strong connections to the current administration — clear conflicts of interest, which are ignored. Software used to control the counting and reporting of votes is withheld from public scrutiny.
Judicial appointments, once vetted by the American Bar Association, which rated candidates and kept extremists, liberal or conservative, off the bench, are now passed upon by the Federalist Society. The society is an ultra-conservative organization devoted to "fulfilling the radical right's agenda on race, religion, class, money, morality, abortion and power," Phillips wrote.
The administration claims frequently that it is bringing democracy to Iraq. In fact, we have censored its news publications and suppressed its labor unions, serious failures to honor democratic principles.
The sciences, as nearly as possible, are explorations of truth. Truth sometimes frustrates government plans. When it does, the sciences, not the plans, have been scrapped by the Bush administration.
There is much more valuable information in "Project Censored 2005." All of it is eye-opening information needed to keep a free society free.
Martin L. Haines, of Moorestown, is a retired Superior Court judge and a former State Bar Association president.
Copyright © 2005 Asbury Park Press.
Reprinted from :
www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050407/OPINION/504070340/1030
