Edited by Mickey Huff and Andy Lee Roth
Illustrated by Khalil Bendib
THESE ARE JUST A FEW OF THE STORIES PRESENTED IN CENSORED 2019:
—“Open-Source” Intelligence Secrets Sold to Highest Bidders
—ICE Intends to Destroy Records of Inhumane Treatment of Immigrants
—Indigenous Communities around World Helping to Win Legal Rights of Nature
—FBI Racially Profiling “Black Identity Extremists”
—The Limits of Negative News and Importance of Constructive Media
DID YOU KNOW THAT SINCE 1998 THE US GOVERNMENT SPENT $21 TRILLION IT CAN’T ACCOUNT FOR? Or that Internet co-ops are mobilizing poor communities to resist net neutrality rollbacks? How about the health risks of wireless tech that cell phone companies have covered up, or the opiate crisis that Big Pharma knowingly unleashed?
Haven’t heard the news? Neither did the rest of the world. That’s because these and countless other news items are suppressed or ignored by our nation’s “free press” every day. For the past forty-three years, Project Censored has been unearthing the buried stories that corporate media deem unfit to print—and debunking the “fake news” governments and corporations use to consolidate their power—to promote well-informed citizen action and critical media literacy.
This year’s Project Censored yearbook features:
—“Vetting Free Speech” by Sally Gimson, Layli Foroudi, and Sean Gallagher
—“#TimesUp: Breaking the Barriers of Sexual Harassment in Corporate Media for You and #MeToo” by Julie Frechette
—“Data Activism through Community Mapping and Data Visualization” by Dorothy Kidd
—“How Mainstream Media Evolved into Corporate Media” by Peter Phillips
—“Campus–Newsroom Collaborations” by Patricia W. Elliott
—“The Public and Its Problems” by Susan Maret
Plus Junk Food News, News Abuse, and Media Democracy in Action.
In a time of decline in the rule of law and democratic safeguards, Project Censored offers a constructive alternative to the “fake news” blues, holding the corporate media to account for its negative bias, propaganda for wealth and power, and outright censorship.
PROJECT CENSORED, founded in 1976 by Carl Jensen at Sonoma State University, has as its principal objective the advocacy for and protection of First Amendment rights, including freedom of information. In 2008, Project Censored received the PEN/Oakland Literary Censorship Award. Most recently, Project Censored received the 2014 Pillar Award in Journalism and New Media, given annually to persons of conscience, conviction, and achievement who stand up for what’s right and what’s true in the face of corporate and political intimidation. For more information, visit www.projectcensored.org.
Since 2010, MICKEY HUFF has been director of Project Censored (founded in 1976), and has been president of its parent nonprofit, Media Freedom Foundation, since 2016. He has co-edited each annual volume of the book Censored dating back to 2009, and has contributed numerous chapters to those works. 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 (from City Lights Publishers, 2019) and Censored 2020: Through the Looking Glass (co-edited with long-time associate director of the Project, Andy Lee Roth). In spring of 2019, Huff won the Beverly Kees Educator Award as part of the 2019 James Madison Freedom of Information Awards from the Society for Professional Journalists, Northern California. Currently, Huff is professor of social science and history at Diablo Valley College, where he co-chairs the History Department. He is also a lecturer in the Communications Department at California State University, East Bay, and has taught Sociology of Media at Sonoma State University. He is also executive producer and cohost of The Project Censored Show, the weekly syndicated public affairs program that originates from KPFA in Berkeley, CA, and airs on roughly 50 stations across the US.
