Censored 2012 (30 page)

Some of the aforementioned stories received corporate mainstream coverage since they originally appeared on the Censored Top 25, though many others still languish in obscurity despite their continued significance. It is difficult for people to recall or identify something they have never seen; censorship, by its very nature, suppresses and restricts information. Yet, even in instances where there has been some amount of coverage of these stories, the public at large seems unable to focus on them for long. Certainly, no person should be expected to pay attention to every newsworthy event—we all have to meet basic, physiological needs. However, in our society, we are often overwhelmed with information possibilities, and many people do not know whom to trust. Some are so inundated with the tabloidization of news that they tune out. Still, other factors may be responsible for this seeming malaise.

Bill Keller, the executive editor of the
New York Times
, contends in a May 18, 2011 article titled “The Twitter Trap,” that our memory is being negatively affected by our current reliance on Wikipedia and social media like Twitter and Facebook. While Keller argues that we as people are losing some of our humanity, perhaps in exchange for productivity, it would seem there are other significant factors left unaddressed. For example, these technologies equip us with the ability to spread the news as situations develop. Further, social media can be used as part of public record and as a reminder of what events transpired and how, including all of the complexities that occur while events unfold. The glossing over or distortion of a story might even become impossible in a culture that embraces new
social networking technologies, if it does so under the guise of free press principles—making the right to know paramount among public concerns. The Oscar Grant shooting in Oakland, California, is an example of how citizen journalism and social network technology built a more complete accounting of that tragic event which led to the conviction of the police officer that shot Grant, despite the many cover up attempts by various officials and the inadequate coverage by the traditional corporate media.

Erasing and distorting history in an attempt to conform to present agendas could become harder as well. The revolutions ongoing in the Middle East made their way to the internet via vernacular participants before they made their way to the official views propounded by the corporate media. This is media democracy in action, a positive trend related to our current technological achievements. Even failed coups, stolen elections, and potential false flag events can be uncovered if we look beyond the corporate media and pay more attention to independent reporting based on transparently sourced and factual information. And while technology can be used as an instrument of distraction and propaganda by those in power, We the People can also use technology to educate each other about newsworthy events in our society and how best to move forward as a human community.

As George Santayana once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Remembering the past is one thing, but remembering it in full, factual, uncensored context is another. Making this distinction is imperative if we are to break the déjà vu cycle of ongoing censored news. With the rise of new technologies, history is no longer being written, recorded, and read, solely by the victors, but by all of us. The media revolution cannot be censored, and our words will continue to be our greatest weapon since the Revolutionary War. It is our only hope in the quest to achieve a truly egalitarian and democratic culture.

MICKEY HUFF
is the director of Project Censored, an associate professor of history at Diablo Valley College, and a member of the board of directors of the Media Freedom Foundation.

KELLI BAUMGARTNER, SY COWIE, CASEY GOONAN, SALMA HABIB, NOLAN HIGDON, KIRA MCDONOUGH, YARI OJEDA-SANDEL, RYAN SHEHEE
, and
ALEXANDRE SILVA
are interns with Project Censored.

CARL JENSEN
is the founder of Project Censored.

by Mickey Huff and Adam Bessie, with contributions by Abby Martin, Nolan Higdon, and Clifton Roy Damiens

Since Project Censored founder Dr. Carl Jensen coined the term “Junk Food News” in 1983 in an interview with
Penthouse
magazine, many serious studies on the “tabloidization” of news in the US have been conducted. From scholars such as Neil Postman and Mark Crispin Miller to journalists and commentators like Barbara Ehrenreich and Chris Hedges, the problem of infotainment—the blurring of lines of entertainment and information while favoring the trivial and inane over the substantive and germane—has been deconstructed, analyzed, and accordingly derided by free press proponents. Prescriptions for rectifying these infectious and distracting tendencies have been put forth and will be reiterated throughout this chapter. Despite this, Junk Food News (and its younger sibling, News Abuse—the framing or distortion of information for propagandistic purposes) have essentially taken over much of the televised news media and a substantial portion of the print press as well, arguably due to the massive extent of commercial control over major media institutions by corporations.

At Project Censored, we write about the growing problem of Junk Food News in our publication every year, and we do so again this year, though not with pleasure. The pejorative subtitle of this chapter alludes to a growing “when are we in America going to get it?” level of frustration. Our media landscape is addled with Junk Food News, what Jensen called akin to “Twinkies for the brain.” This is hardly a secret. But what are we going to do about it? Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart and other late-night television court jesters get in on the act of criticizing and lampooning the failures of the US news media on a regular basis. In fact, it is a key component of many of these nightly “infotainment” programs (especially given that these shows are the most watched “news” sources by those under twenty-five in the US). Is it supposed to be funny that our information systems are so dysfunctional? Perhaps we are truly severed from reality in a nervous last gasp response given the severity of the situation, “awash in electronic hallucinations,” as Chris Hedges believes.
¹

As a study from the Pew Research Center for People and the Press revealed a few years ago, many are turning to these comedy shows for information because they are not only entertaining, but are often factually correct, at least insofar as what they air. Nonetheless, viewers should remember that the purpose of this type of late-night programming is humor, not news reporting. However, that so many people are tuning away from traditional news broadcasts is also an indicator of increasing lack of public trust in the Fourth Estate.
²
Regardless, we are in dire straits, as pointed out by media scholars Robert W. McChesney and John Nichols in their recent book,
The Death and Life of American Journalism
. The authors rightly point out, “Our nation faces the absurd and untenable prospect of attempting what James Madison characterized as impossible: to be a self governing constitutional republic without a functioning news media.”
³
We should consider ourselves forewarned, for as our press is reduced to parody, so is democracy itself.

Junk Food News has become such a phenomenon, one that poses a serious threat to the democratic function of the Fourth Estate, that entire books have been devoted to the topic, including journalist Tom Fenton’s
Junk News: The Failure of the Media in the 21st Century
, published in 2009. Again, this illustrates the increased attention the
problem is receiving, but the Junk keeps coming. Project Censored has been covering this troublesome trend ever since some news editors took umbrage at Carl Jensen’s critiques of the failures of the mainstream press dating back to 1976. They claimed his cries of censorship were too harsh, that they had to use news judgment when deciding what was reported and what was not.

Jensen thought that might be a fair response. So, by the early 1980s, he focused more on what the media
were
covering, not just what they weren’t. What he discovered was vindicating, though sad, for his initial views that the news media were in fact systematically failing to report important stories to the public turned out to be true in more ways than he had originally thought, and the Junk Food News analysis by Project Censored was born.

In
Censored 1994
, Jensen wrote:

Jensen laid out several major categories of Junk Food News that continue to be useful to this day, as demonstrated by cursory yet current
examples from this past year, some of which will be expanded upon in this chapter:
⁵