Censored 2004: The Top 25 Censored Stories

Does censorship of the press exist in the United States? For the past twenty-six years Project Censored has answered YES, producing its acclaimed yearbook, Censored.

In past years Censored has been instrumental in helping to push underreported stories into the mainstream. In the 1997 edition, Karl Grossman's article "Risking the World: Nuclear Proliferation in Space" led to 60 Minutes doing a national feature on the subject. Censored 1999 featured Monsanto's "terminator seed" project, which was subsequently discontinued because of negative publicity. Censored 2001 exposed the disasterous impact of the increasing privatization of the global water supply, a story that is rapidly becoming one of the major issues of the twenty-first century. We can expect more of the same vital and aggressive coverage from Censored 2004.

As always, Censored 2004 highlights the year's twenty-five most important underreported news stories, alerting readers to the deficiences in corporate media. Familiar sections like "Junk Food News" and "Deja Vu" figure once again. In addition, this year's edition includes a chapter on the public relations industry in the U.S. and its effect on the media. Robin Anderson, professor at Fordham University and Censored judge, will contribute a chapter on censorship in times of war. Censored 2004 also includes original essays by Norman Solomon and others. FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) adds a chapter on the monitoring of domestic censorship, and the International Index on Censorship will provide a chapter on international monitoring. Censored 2004 will include a resource guide and updates on independent media to help readers take part in grassroots efforts to strengthen the media and democracy movement.

More than three hundred-fifty thousand copies of previous editions of Censored are in print today.

Peter Phillips, director of Project Censored, is an associate professor of sociology at Sonoma State University. He frequently speaks on media censorship and various sociopolitical issues on radio and TV talk shows, including Talk of the Nation, Public Interest, World Radio Network, and Democracy Now!