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Recent
Stories
June
16, 2003
Uri
Avnery
The Children of Death
June
14 / 15, 2003
Edward
Said
A Roadmap to What and Where?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Pryor Unrestraint: Killer Bill Pryor's
Mad Quest for the Federal Bench
David Lindorff
Rumsfeld v. Belgium
Jennifer
Loewenstein
Suicide's Most Willing Accomplice
Lee Sustar
US Tax System: Rigged for the Rich
Ben
Tripp
Of Dissidents and Dissonance
William
S. Lind
Lies, Damned Lies and Military Intelligence
Joanne
Mariner
Rebellious Judges
Gila Svirsky
A Macabre Alliance
Mickey
Z.
Where We Are
Chris Floyd
Metaphysics as a Guide to Murder
Noah
Leavitt
Peru as Our Crystal Ball?
Yves Engler
and Bianca Mugyenyi
The G8 and Africa
Dr.
Gerry Lower
Dear Rudy, Let's Get Those Damned Liberals
Ted Dace
A Review of Kovel's The Enemy of Nature
Adam
Engel
Midnight at the Apocalyptic Pancake
Poets'
Basement
Smith, Greeder, Albert, and O'Hayer
Website
of the Weekend
AEI: Starts Wars; Creates
Poverty
June
13, 2003
David
Vest
Bush
Roadmap to What?
Ron Jacobs
The Iranian Revolution, Reloaded?
John
Chuckman
The Man Who Wasn't There
Jason Leopold
Six Months Before War White House Silenced Critics of WMD Intelligence
Michael
Leon
Missing Weapons, Shrinking Bush and the Media
Negar Azimi
Ashcroft's Cruel Version of America
Saul
Landau
Shiite Happens
Hammond
Guthrie
Then and Now
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
Web Log 6/13
June
12, 2003
Gary
Leupp
The Intel-gate Row in Britain: a Chronology
Ahmad Faruqui
The Tragic Legacy of the Six Day
War
Wayne
Madsen
Unfit for Office: Time for Rumsfeld to Resign
Laura Carlsen
Hunger and Security
Tarif
Abboushi
Warm and Fuzzy in Aqaba
Ray
McGovern
Deceived into War: Reflections of
a Former CIA Analyst
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
Web Log 6/12
June
11, 2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Attack of the Hog Killers: Why the
Generals Hate the A-10
Elaine
Cassel
Meet Michael Chertoff: Ashcroft's
Top Gremlin
David Lindorff
The Republican Drive to Eliminate Overtime Pay
Tom
Gorman
Greens, the Antiwar Movement and 2004
Alfredo
Castro
Colombia: The Most Dangerous Place
on Earth for Trade Unionists
Nnimo
Bassey and Lawrence Bohlen
Bush Must Stop Telling Us What to
Eat!
Julie Hilden
Spike Lee v. Spike TV
CounterPunch
Wire
Blair Bros. Change Jobs!
Eric
Hobsbawm
The Empire Expands, Wider and Still
Wider
Steve
Perry
DHS: As Big
a Planning Snafu as Iraq?
June
10, 2003
Benjamin
Shepard
A Season in the Anti-War Movement
Chris
Floyd
Bush Family Lies About Iraq and Nazi
Germany
Wayne
Madsen
Weaponsgate
Jason Leopold
Powell's Denials Ring Hollow
Richard
Lichtman
Whining, Whimpering Leftists Confront the Logic of American World
Domination
Ray
Close
A CIA Analyst on Why the Lies About
WMD Matter
Hammond
Guthrie
Banking on Saddam?
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
Web Log 6/10
June
9, 2003
Alex
Coolman
Male Rape in US Prisons
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft is Coming!
Lee
Sustar
Is Iran Next?
Agustin
Velloso
Equatorial Guinea: Few Rich, Many
Poor
Gila
Svirsky
Some Lives Are Worth Less Than Others
Dr. Gerry
Lower
Human Worth in Bush's America
Michael
S. Ladah
A True Liberation
Ishmael Reed
Iraqi Slaughter, Mayhem and Plunder
Steve
Perry
How to Beat Bush, part 1
June
7 / 8, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
The Terrible Truth
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Going Critical: Bush's War on Endangered Species
Joanne
Mariner
Ashcrofts Sides with Torturers
Steven
Sherman
A Different Theory of Everything
Ron Jacobs
Sports, Politics and the 60s
M.
Shahid Alam
Pauperizing the Periphery
Amelia
Peltz
If This is the Road, I'd Rather be Lost
Shelton
Hull
Another Powell, Another Capitulation
Binoy Kampmark
Nuclear Deterrence and North Korea
Ben
Tripp
A Fish Story
Sen. Robert
Byrd
Where is the Outrage?
Robin
Philpot
Congo Distortions
Julie Hilden
Murder and the Matrix
Laura
Flanders
An Interview with Isabel Allende
David Lindorff
The Last Byline
Adam
Engel
Talk Dirty Scary Monsters
Poets'
Basement
Kearney, Reiss, Guthrie, Albert and Hamod
June
6, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft the Insatiable
David
Krieger
The Big Lie
Ramzy
Baroud
Sharon and the Myth of the Peacemakers
Anthony
Gancarski
Sharansky: "Crucifixion is a Privilege"
Sam
Hamod
His Own Little Country
Sean Carter
Why Indict Martha Stewart and Not Ken Lay?
David
Lindorff
Cracks in the Consensus
Stew Albert
Ari's Great Set
Steve
Perry
Greens and
Moore in 04? No
June
5, 2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Pools of Fire: The Looming Nuclear
Nightmare in the Woods of North Carolina
Imraan
Siddiqi
Ann Coulter's Foul Mouth
Michael
Leon
Clinton, Reno & Waco: Remember What They've Done
Robert
Jensen
Texas Pledge Law Undermines Democracy
Ann Harrison
Rosenthal is Free, But the Fight isn't Over
Paul
Dean
How You Can Be Deliriously Happy in the Age of Bush
Gary Leupp
When Spooks Speak Out
Website
of the Day
Evidence in Black and White?
Hot Stories
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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June
16, 2003
Junk Food News
Entertainment
Media 2003
By PETER PHILLIPS and
JASON SPENCER
"We are the best entertained least
informed society in the world." Neil Postman
For a decade Project Censored at Sonoma State
University has been releasing a list of the most frivolous over-reported
news stories of the year. We call this list Junk Food News because
it fills up the American airways and newsstands with celebrity
gossip and meaningless coverage of the unimportant. Famous lives
provide us with an entertainment rush and a false reality that
radiates in comparison to the darkness of war, business fraud,
and government repression.
The honor of this year's number one Junk
Food News story goes to Joe Millionaire. The Dating Game and
Love Connection have been a part of the American television landscape
for decades, but when you raise the stakes they seem to become
a media event. Reality TV has taken America by storm and Joe
Millionaire is no exception. The show was the talk of the town
and water cooler gossip for many Americans over the weeks it
was on the air.
At number two on this years Junk Food
list is Michael Jackson. Where do we begin? The latest plastic
surgery, the dangling baby or the hype surrounding the prime
time special and then the rebuttal prime time special? With 27
million televisions tuning in to the British interview that aired
on ABC, would a lengthy national media discussion be necessary
after the event was over? Apparently so, in fact, the media attention
was so great and the discussion so widespread that FOX deemed
it necessary to air a special of its own, giving Jackson the
opportunity to discuss what had happened during the ABC interview.
In addition to all this, Dateline NBC drew 14 million viewers
to a special about the changing of Jackson's face.
And now we switch gears back to the deceptively
important private life of one of our beloved celebrities. The
number three spot on the list is reserved for Winona Ryder and
her possible kleptomaniacal tendencies. As the media frenzy surrounded
a shoplifting case that normally wouldn't even have gone to trial,
the discussion ranged from how she plotted the scheme to the
possibility of kleptomania. Whether Ms. Ryder is a kleptomaniac
may be a valid question for the National Enquirer, but we hardly
think it warrants the time and attention the national news networks
and papers contributed to the discussion.
Coming in at number four, American Idol
is the top reality TV culprit of undeserving media dominance.
Again, a show with a weekly time slot was awarded extra time
in the lives of the American people. With newspaper column inches
being consumed by the hundreds asking who would win and delving
into the past of the top contenders and discussing the latest
witty remarks of the now infamous judges. We don't recall the
weekly guests and judges on the original Star Search making headlines
and dominating the news. Apparently times have changed and there
is less news to inform the citizens of our democracy about, or
at the very least there is apparently more time available in
the mainstream media for the discussion of frivolous TV hype.
From her movie releases and music award-show
outfits to her stormy relationship with rapper P Diddy and then
her eventual engagement to heartthrob Ben Affleck, Latin Queen
Jennifer Lopez in our number 5 slot has crowded real news stories
off the airwaves and out of the print media. Did Diane Sawyer
really need to interview J Lo to ask her all the sultry questions
about her relationship and eventual engagement to Affleck? Here
at the Project Censored headquarters it appears that mid-November
of last year could have yielded a far more informative interview
for Ms. Sawyer.
The runners up for Junk Food Story of
the year in ranked order are Martha Stewart and her insider trading,
The Osbournes: from the show to Kelly's burgeoning career, the
anti-marijuana campaign, SUV mania, and Anna Nicole: The show,
the lady, the inanity
Given all the news that doesn't find
its way into the mainstream media, Project Censored disputes
the necessity and relevance of this type of news coverage by
the national media. Much of the coverage is nothing more than
hype that amounts to advertising for the next episode, but the
newsprint and aftermath coverage of the personal lives of the
participants is rubbish and absolutely deserves the dubious distinction
of being voted Junk Food News story of 2003.
The awards were determined by a nationwide
vote of some 4,000 members of the Project Censored listserv available
on line at www.projectcensored.org.
Peter Phillips
is a professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and Director
of Project Censored. Jason Spencer is a Project Censored
research intern and president of the Associated Students at Sonoma
State University. Both can be reached at censored@sonoma.edu.
Yesterday's Features
David
Vest
Bush
Roadmap to What?
Ron Jacobs
The Iranian Revolution, Reloaded?
John
Chuckman
The Man Who Wasn't There
Jason Leopold
Six Months Before War White House Silenced Critics of WMD Intelligence
Michael
Leon
Missing Weapons, Shrinking Bush and the Media
Negar Azimi
Ashcroft's Cruel Version of America
Saul
Landau
Shiite Happens
Hammond
Guthrie
Then and Now
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
Web Log 6/13
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