Carl Jenson (editor), �20 Years of Censored News�
Originally I had planned to write about the continuing synchronicity that�s been going on in regards with my book list paralleling my life. I finished reading this at the same time my friend Fern wanted to fight over the content of Bowling for Columbine, which is kinda funny, because we are in pretty much perfect agreement about the content. It�s the delivery where she�s all screwed up. But we�ll get back to that.
This is a retrospective, if you will (or even if you won�t), of the work and the stories involved since the inception of Project Censored, with some reflection on how little has changed in the last 20 years.
Project Censored does some amazing work, and I�ve reviewed quite a few different volumes just in this last year alone. But for anyone who hasn�t read one of these anthologies before, they have a section where they look at the top ten stories from ten years ago, and what�s happened to those stories since. So, if by chance you have read most, or at least some of the other books, than this title is nothing more than a rehash of a rehash.
And an odd thing happened: that last media book I reviewed mentioned how some of the short bursts and charts were better suited to make their points. The opposite happened here. Trying to cram the top ten stories form the last 20 years whittled the information down to nothing, and so I as a reader wanted to find out more about the articles — even those that I had read before.
So many under-reported stories, such as the hypothesis that depression, melancholy, even mania, is caused primarily by one�s diet. (Which makes me wonder what other people must be eating as my diet, like so many others in San Jose, consists of whiskey and La Victoria, and not a whole hell of a lot else).
Or America�s secret police network, dubbed the Law Enforcement Intelligence Unit, which is virtually unreported and unheard of, yet is its own separate entity, and is not required to report its surveillance findings to ANYBODY, be it the CIA, FBI, NSA, or to you and I, unlike the FBI files which you can get through the Freedom Of Information Act.
So while this book is a good primer for those just delving into the media and its habits of what it chooses to cover, and not cover, the book as an entity is too much like a cock tease for anybody who has spent any amount of time looking into the media.
But to tie this in with current events, i.e. the debate of Bowling for Columbine and the necessity of alternative media, I was thrilled — THRILLED — at seeing how many of these stories, the top underreported news stories of the past two decades, were brought about by local Bay Area media. The San Francisco Chronicle as well as the Examiner broke several of these stories, as well as the Bay Guardian. Even our own San Jose Mercury News managed to appear not once, not twice, but three times as a paper of conscience.
This factor just validates my belief that important media need not only be alternative media. Remember, it was the Washington Post that brought down Nixon, and it was Vanity Fair that did the story on tobacco whistleblowers.
What truly needs to happen is that people read both the majors and the alternative press, and that they react when they see something that offends their sensibilities. If the noise is generated from a single article, others will follow. Because, as Donald Sutherland says in JFK, — people are suckers for the truth. And the truth is on your side, Bubba.
Finally, I am really interested in filing a request through the FOIA to see if there is a government red flag file on me, but I�m thinking that if for some reason there wasn�t before, my asking would implement the beginning of one. So here�s a deal: Fern, I�ll show you how to do the paperwork on these things, and if you show me mine, I�ll show you yours.
The rating is too long to fit in the box (dirty!) so I'll say it here: If you�re unfamiliar with Project Censored and their books, than this one is worth used. If you�ve already read a few of them, then this is worth working in a used bookstore and getting for cheap.
