All the news (except
...)
By Molly Ivins, Star-Telegram.com
from the Web, September 22, 2005
AUSTIN -- What we need in this
country (along with a disaster relief agency) is a Media Accountability Day --
one precious day out of the entire year when everyone in the news media stops
reporting on what's wrong with everyone else and devotes a complete 24-hour news
cycle to looking at our own failures. How's that for a great idea?
Happily, the perfect news peg, as we say in the biz, for Media Accountability
Day already exists -- it's Project Censored's annual release of the 10 biggest
stories ignored or under-covered by mainstream media. Project Censored is
based at Sonoma State University in California, with both faculty and students
involved in its preparation.
Of course, the stories are not actually "censored" by any authority, but they do
not receive enough attention to enter the public's consciousness.
The No. 1 pick by Project Censored this year should more than make the
media blink -- it is a much-needed deep whiff of ammonia smelling salts for the
comatose: "Bush administration moves to eliminate open government."
This administration has drastically changed the rules on Freedom of Information
Act requests; has changed laws that restrict public access to federal records,
mostly by expanding the national security classification; operates in secret
under the Patriot Act; and consistently refuses to provide information to
Congress and the Government Accountability Office. The cumulative total
effect is horrifying.
No. 2: Iraq coverage. Faulted for failure to report the
results of the two battles for Fallujah and the civilian death toll. The
civilian death toll story is hard to get -- accurate numbers nowhere -- but the
humanitarian disaster in Fallujah comes with impeccable sources.
No. 3: Distorted election coverage. Faulting the study that
caused most of the corporate media to dismiss the discrepancy between exit polls
and the vote tally; and the still-contentious question of whether the vote in
Ohio needed closer examination.
No. 4: Surveillance society quietly moves in. The cumulative
effect should send us all shrieking into the streets -- the Patriot Act, the
quiet resurrection of the MATRIX program, the REAL ID Act, which passed without
debate as an amendment to an emergency spending bill funding troops in
Afghanistan and Iraq.
No. 5: United States uses tsunami to military advantage in
Southeast Asia. Oops. Ugh.
No. 6: The real oil-for-food scam. The oil-for-food story was
rotten with political motives from the beginning -- the right used it to belabor
the United Nations. The part that got little attention here was the extent
to which we, the United States, were part of the scam.
No. 7: Journalists face unprecedented dangers to life and
livelihood. That a lot of journalists are getting killed in Iraq is
indisputable. I work with the Committee to Protect Journalists and am by
no means persuaded that we are targeted by anyone other than terrorists.
However, Project Censored honors stories about military policies that could
improve the situation of those journalists who risk their lives.
No. 8: Iraqi farmers threatened by Paul Bremer's mandates.
It's part of the untold story of the disastrous effort to make Iraq into a
neocon's free-market dream. Order 81 issued by Bremer "made it illegal for
Iraqi farmers to reuse seeds harvested from new varieties registered under the
law." Iraqi farmers were forced away from traditional methods to a system
of patented seeds, where they can't grow crops without paying a licensing fee to
a U.S. corporation.
No. 9: Iran's new oil trade system challenges U.S. currency.
The effects of Iran's switching from dollars to Euros in oil trading.
No. 10: Mountaintop removal threatens ecosystem and economy.
A classic case of a story not unreported but underreported -- a practice so
environmentally irresponsible that it makes your hair hurt to think about it.
Most journalists manage to find a quibble or two with Project Censored's list
every year, but mostly we just stand there and nod: Yep, missed that one,
and that one and ...
But here's a wonderful fact about daily journalism: We don't ever have to
get it all right, because we get a new chance every day.
Molly Ivins, based in Austin, writes for Creators Syndicate,
5777 W. Century Blvd., Suite 700, Los Angeles, CA 90045.
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