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Independent Journalists Speak Out On Censorship
Even a cursory read of the stories selected
for Project Censored 2000 underscores the continuing issue of the
mainstream media marginalizing or ignoring stories which run counter to
the interests of the corporate and political elite.
Sara Flounders, International Action Center:
For example, there were 78 days of bombing against Yugoslavia. 78 days.
And it was justified as a humanitarian war. We were told again and again
that there were 500,000 Kosovo Albanians who had been massacred by the
Yugoslav military, [or] 100,000. There were descriptions of mass graves
and so on. And there were more than 1,000 stories — you can check
this online — in the major corporate media describing massacres,
mass graves, ethnic cleansing and so on. Five months after the war ends,
there's a very interesting story from the Associated Press and in the
New York Times saying that, in fact, forensic teams from 17 countries
digging in Kosovo found no mass graves, no signs of massacres. Now, of
course, there are not a thousand stories printed on this. It's just
once. It is when it's forgotten. You can see when you look at this
domination, the overriding control and the use of the big lie, the
spectacular lie that no one would at first believe, but because it is
repeated a thousand times it becomes fact, unchallenged fact. This is
the way that wars are fought now. Click here for video!
MediaChannel: What's most changed the nature of how we define
censorship, and how has it affected alternative journalism?
Manse Jacobi, Free Speech TV:
Internet technology — the ability of citizens who have
connectivity to publish their own story, their own opinion about events,
whether they're local or not-local events — it's changing the
paradigm of how media is.
David Barsamian, Alternative Radio:
The increasing concentration of corporate-controlled media and the
further homogenization, or rather, the blurring of distinction, between
the government and corporate power, so that there's been more of a
harmonization of the private and public sector. And that is putting
pressure on these areas of the media, in terms of censorship. Click here for video!
Sherri Herndon, Independent Media Center:
The Internet has given people a voice to be able to get it out there in
a way that [bypasses] the corporate media and the censorship of stories
that we have seen so prevalently in Project Censored. That's one way
in. The other is just the increase in alternative media and independent
media that's actually come up more into the consciousness of the
public, so that it's not just like these little tiny people here and
there who are doing their projects. It's becoming something that's like
an acceptable thing. It actually has a stronger voice in our culture. Click here for video!
Jill Freedburg, Independent Media Center:
The Internet has done a lot to, as people say, do an end run around
censorship. [However], you know that a lot of people are warning that
they will find ways to limit access to the Internet, although it is
unique in that there is no single point of access or retrieval. But I
also think it's been a growing disillusionment with the corporate
paradigm, that people are exploring different alternatives. They're
feeling exploited and cheated and are looking for something else. Click here for video!
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