Revolution #101, September 16, 2007
Revolution article included in Project Censored’s List of Top 25 Censored Stories
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An article from Revolution newspaper, "Mexico: The Political Volcano Rumbles" (available online at revcom.us/a/060/mexico-volcano-en.html) has been chosen by Project Censored for inclusion in “Censored 2008: The Top 25 Censored Stories.”
Each year Project Censored produces a list of the top 25 censored stories of the previous year. The Top 25 Censored stories list gets wide media recognition in the U.S. and around the world. And the top 25 censored stories are included in Project Censored’s annual yearbook. This year’s book is scheduled for release by Seven Stories Press in September 2007. The Los Angeles Times called last year’s edition of the Project Censored yearbook "[R]equired reading for broadcasters, journalists, and well-informed citizens."
Exposing Censored Stories
Based at Sonoma State University in California, Project Censored reviews between 700 and 1,000 stories that are submitted each year by journalists, scholars, librarians, and concerned citizens around the world. More than 200 Sonoma State University faculty, students, and community members work with Project Censored to review the submitted stories for coverage, content, reliability of sources, and national significance.
The university community selects 25 stories to submit to the Project Censored panel of judges who then rank them in order of importance. Current or previous national judges include: Noam Chomsky, Susan Faludi, George Gerbner, Sut Jhally, Frances Moore Lappe, Norman Solomon, Michael Parenti, Herbert I. Schiller, Barbara Seaman, Erna Smith, Mike Wallace, and Howard Zinn.
Project Censored plays an important role in both exposing specific censored stories, and also in exposing the breadth and extent of suppression of truth about all kinds of critical issues in the mainstream media.
In addition to the “Mexico's Stolen Election” story, this year’s list of the top 25 censored stories includes: “ No Habeas Corpus for ‘Any Person’,” “Bush’s Move Toward Martial Law,” “Increasingly Destructive Trade Agreements Enslave Poor,” “The Scam of ‘Reconstruction’ in Afghanistan,” and “Impunity for U.S. War Criminals.”
In a press release announcing the top 25 censored stories of the year, Project Censored Director Peter Phillips said that, “The systemic erosion of human rights and civil liberties, in the U.S., is the common theme of many of the most censored stories of [the past year].”
As an awardee for the Censored 2008 Yearbook, Revolution will be participating in Project Censored's Media Accountability Conference and the Real News Awards at Sonoma State University on October 26 and 27. As described by Project Censored, “The goal of this conference is to more closely examine important stories that were sidelined by the corporate media, and to discuss strategies for getting honest and thorough information to the citizens of the country.” Panels at the event will be filmed for release on Free Speech TV.
The Censored Story of the Mexican Elections
Most of Project Censored’s selected stories are documented by two or more articles. This year, the censored story of “Mexico's Stolen Election” references two articles: “Evidence of Election Fraud Grows in México,” published by AlterNet, and written by Chuck Collins and Joshua Holland, as well as “Mexico: The Political Volcano Rumbles,” which appeared originally in the September 10, 2006 issue of Revolution.
Tricia Boreta of Project Censored told Revolution that "Project Censored finds some of the most thoroughly researched, well written and deeply analyzed news reportage in Revolution newspaper. ‘Mexico - Rumbling Volcano’ provided valuable insight and background on U.S. involvement in Mexico's 2006 Presidential Election."
Revolution ’s coverage of Mexico over the past few years has included analysis, as well as on-the-scene reports by young Revolution correspondents who traveled to Atenco and Oaxaca. These writers lived with, learned from, and wrote about seismic struggles in Mexico in articles like “The Changing Landscape of the Mixteca” (#80, March 4, 2007, online at revcom.us/a/080/oaxoca4-en.html) and “Reporter's Notebook from Atenco, Mexico: Real Women Have Machetes” ( Revolutionary Worker #1178, December 8, 2002, online at revcom.us/a/v24/1171-1180/1178/atenco.htm). A Special Revolution four-page supplement on Mexico was published in Revolution #60, and is available as a PDF download at revcom.us.
An Opportunity and Challenge to Expand the Reach of Revolution
The inclusion of Revolution’ s coverage of Mexico in the Project Censored list of the top 25 censored stories of the year highlights the importance of both expanding the distribution of Revolution, and of raising money for this kind of coverage.
Stories like this award winning article in Revolution, and Revolution’ s coverage of Mexico are made possible by contributions to the Revolution Expansion and Fund Drive, and by contributions to the Reporter’s Fund in particular.
And, being included in the Project Censored 2008 yearbook opens the door to important opportunities to make this newspaper part of the landscape, especially on college campuses across the country: to get this newspaper distributed and read widely on campuses, included course curricula, subscribed to by University and high school departments and libraries, and supported financially by student activists.
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