The stories we missed

You hear that phrase "the liberal media" all the time. I've never bought it, for a number of reasons--not least of which because I've read/watched the media. But I also know the web of connections between global corporate giants who own most of the major media, and these powerful, concentrated forces are anything but "liberal."

Still, one would think if we did have a "liberal" media, there might be more attention paid to stories like the annual Project Censored announcement. Since 1976, Sonoma State University in California has released an annual survey of the top 25 stories the mainstream media failed to report or reported poorly, culling them from national and international sources.

The project organizers define censorship as "any interference with the free flow of information." Among the top 2008 stories that the media under-reported or failed to cover at all:

1. How many Iraqis have died? The number varies widely. Top estimate: 1.2 million.
2. Security and Prosperity Partnership (NAFTA on steroids)“It’s a scheme to create a borderless North American Union under U.S. control without barriers to trade and capital flows for corporate giants, mainly U.S. ones,” wrote Stephen Lendman in Global Research. “It’s also to insure America gets free and unlimited access to Canadian and Mexican resources, mainly oil, and in the case of Canada, water as well.”
3. Infragard (FBI deputized business members, who get pre-terrorism warnings before regular individuals. So they can protect their interests).
4. School of the Americas: a training ground for illegal wars in Georgia.
5. Criminalizing the anti-war movement
6. The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, designed to root out the causes of radicalization in Americans.
7. H-2 visas and 120,000 immigrants working legally in America ("closest thing to slavery I've seen" Rep. Charles Rangel)
8. "As a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse had access to the DOJ opinions regarding presidential power, and he had three declassified in order to show how the judicial branch has, in a bizarre and chilling way, assisted President Bush in circumventing its own power." (Amanda Witherell)
9. Soldiers speaking out against the war.
10. Teaching torture: "Psychologists have been assisting the CIA and the U.S. military with interrogation and torture of Guantanamo Bay detainees—which the American Psychological Association has said is fine, in spite of objections from many in its 148,000 members." (Witherell)

None of these important stories were covered by the mainstream media.Below is a video of an interview with present director of the project, Peter Phillips.