Project Censored is a non-profit, sociological project of an investigative nature within the Sonoma State University Foundation. It is being managed through the School of Social Sciences at the university. A nonprofit organization (abbreviated NPO, or non-profit or not-for-profit) is an organization whose primary objective is to support some issue or matter of private interest or public concern for non-commercial purposes. ... Social interactions and their consequences are the subject of sociology. ... Sonoma State University is a campus of the California State University system located in Rohnert Park, California (about seven miles south of Santa Rosa and fifty miles north of San Francisco, as well as Oakland). ... The social sciences are groups of academic disciplines that study the human aspects of the world. ...

According to their official website, Project Censored "tracks the news published in independent journals and newsletters. From these, Project Censored compiles an annual list of 25 news stories of social significance that have been overlooked, under-reported or self-censored by the country's major national news media."

Project function

Project Censored identifies and researches news stories which it believes have been underreported, mis-reported, or censored in the mainstream media. With this research, the group claims to advocate and protect of the First Amendment rights granted by the United States Constitution and freedom of information within the United States of America. The project is built around the "Sociology 435: Media Censorship" course based at the university. This course requires long hours of researching library databases. Each student is invited to develop skills of finding and researching such news stories and make full use of them for the purpose of conducting coverage reports on more than 200 under-published stories yearly. One of the goals of the project is to encourage the development of a national interconnected community-based media news service that will offer a "diversity" of news and information to local mainstream audiences through various media. Support and encouragement is provided to journalists, faculty, and student investigation of the principle objectives as stated above. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Mass media is a term used to denote, as a class, that section of the media specifically conceived and designed to reach a very large audience (typically at least as large as the whole population of a nation state). ... The first ten Amendments to the U.S. Constitution make up the Bill of Rights. ... The United States Constitution is the supreme law of the United States of America. ... Journalism is a discipline of collecting, analyzing, verifying, and presenting news regarding current events, trends, issues and people. ...

According to the group, a story covered by Project Censored should:

1. contain information that the general population has a right and a need to know, but to which it has limited access.
2. be timely, ongoing, and have implications for a significant number of residents of the United States of America.
3. have clearly defined concepts and be backed with solid verifiable documentation.
4. have been published electronically or in print, in a circulated newspaper, journal, magazine, newsletter, or similar publication by a foreign or domestic source.
5. have direct connections and implications for people within the United States of America, possibly including activities US citizens are engaged in abroad.

To date, the participants number nearly 200 and include the program staff of the School of Social Sciences at Sonoma State University, its students, its faculty, research interns, community experts, funders, and volunteer judges. Major sources of funding are provided by hundreds of individual donors, Working Assets, Anita Roddick, and The Body Shop International, as well as the Office of the President, the Office of the Provost, and the School of Social Science at Sonoma State University. Working Assets is a socially responsible American wireless and long distance phone service, and credit card company based in San Francisco, California. ... Dame Anita Roddick DBE (b. ... Provost is the title of a senior academic administrator at many institutions of higher education in the United States and Canada, the equivalent of Vice-Chancellor at certain UK universites such as UCL, and the head of certain Oxbridge colleges (e. ...

Project Censored was founded in 1976 by Dr. Carl Jensen. He retired in 1996, and since then the project has been directed by Dr. Peter Phillips. 1976 (MCMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday. ... Peter Phillips is the Director of Project Censored. ...

Published works

Project Censored publishes an annual trade paperback review of the “Top 25 Censored Stories of the Year.” Features of the book include Junk Food News, comic strips by Tom Tomorrow, updates on previous top stories, essays, and interviews. It is printed in New York, Toronto, London, and Sydney. Other projects include For the Record, a weekly radio program featuring underpublished stories, hosted by Pat Thurston. Junk food news refers to news stories that sensationalize, personalize or homogenize relatively inconsequential trivia in the mass media. ... Dan Perkins (born 1961 in Wichita, Kansas), better known by the pen name Tom Tomorrow, is an editorial cartoonist. ... Official language(s) English de facto Capital Albany Largest city New York City Area  Ranked 27th  - Total 54,520 sq mi (141,205 km²)  - Width 285 miles (455 km)  - Length 330 miles (530 km)  - % water 13. ... London (pronounced ) is the capital city of England and the United Kingdom. ... The Sydney Opera House on Sydney Harbour Sydney (pronounced ) is the most populous city in Australia with a metropolitan area population of over 4. ...

Prominent praises

Walter Cronkite said: "Project Censored is one of the organizations that we should listen to, to be assured that our newspapers and our broadcasting outlets are practicing throrough and ethical journalism." [1] Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr. ...

Criticism

Though the group never explicitly takes a political stance, almost every story that Project Censored highlights has a leftist political slant, with stories criticizing big business, economic inequality, damage to the environment, war and the armed forces, and evildoing by rightist politicians, among other leftist "hot-button" issues. (Prominent leftist activist Noam Chomsky is the group's most prominent advocate). Some critics complain that Project Censored cannot honestly claim to advocate a free and diverse media system while at the same time taking such a fiercely one-sided position in its own reporting. They believe that the group should be more forthcoming about its leftist position. ^{[citation needed]} Politics is the process by which individuals or relatively small groups attempt to exert influence over the actions of an organization. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into Left-Right politics. ... Big business is usually used as a pejorative reference to the significant economic and political power which large and powerful corporations (especially multinational corporations), are capable of wielding. ... Differences in national income equality around the world as measured by the national Gini coefficient. ... War is an excellent way of political leaders to let off some steam. ... The armed forces of a state are its government sponsored defense and fighting forces and organizations. ... In politics, right-wing, the political right, or simply The Right, are terms that refer to the segment of the political spectrum often associated with any of several strains of conservatism, the religious right, and areas of classical liberalism, or simply the opposite of left-wing politics. ... Avram Noam Chomsky, Ph. ...

In response, Project Censored and its supporters have stated that conservatives have been invited to serve as judges each year, but have largely refused; that such right-wing topics as criticism of "big government" have been well publicized by Republicans in Congress and covered by the corporate-owned media, and so do not qualify as under-reported; and that Project Censored has in fact featured stories from The Spotlight, a right-wing newspaper. [2] Project Censored's work seeks to correct the bias of the mainstream media, and from their perspective, "any bias in the upper echelons of journalism looks to be skewed toward established political, economic and social power bases." [3] Conservatism is a political philosophy that generally favors free markets, traditional values and strong foreign defense. ... GOP redirects here. ... Type Bicameral Houses Senate House of Representatives President of the Senate Dick Cheney, R, since January 20, 2001 Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, R, since January 6, 1999 Members 535 plus 4 Delegates and 1 Resident Commissioner Political groups (as of January 4, 2005 elections) Democratic Party Republican Party... The Spotlight was a weekly newspaper in the United States, published from 1975 to 2001 by a now-defunct organization called Liberty Lobby. ...

It is also at times criticized for reporting on stories which are arguably not "under-reported" or "censored" at all, as they have appeared in The New York Times and other high-profile publications. In addition, the group periodically is criticized for shoddy reporting or misrepresentation of facts, the same fallacies the group itself claims to battle. For example, Project Censored has been criticized for consistently whitewashing Serbian atrocities in Bosnia and Kosovo. [4] Occasionally these claims come from other leftist publications that are concerned ^{[citation needed]} that the Project's alleged mis-reporting will give an already fragile news development even less credibility. The New York Times is a newspaper published in New York City by Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr. ...

External links

• Project Censored official site
• A Project Censored archive - Censored US Foreign Policy News Stories 1976-2005
• Dog Bites: Project Censored - Parodic criticism of the Project by the SF Weekly.