Project Censored: Are we turning a deaf ear?

In this week's issue of Cityview, the often-controversial Des Moines freebie newspaper takes a look at the top ten censored topics of the year in an article titled "Censored, The 10 Big Stories the nation's major news media refused to cover this year."

Consider the article's statements regarding the overplayed John Carr case and the subsequent dismissal of coverage regarding Bush's policies in the recent months.

Predictably, the mainstream media devoted acres of newsprint and hours of airtime to the self-proclaimed beauty queen killer, including stories on what he ate on the plane ride home, his desire for a sex change, his child-porn fixation, and - when DNA tests proved Karr wasn't the killer - why he confessed to a crime he didn't commit.

During that same time period, hardly a word was written or said in the same outlets about Judge Diggs Taylor's ruling and the question it raises about why Bush and his administration repeatedly lie to the American public.

The article cites Art Brodsky, a telecommunications expert at Public Knowledge, a Washington, D.C. based advocacy group. According to Brodsky, one of the most alarming issues of censorship this year is that of network neutrality. Brodsky states:

"Network neutrality is a crappy term, other than its alliterative value," Brodsky says. "It's one of those Washington issues that gets intense coverage in the field where it happens but can be successfully muddied, and it's technical. So a lot of editors and reporters throw their hands up in the air, a lot like senators."

Here are a few of the overlooked topics that made the list:

HALLIBURTON CHARGED WITH SELLING NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY TO IRAN


U.S. OPERATIVES TORTURE DETAINEES TO DEATH IN AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ

PENTAGON EXEMPT FROM FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT


To view more of the list, click here.

Who is failing here? Are the networks failing their viewers in their drive for profit? Are journalists failing the public they serve by bowing to the demands of their higher-ups? Why do we know what class John Mark Carr rode in on the plane, but we hear nothing of Halliburton? Most of all, is there a light at the end of the downward-spiraling tunnel of censorship the media seems to be caught up in?

Why McNeill has few windows.

When I first came to Simpson, I always wondered why McNeill had so few windows, and why so many journalism classes are in the bottom floor where no windows exist at all. Still, after only a few lessons in my journalism and communication courses, I began to see why. A recent article in Mediangler reitterated my views. Today's journalism students are at risk of jumping off the ledge when they see the prospects of their career. The article I'm addressing chose a sort of apocolyptic list of 10 ways that the media world will continue to change in the future, with most of these reasons no doubt leading to a shudder of fear for today's journalism student. What reason frightened me the most? I would have to say the following statement, reading;

Newspapers will have shorn most of their staff within five years and will be relying on a new breed of writer/audio/video patch-maker to add to their online quilt. There is no point hiring people when you can get it for free.


What does this mean for me? I used to shrug off such predictions saying that today's student just needed to learn to have to be more multi-faceted when entering the career field. But with these so-called (and inevitable) job cuts, is outstanding training enough? What, if any tools can prepare tomorrow's journalist to meet the demands of an occupation that seems to be shutting them out?

About Me

I am a 20-year old journalism student from a small private college in Iowa, and am studying journalism and mass communication because I have always had a passion for writing. There are a number of issues about the field that I am interested in from convergence to the future of the profession as a whole. I often wonder where the jobs in this market will be by the time I enter the workforce, as well as which skills I need to acquire so I can be viewed as a multi-faceted employee. I found one particular quote from Rupert Murdoch appearing in an article in The Economist to echo my fears about an apathetic future for readers, while at the same time presenting a new argument-- that those in the profession may be in part to blame. Murdoch says:

“I BELIEVE too many of us editors and reporters are out of touch with our readers,” Rupert Murdoch, the boss of News Corporation, one of the world's largest media companies, told the American Society of Newspaper Editors last week. No wonder that people, and in particular the young, are ditching their newspapers. Today's teens, twenty- and thirty-somethings “don't want to rely on a god-like figure from above to tell them what's important,” Mr Murdoch said, “and they certainly don't want news presented as gospel.” And yet, he went on, “as an industry, many of us have been remarkably, unaccountably, complacent."