Censored 2016
Ed. by Mickey Huff, and Andy Lee Roth with Project Censored
This volume in the annual Project Censored series marks their fortieth anniversary, and I’ve been along with them for most of the ride (see my earlier comments on the 2003, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013 instalments). In terms of the editorial structure, it seems as though they’ve dropped the system of “news clusters” that was only introduced a couple of years ago. That’s no big loss, and I would recommend the Junk Food News section for further pruning in case anyone is listening. This section has turned into a bunch of unnecessary scolding. Introducing this section by saying that the past year was “jam-packed with more junk than Courtney Love’s veins” is a bad indicator of where things are headed.
As for the stories themselves, few of these are surprising. This is probably due to the way that the news, having migrated to the Internet and now constituting a “networked fourth estate,” is less monolithic now, making mainstream censorship more difficult. The top story, for example, that half of global wealth is now owned by the one percent, is only a milestone on what has been a long and well-reported trend. Among the other stories, what is most striking, and depressing, is how scary the situation is with regard to issues relating to the environment and state surveillance. Truly, things are worse here than even I had imagined.
goodreports.net 