Project Censored

Project Censored is a nonprofit media watchdog organization in the United States.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The group's stated mission is to "educate students and the public about the importance of a truly free press for democratic self-government."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name="Yasuda 2015">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Project Censored produces an annual book and a weekly radio program. Both the annual books and the weekly radio programs, as well as public events sponsored by the Project, focus on issues of news censorship, propaganda, free speech, and politics. Past editions of the yearbook were published by Seven Stories Press.

Project Censored was founded at Sonoma State University in 1976 by Carl Jensen (1929-2015).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Since 2010, Mickey Huff has been the group's director.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> It is sponsored by the Media Freedom Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, established in 2000. The organization is based in Ithaca, New York.

History

Project Censored was founded in 1976 by Carl Jensen, Associate Professor of Media Studies at Sonoma State College, as a media research program.<ref>Template:Cite book Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The project focused on student media literacy and critical thinking skills as applied to the US news media censorship.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

Corporate media reporters, editors, and executives<ref name=":1">Template:Cite AV media</ref> lampooned Jensen for claiming they "censored" news stories. They argued that the stories were not censored, but that due to time and space constraints, they could not publish every story. Jensen began an annual study that found that, rather than covering newsworthy stories, the corporate media often featured trivial and non-newsworthy stories, which Jensen termed "junk food news" in a 1983 interview published in Penthouse.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Since the first Censored yearbook, published in 1993, each annual Censored volume has featured a chapter dedicated to exposing examples of what Jensen originally identified as "junk food news".

In 1996, when Jensen retired, Peter Phillips, also a sociology professor at Sonoma State University, became director of Project Censored. He continued to expand the Project's educational outreach and the annual book, adding the concept and analysis of "News Abuse" to elaborate Jensen's idea of "junk food" news.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> "News abuse" refers to corporate media stories that were newsworthy, but presented in a slanted or non-newsworthy manner.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

In 2000, Project Censored came under the oversight of the non-profit Media Freedom Foundation, founded by Jensen and Phillips to ensure its independence. In 2007, two of Project Censored judges resigned due to then-director Peter Phillips' decision to invite Steven E. Jones, a 9/11 Truth conspiracy theorist, as the keynote speaker to the Project's annual conference.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

File:Mickey Huff.jpg

Mickey Huff, director of Project Censored, taken in Sacramento California, 2024.

Mickey Huff of Diablo Valley College became director in 2010.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He and Andy Lee Roth (associate director, 2012-2024) extended the Project beyond Sonoma State University and expanded the Campus Affiliates Program launched in 2009.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The top "Censored" news stories are identified through the Campus Affiliates Program, a collaborative effort between faculty and students at many colleges and universities.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In 2025, Shealeigh Voitl became associate director.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Activities

Publications

Since 1993, Project Censored has published its annual list of the most under-reported news stories in the form of a book. Since 1996, Seven Stories Press in New York has published each annual Censored book.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The first Project Censored yearbook, Censored: The News That Didn’t Make the News—And Why, edited by Carl Jensen, was published by Shelburne Press in 1993.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Two subsequent volumes, the 1994 and 1995 yearbooks, were published by Four Walls Eight Windows.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> From 2022 to 2025, the yearbooks were jointly published by Seven Stories Press and Project Censored’s publishing imprint, The Censored Press. The 2026 yearbook will be published solely by The Censored Press.

The organization's annual listing of the most significant but under-reported news stories, dating back to 1976, is archived on the Project Censored website.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Previous years' "Censored" lists have been featured in U.S. national media outlets.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Censored Press

The Censored Press was established in 2021 by the Media Freedom Foundation and Project Censored. The Censored Press has published a number of notable titles, including Going Remote: A Teacher's Journey,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case Against Julian Assange,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The Media and Me: A Guide to Critical Media Literacy for Young People,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and Titans of Capital: How Concentrated Wealth Threatens Humanity,<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref> each of which were which was co-published by the Censored Press and Seven Stories Press.

Radio program

Since 2010, Project Censored has produced a weekly public affairs program originating from KPFA in Berkeley, California, part of the Pacifica Foundation. The Project Censored Radio Show is syndicated on 40 radio stations across North America.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Documentary films

Project Censored has been the subject of two feature-length documentary films. In 2013, Doug Hecker and Christopher Oscar produced and directed Project Censored: The Movie: Ending the Reign of Junk Food News.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Citation</ref> The film features interviews with and commentary by Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Dan Rather, Phil Donahue, Michael Parenti, Greg Palast, Oliver Stone, Daniel Ellsberg, Peter Kuznick, Cynthia McKinney, Nora Barrows-Friedman, John Perkins, Jonah Raskin, Khalil Bendib, Abby Martin, and faculty and students associated with Project Censored.

Project Censored: The Movie screened at numerous film festivals, including its premiere at the Sonoma International Film Festival in April 2013,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> the Bend Film Festival in October 2013, and the Madrid International Film Festival in July 2013, where Doug Hecker and Christopher Oscar were recognized for Best Directing of a Feature Documentary.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In 1998, Differential Films released Project Censored: Is the Press Really Free?, directed and produced by Steven Keller. In May 2000, Project Censored: Is the Press Really Free? aired on PBS stations across the United States.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Reception

Project Censored stories have been cited in both national and international media.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Ralph Nader described Project Censored as "a deep, wide and utterly engrossing exercise to unmask censorship, self-censorship, and propaganda in the mass media."<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In December 2013, Nader selected Censored 2014: Fearless Speech in Fateful Times as one of his "10 Books to Provoke Conversation" in 2014.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

On the other hand, in 2000, Don Hazen, the first executive director of the progressive news analysis and commentary website AlterNet, criticized Project Censored as "stuck in the past" with a "dubious selection process" that "reinforces self-marginalizing, defeatist behavior".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> It has also been criticized for reporting on stories that are arguably not "under-reported" or "censored" at all, as they have appeared in The New York Times and other such high-profile publications.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> Furthermore, the organization's use of the term "censorship" to describe under-reported items, rather than governmentally censored material, has been called into question.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> William Powers, writing in The New Republic, called this broad use of the term "pernicious and deceptive."<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Awards

The 1995 edition of Censored: The News That Didn’t Make the News—And Why won the 1996 Firecracker Alternative Book Award for Nonfiction.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 2008, Project Censored received PEN Oakland's Censorship award.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In July 2014, Mickey Huff and Andy Lee Roth received the National Whistleblowers Center's Pillar Award for New Media on behalf of Project Censored.Template:Citation needed

External links

• Template:Official website