Dig Deeper Texas

San Antonio Current - News & Politics

As the stories cited in this year’s Project Censored selections point out, the federal government continues to provide major news networks with stock footage, which is dutifully broadcast as news. The George W. Bush administration has spent more federal money than any other presidency on public relations. Without a doubt, Parenti said, the government invests in shaping our beliefs. “Every day they’re checking out what we think,” he said. “The erosion of civil liberties is not happening in one fell swoop but in increments. Very consciously, this administration has been heading toward a general autocracy.”

Carl Jensen, who founded Project Censored in 1976 after witnessing the landslide reelection of Richard Nixon in 1972 in spite of mounting evidence of the Watergate scandal, agreed that this year’s censored stories amount to an accumulated threat to democracy. “I’m waiting for one of our great liberal writers to put together the big picture of what’s going on here,” he said.

I just recently reread All the President’s Men. It’s scary how many of the same names from Nixon’s administration have shown up again under Bush. But I guess reporting that would just show the liberal bias of media…

Technorati Tags: Project Censored, Peter Phillips, Media, self-censorship

Filed under: Media, Peter Phillips, Project Censored, self-censorship