Things people should care about
Via Slashdot I came across this intriguing list of items that haven’t received the amount of attention that they are properly due. I certainly respect and support the efforts of these sorts of organizations that truly use the freedom of expression to track important goings-on, I have a bit of issue with calling themselves "Project Censored", as the sensational moniker doesn’t accurately describe the good work they are doing. Censorship is a loaded word that implies active coercion (usually by the government) to suppress information, which doesn’t appear to be the case for most of the listed items (excepting of course those items which explicitly describe attempts to apply spin to information). Indeed, by having payed attention to alternate sources—like BBC and Atlantic Monthly—and my own keen interest in what goes on in the world, I can say that few if any of the "top 25 censored media stories of 2003-2004" were really new and surprising. Yes, entrenched interests have incentive to distract from those topics, but the information is available to essentially anyone; unfortunately, I don’t think those entrenched interests have to try very hard, for a large segment of the American public would probably just shrug their shoulders upon hearing about some of these stories.