What the News Doesn’t Tell Us Might Just Come Back to Haunt Us

Project Censored’s Unsettling Reminder

By Jim Miller

In my Martin Luther King Jr. Day column, my first of the year, I noted the “anticipatory dread” that many folks are feeling about the upcoming electoral year where the future of democracy itself will be on the ballot.  

Last weekend on Saturday Night Live’s faux newscast, Colin Jost captured the feeling in comedic fashion as he quipped, “Guys, I don’t know if we should do this election . . .  It’s honestly starting to feel like elder abuse. I don’t even blame them, I blame us for allowing it. It reminds me of those Bumfights videos where they made two homeless guys fight for money. And now we look back on it, and we’re like, ‘How did we as a society let that happen.'”

He then went on to suggest that we tell the presidential candidates “that they both won and that we are very proud of them and that they can rest now.”  But alas, it is abundantly clear that, despite various political fantasies about an alternative reality, Trump vs. Biden will be THE dominant story of the coming year.  While there will be wall-to-wall coverage of that in the national news and surely more than a few comments on the contest coming from this soapbox, there are some things to keep our eyes on in the coming year that may end up influencing the outcome and/or being just as or more important.  

In the closing weeks of 2023, Project Censored released its list of the 25 most censored stories of 2022-23. If you are interested in their criteria and process, follow the link above, but suffice to say, they focus on news that is radically underreported given its importance to our society and politics.  What stands out in this year’s report is that nearly half of the stories have to do with the environment, climate, and efforts to conceal crucial news about some of the direst threats we face nationally and globally.   

For instance, the number one story on the list focuses on how “Forever Chemicals” in rainwater threaten human health globally.  

In addition this story, Project Censored also looks at reports on 

• the lack of regulation of toxic chemicals, 

• the “worthless” nature of rainforest carbon offsets, 

• efforts by fossil fuel investors to sue the government to block regulations, 

• the links between oil and gas extraction sites and maternal health and childhood leukemia,

• the growing number of threats to and murders of environmental activists, 

• the forced relocation of tribal towns due to the climate crisis, 

• the skewing of university climate and energy research by fossil fuel money, 

• electric utility companies’ climate disinformation campaigns, 

• Puerto Rican cities suing fossil fuel companies under organized crime law, and more.  

Reading through this list one is also struck by the number of stories that document the continued entrenchment of economic inequality as corporate profits hit a record high and the top 0.1%’s financial hauls skyrocket along with Wall Street bonuses.  Suffice to say, Project Censored’s survey of the news that matters most that we are not seeing nearly enough of reveals that our current reality might be better reflected in the dystopian fiction of Kim Stanley Robinson than it is in our news feeds.  

Of course, this is so because the media is not “woke” or “liberal” but corporate, and even outside the universe of Fox, stories that expose how the corporate class and the superrich are laughing all the way to the bank as the earth is despoiled and the lives of millions of people are put in jeopardy simply don’t merit the same attention as the ongoing Trump circus which garners huge ratings while simultaneously distracting the populace.

If we are unfortunate enough to watch a rerun of the reign of orange Jesus, we’ll see how successful the Heritage Foundation can be at institutionalizing Trumpism, and whether or not the public will even be informed enough to know what’s happening to their country and world.  

Project Censored’s answer to this question is an unsettling no.