Upside Down World editor Benjamin Dangl won a Project Censored Award for his coverage of the U.S. military operations in Paraguay. This story was selected as one of the top 25 most important censored news stories of the year.
Here is the article: U.S. Military in Paraguay Prepares to "Spread Democracy"
A summary and update on the story will be published in the book Censored 2007: Media Democracy in Action, coming out this August from Seven Stories Press.
Keep your eyes on Upside Down World for ongoing coverage of this story and more on the Bush administration’s militarization of Latin America.
Here is some more about Project Censored:
"Project Censored is one of the organizations that we should listen to, to be assured that our newspapers and our broadcasting outlets are practicing thorough and ethical journalism." –Walter Cronkite
"Devastating evidence of the dumbing down of mainstream news in America. . . . Required reading for broadcasters, journalists, and well-informed citizens." –Los Angeles Times
"A distant early warning system for society’s problems." –American Journalism Review
Project Censored is a media research group out of Sonoma State University which tracks the news published in independent journals and newsletters. From these, Project Censored compiles an annual list of 25 news stories of social significance that have been overlooked, under-reported or self-censored by the country’s major national news media.
Between 700 and 1000 stories are submitted to Project Censored each year from journalists, scholars, librarians, and concerned citizens around the world. With the help of more than 200 Sonoma State University faculty, students, and community members, Project Censored reviews the story submissions for coverage, content, reliability of sources and national significance. The university community selects 25 stories to submit to the Project Censored panel of judges who then rank them in order of importance. Current or previous national judges include: Noam Chomsky, Susan Faludi, George Gerbner, Sut Jhally , Frances Moore Lappe, Norman Solomon, Michael Parenti, Herbert I. Schiller, Barbara Seaman, Erna Smith, Mike Wallace and Howard Zinn. All 25 stories are featured in the yearbook, Censored: The News That Didn’t Make the News.
The best-selling Censored series highlights the year’s twenty-five most important underreported news stories, alerting readers to deficiencies in corporate media and the resurgence of alternative media. Among the top censored stories of the year, Censored 2007 highlights the environmental and economic repercussions of Hurricane Katrina, the newest findings on global warming, escalating trends in human trafficking, and the use of napalm in Iraq.