Nov 26, 2012

Top 25 Censored Stories Of 2013 and a List of Independent Alternatives to the Corporate Media

By Tim Hjersted / filmsforaction.org
Top 25 Censored Stories Of 2013 and a List of Independent Alternatives to the Corporate Media

Every year Project Censored puts together a list of the top 25 stories censored and ignored by the mainstream media. The recently published Censored 2013 covers the period between 2011-2012.

How many of these stories were you aware of? Even regular consumers of alternative, independent media may be surprised to learn about some of these stories, but by and large, turning off the TV and turning to new information sources on the internet provides the best guarantee you'll learn about the news that really matters.

If you need any more proof that the mainstream media is failing to do its job, here it is. This is also an excellent article to share with friends and family who haven't yet made the leap from TV news to quality internet sources.

Below the top 25 I've listed 37 of my favorite sources for alternative news. There are surely many more though. Share your favorite alternative news sources in the comments below.

1. Signs of an Emerging Police State

1. Signs of an Emerging Police State

Since the passage of the 2001 PATRIOT Act, the United States has become increasingly monitored and militarized at the expense of civil liberties. The 2012 passage of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) has allowed the military to detain indefinitely without trial any US citizen that the government labels a terrorist or an accessory to [...]

2. Oceans in Peril

2. Oceans in Peril

We thought the sea was infinite and inexhaustible. It is not. The overall rise in ocean temperature has led to the largest movement of marine species in two to three million years, according to scientists from the Climate Change and European Marine Ecosystems Research project. A February 2012 study of fourteen protected and eighteen unprotected [...]

3. Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Worse than Anticipated

3. Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Worse than Anticipated

Developing evidence from a number of independent sources suggests that the negative consequences of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster are far greater than first acknowledged or understood. An estimated 14,000 excess deaths in the United States are linked to the radioactive fallout in Japan, according to a December 2011 report published in the International [...]

4. FBI Agents Responsible for Majority of Terrorist Plots in the United States

4. FBI Agents Responsible for Majority of Terrorist Plots in the United States

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has embarked on an unusual approach to ensure that the United States is secure from future terrorist attacks. The agency has developed a network of nearly 15,000 spies to infiltrate various communities in an attempt to uncover terrorist plots. However, these moles are actually assisting and encouraging people to commit [...]

5. First Federal Reserve Audit Reveals Trillions Loaned to Major Banks

5. First Federal Reserve Audit Reveals Trillions Loaned to Major Banks

An audit of the First Federal Reserve reveals sixteen trillion dollars in secret bailouts to major American and European banks during the height of the global financial crisis, from 2007 to 2010. Morgan Stanley received up to $107.3 billion, Citigroup took $99.5 billion, and Bank of America $91.4 billion, according to data obtained through Freedom [...]

6. Small Network of Corporations Run the Global Economy

6. Small Network of Corporations Run the Global Economy

A University of Zurich study reported that a small group of companies—mainly banks—wields huge power over the global economy. The study is the first to look at all 43,060 transnational corporations and the web of ownership among them. The researchers’ network analysis identified 147 companies that form a “super entity,” controlling 40 percent of the [...]

7. 2012: The International Year of Cooperatives

7. 2012: The International Year of Cooperatives

The United Nations named 2012 as the International Year of Cooperatives. According to the UN, nearly one billion people worldwide are co-op member-owners, and the co-op is expected to be the world’s fastest growing business model by 2025. Worker-owned cooperatives provide for equitable distribution of wealth and genuine connection to the workplace, two key components [...]

8. NATO War Crimes in Libya

8. NATO War Crimes in Libya

Although the rationale of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for entry into Libyan conflict invoked humanitarian principles, the results have proven far from humane. In July 2011, NATO aircraft bombed Libya’s main water supply facility, which provided water to approximately 70 percent of the nation’s population. And, in a failed attempt to appear unbiased [...]

9. Prison Slavery in Today’s USA

9. Prison Slavery in Today’s USA

The US comprises less than 5 percent of the world’s population, yet US prisons hold more than 25 percent of all people imprisoned globally. Many of these prisoners labor at twenty-three cents per hour, or similar wages, in federal prisons contracted by the Bureau of Prisons’ UNICOR, a quasi-public, for-profit corporation, which is the US [...]

10. HR 347 Would Make Many Forms of Nonviolent Protest Illegal

In March 2012, President Obama signed into law HR 347, the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011. The law specifies as criminal offenses the acts of entering or remaining in areas defined as “restricted.” Although pundits have debated to what extent the new law restricts First Amendment rights or criminalizes Occupy protests, [...]

11. Members of Congress Grow Wealthier Despite Recession

11. Members of Congress Grow Wealthier Despite Recession

The net worth of the members of Congress continues to rise regardless of the economic recession. An analysis of financial disclosure forms by Roll Call magazine, using the minimum valuation of assets, showed that members of the House and Senate in 2010 had a collective net worth of $2.04 billion, a $390 million increase from [...]

12. US Joins Forces with al-Qaeda in Syria

12. US Joins Forces with al-Qaeda in Syria

The US, Britain, France, and some conservative Arab allies have funded and armed the Syrian rebellion from its start in 2011. In fact, the US has been funding groups against Bashar al-Assad since the mid-1990s. However, the anti-Assad ranks include members of al-Qaeda, Hamas, and other groups that the United States lists as terrorist organizations. [...]

13. Education “Reform” a Trojan Horse for Privatization

13. Education “Reform” a Trojan Horse for Privatization

Public education is the target of a well-coordinated, well-funded campaign to privatize as many schools as possible, particularly in cities. This campaign claims it wants great teachers in every classroom, but its rhetoric demoralizes teachers, reduces the status of the education profession, and champions standardized tests that perpetuate social inequality. The driving logic for such [...]

14. Who Are the Top 1 Percent and How Do They Earn a Living?

14. Who Are the Top 1 Percent and How Do They Earn a Living?

The richest 1 percent of the country now owns more than 40 percent of the wealth and takes home nearly a quarter of national income. Evidence based on tax returns indicates that this superelite 1 percent consists of nonfinancial executives, financial professionals, and members of the legal, real estate, and medical professions. Earnings at this [...]

15. Dangers of Everyday Technology

15. Dangers of Everyday Technology

Recent research raises compelling concerns about two commonplace technologies, cellular phones and microwave ovens. Heavy, long-term exposure to cell phone radiation increases risks for certain types of cancer, including leukemia, and in males impairs sperm production. Prenatal exposure to cell phone radiation has been shown to produce blood-brain barrier leakage, and brain, liver, and eye [...]

16. Sexual Violence against Women Soldiers on the Rise and under Wraps

16. Sexual Violence against Women Soldiers on the Rise and under Wraps

The 2005 death of US Army Private LaVena Johnson, officially ruled suicide by the Department of Defense, in fact exemplifies the sexual violence that female soldiers encounter while serving their country. Johnson’s autopsy revealed wounds inconsistent with suicide, including chemical burns that many believe were intended to destroy DNA evidence of rape. The Pentagon has [...]

17. Students Crushed By One Trillion Dollars in Student Loans

17. Students Crushed By One Trillion Dollars in Student Loans

In April 2012, US student loan debt topped one trillion dollars, more than credit card debt. Although corporate media dutifully reported this milestone, they underplayed its significance and ignored one promising solution. Student loan debt is the only form of consumer loan debt that has increased substantially since 2008. The threat of massive student loan [...]

18. Palestinian Women Prisoners Shackled during Childbirth

18. Palestinian Women Prisoners Shackled during Childbirth

Female Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons are treated inhumanely and often denied medical care, and legal representation, and are forced to live in squalid conditions. The conditions and violations faced by women in Israeli jails need to be addressed from a gender perspective, according to CEDAW, the United Nation’s Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination [...]

19. New York Police Plant Drugs on Innocent People to Meet Arrest Quotas

19. New York Police Plant Drugs on Innocent People to Meet Arrest Quotas

A host of stories document how the New York Police Department operates outside the very laws it is charged with enforcing. In October 2011, a former NYPD narcotics detective testified that he regularly saw police plant drugs on innocent people as a way to meet arrest quotas. The NYPD’s controversial “stop and frisk” program has [...]

20. Stealing from Public Education to Feed the Prison-Industrial Complex

A systemic recasting of education priorities gives official structure and permanence to a preexisting underclass comprised largely of criminalized, poor people of color. The rise of corporate-backed charter schools and privatized prisons cannot be understood apart from the record closures of public schools across the country. Censored News Cluster: From “Bankster Bailout” to “Blessed Unrest”: [...]

21. Conservatives Attack US Post Office to Break the Union and Privatize Postal Services

21. Conservatives Attack US Post Office to Break the Union and Privatize Postal Services

The US Postal Service has been under constant assault for years from conservative Republicans who aim to eviscerate the strongest union in the country. Under the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, USPS must fully fund retiree health benefits for future retirees—including the retirement packages of employees not even born yet. No other organization, public [...]

22. Wachovia Bank Laundered Money for Latin American Drug Cartels

22. Wachovia Bank Laundered Money for Latin American Drug Cartels

Between 2004 and 2007, Wachovia Bank handled funds totaling $378.4 billion for Mexican currency-exchange houses acting on behalf of drug cartels. The transactions amount to the largest violation of the Bank Secrecy Act, an anti-money-laundering law, in US history. This case is not exceptional; Wachovia is just one of several US and European banks that [...]

23. US Covers up Afghan Massacre

23. US Covers up Afghan Massacre

Although the March 2012 massacre of sixteen unarmed Afghan civilians, nine of whom were children, received a great deal of news coverage, independent news sources have focused on whether one US solider acting alone—as US officials have insisted—or multiple US soldiers—as Afghan witnesses and Afghan President Hamid Karzai contend—bear direct responsibility for the killings. These [...]

24. Alabama Farmers Look to Replace Migrants with Prisoners

24. Alabama Farmers Look to Replace Migrants with Prisoners

Alabama’s expansive anti-immigrant law, HB56, has been so economically devastating that farmers in the state sought legislation to force hard labor on prison inmates eligible for work release programs, to “help farms fill the gap and find sufficient labor.” The state’s Department of Corrections opposed the legislation, noting that its approximately 2,000 prisoners eligible for [...]

25. Evidence Points to Guantánamo Dryboarding

In June 2006, three Guantánamo prisoners were found dead in their cells, hanging from what appeared to be makeshift nooses. Although the Department of Defense declared the deaths suicides, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) inquiry found evidence inconsistent with suicide—including the fact that the prisoners’ hands were bound behind their backs. The NCIS evidence [...]

 

Top Independent News Sources

Adbusters
Aljazeera
AlterNet
Black Agenda Report
Common Dreams
Counter Punch
Democracy Now!
Earth First! Newswire
Films For Action
Free Press
Free Speech TV
Global Research
Good magazine
Grist
IndyMedia International
Indypendent
Information Clearing House
Info Shop News
Intercontinental Cry
Mother Earth Journal
OccupyWallSt
Oil Empire
OpEd News
Organic Consumers
Post Carbon News
Project Censored
PR Watch
subMedia
The Raw Story
The Real News TV
Treehugger
Truthdig
Truthout
Want To Know
War Is A Crime
Yes! magazine

 

And for easy reference, here our 3 of Film For Action's best resources:

The Top 100 Social Change Documentaries

Top 10 Films that Explain Why OWS Exists

Wall of Films! | Over 400 Social Change Documentaries on 1 Page, Free to Watch OnlineWall of Films | Hundreds of Social Change Documentaries on 1 Page

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