Censored 1999: The News That Didn't Make the News

Compiled by the Project Censored staff under the directorship of Peter Phillips, with over 150 student researchers, faculty, media scholars, and critics, Censored 1999 stands in stark contrast to the news reported by the major networks or the daily newspapers. This year's collection features: Luke Hiken with the National Lawyers Guild on the First Amendment and pirate radio stations in the U.S.; Steve Wilson and Jane Akre on Fox News and the controversial Bovine Growth Hormone (BGH) story ; "Censored Dja Vu" -- Censored stories from previous years that have since received mainstream coverage; and "Junk Food News" -- The most over-covered, least newsworthy stories that dominated the media at the expense of real news. Also included are the "Censored Resource Guide," "Censored Guide to On-line Resources," and "Alternative Writer's Market."

While members of the press and punditry were crawling all over each other to talk about Bill Clinton's sex life throughout 1998, other things were happening that you may not have heard about. Like the American government's repeated noncompliance with the UN's comprehensive test ban treaty on nuclear weapons. Or Nigerian soldiers being helicoptered to a Chevron facility by the company, shooting at a group of student demonstrators there, and killing two of them. Or that recently declassified documents suggest that--despite what we were told in the '50s--the fluoride in our water might not be so safe after all. Catch up on these and other stories the mainstream media never quite got around to reporting. Censored 1999 also has updates on coverage of the top underreported stories of 1998, a guide to online news resources, and several cartoons by Tom Tomorrow skewering the established media perspective. --Ron Hogan