Looking for newsmakers of the year? Project Censored annually calls attention to the top 25 news stories that were marginalized or unreported by North American mainstream outlets in the previous year. Founded as a media research program by Dr. Carl Epstein in 1976, the Sonoma State University project began with a focus on media literacy and critical thinking skills.
Today it connects “hundreds of faculty and students at colleges and universities across the U.S. and around the world in the collective effort of identifying and researching each year’s top censored news stories.”
In anticipation of their top 25 for 2013, here is my humble proposal for news stories that fizzled in Canadian media.
Due to space limitations, the choices are limited to a dozen: six this week and another six next week
12. Where’s the missing billions?
Although this story initially got a bit of traction in newsrooms, it was soon trampled underfoot by reporters chasing Mike Duffy and Rob Ford. In April, auditor general Michael Ferguson confessed he was unable to locate $3.1 billion earmarked to anti-terrorism programs that was spent between 2001-2009 — a full quarter of the terrorism budget for that time period.
Did the money go deep into the bowels of the military-industrial-security complex, with its gravy train of private contractors conjuring Islamofascist nightmares? Or somewhere else? Our media is no longer asking.
11. Canadian banks can freeze investors’ money.
Critics say the 2013 Canadian Budget includes a clause that allows banks to recapitalize on the backs of customers in the event of a financial crisis. This development followed on the heels of the Cyprus “bail-in,” a partly successful attempt of international bankers to impose a “haircut” on the deposits of Cypriots after the credit crisis in the Eurozone.
Here is the key federal budget paragraph: “The Government proposes to implement a bail-in regime for systemically important banks.
This regime will be designed to ensure that, in the unlikely event that a systemically important bank depletes its capital, the bank can be recapitalized and returned to viability through the very rapid conversion of certain bank liabilities into regulatory capital.
This will reduce risks for taxpayers.” (In bank lingo, customers deposits become “liabilities” on the books when they are lent out.)
10. Gag rule in Japan.
It’s a good bet this one will make the Project Censored top 25 for 2013, considering it was just reported on its website. In December of this year, the Japanese government (“with the blessing of Barack Obama”) rammed a bill through parliament which will make whistle-blowing a crime punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
The reason presumably has some passing connection to the ninth item, below.
9. Fukushima represents a national and international health threat.
High thyroid cancer rates have been found among children from the Fukushima area, according to Japanese media. And in a study published this month in the peer-reviewed journal, Open Journal of Pediatrics, health researchers claim that babies born in California have shown a significant excess of hypothyroidism linked to Fukushima’s radioactive material travelling 5,000 miles across thePacific.
I am going to go out on a limb and predict this newly released study will do a Where’s Waldo in North American broadsheets and broadcasts.
8. The TPP is not primarily about trade.
Of the 29 chapters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a bare five cover traditional trade matters. The rest of the document represents concessions to transnational corporations, allowing them to trump the decisions of democratically elected governments. This applies to regulations on food safety, natural gas extraction (fracking), job and wage security, drug prices and intellectual property.
It is also a great gift to international bankers, by removing some key legislative barriers to further Ponzi scheme practices. Obama and Harper desperately want to fast-track this sucker without public input, for obvious reasons.
7. Occupy’s rolling debt jubilee.
An underreported good news item: since late last year, Occupy’s Strike Debt Group has been purchasing millions of dollars of personal debt from banks and then abolishing it, freeing up Americans from indentured servitude to financial institutions.
As reported in The Guardian, by purchasing the debt at fire sale prices the group has freed almost $15 million of personal debt — mainly medical — at a cost of only $400,000.
geoffolson.com
