Ten big news stories the media is ignoring

[n2doc]

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/100qZq9HjlCH3r8w450H3WT?siteid=mktw&dist=TNMostRead

THOMAS KOSTIGEN'S ETHICS MONITOR
Ten big news stories you aren't hearing
Traditional media ignore or downplay significant events

By Thomas Kostigen, MarketWatch
Last Update: 12:03 AM ET Sep 8, 2006

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- The San Francisco Bay Guardian newspaper has printed a list of stories we in the media seem to have largely ignored over the past year. The story is gleaned from an annual list developed by Project Censored, a media research group out of Sonoma State University that tracks the news published in independent journals and newsletters.
It's a provocative and eye-opening list that warrants attention, especially from the media. And each year it usually gets it, as Salon comments, out of "guilt." In a great example of how certain stories play out, San Francisco Bay Guardian reporter Sarah Phelan opens her article by citing the play two news items recently received on the same day they broke: In Detroit, U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor ruled that the Bush administration's warrantless National Security Agency surveillance program was unconstitutional and must end. Meanwhile, somewhere in Thailand, a weirdo named John Mark Karr claimed he was with six-year-old beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey when she died in 1996. We all know which story received the most attention.
Here are the Top 10 most ignored stories. I've had to condense them for space considerations, but their headlines should tell enough of a story:
1. The Feds and the media muddy the debate over Internet freedom
The Supreme Court ruled that giant cable companies aren't required to share their wires with other Internet service providers. The issue was misleadingly framed as an argument over regulation, when it's really a case of the Federal Communications Commission and Congress talking about giving cable and telephone companies the freedom to control supply and content -- a decision that could have them playing favorites and forcing consumers to pay to get information and services that currently are free.
Source: "Web of Deceit: How Internet Freedom Got the Federal Ax, and Why Corporate News Censored the Story," Elliot D. Cohen, BuzzFlash.com, July 18, 2005.
2. Halliburton charged with selling nuclear technology to Iran
Halliburton, the notorious U.S. energy company, sold key nuclear-reactor components to a private Iranian oil company called Oriental Oil Kish as recently as 2005, using offshore subsidiaries to circumvent U.S. sanctions. The story is particularly juicy because Vice President Dick Cheney, who now claims to want to stop Iran from getting nukes, was president of Halliburton in the mid-1990s, at which time he may have advocated business dealings with Iran, in violation of U.S. law.
Source: "Halliburton Secretly Doing Business with Key Member of Iran's Nuclear Team," Jason Leopold, GlobalResearch.ca, Aug. 5, 2005.
3. World oceans in extreme danger
Governments deny global warming is happening as they rush to map the ocean floor in the hopes of claiming rights to oil, gas, gold, diamonds, copper, zinc and the planet's last pristine fishing grounds. Researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 2005 found "the first clear evidence that the world ocean is growing warmer," including the discovery "that the top half-mile of the ocean has warmed dramatically in the past 40 years as the result of human-induced greenhouse gases."
Source: "The Fate of the Ocean," Julia Whitty, Mother Jones, March-April 2006.
4. Hunger and homelessness increasing in the United States
As hunger and homelessness rise in the United States, the Bush administration plans to get rid of a data source that supports this embarrassing reality, a survey that's been used to improve state and federal programs for retired and low-income Americans.
In 2003, the Bush Administration tried to whack the Bureau of Labor Statistics report on mass layoffs and in 2004 and 2005 attempted to drop the bureau's questions on the hiring and firing of women from its employment data.
Sources: "New Report Shows Increase in Urban Hunger, Homelessness," Brendan Coyne, New Standard, December 2005; "U.S. Plan to Eliminate Survey of Needy Families Draws Fire," Abid Aslam, OneWorld.net, March 2006.
The others (more at the link)
5. High-tech genocide in Congo
6. Federal whistleblower protection in jeopardy
7. U.S. operatives torture detainees to death in Afghanistan and Iraq
8. Pentagon exempt from Freedom of Information Act
9. World Bank funds Israel-Palestine wall
10. Expanded air war in Iraq kills more civilians

I might disagree with the order, but it is great to see someone in the media pointing this out...

[havocmom]

1. and with all the hoopla of ABC and path to lying about 9-11

look for an especially nasty Friday News Dump.

Somebody keep an eye on 'em for me. Gonna be away today.

[snappyturtle]

2. K&R..............you wonder why these issues aren't being

discussed? Just look at what's all over DU today. This administration has so F*&^)%up the American scene we only seem to be capable of focusing on one issue at a time. There are not enough hours in the day to delve into many.

[n2doc]

3. Too many battles to fight

Sometimes it is just overwhelming the number of fronts that the BFEE is fighting freedom loving americans on. There's the Pelast story, the attacks on Murtha, the push poll callers in NH, not even to get into the ABC thing which is consuming most of our attention. It always appears so easy for the other side to get the media to cave on things that they want, and so hard to get them to do even the most simple, justified things on our side. It has been a depressing summer. ...

[snappyturtle]

4. Agreed.....esp. to the depressing summer part! nt

[glitch]

5. I think the agreement with Pakistan to let Osama Bin Laden remain free

is pretty explosive, that one dropped fast.

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Press_secretary_to_president_of_Pakistan_0905.html
Press secretary to the president of Pakistan tells ABC Osama bin Laden will not be captured if he agrees to live 'peaceful life'

Major General Shaukat Sultan Khan, press secretary to the president of Pakistan, tells ABC News that -- if found -- Osama bin Laden won't be arrested, as long as he promises to behave like a "peaceful citizen."

"If he is in Pakistan, bin Laden 'would not be taken into custody,' Major General Shaukat Sultan Khan told ABC News in a telephone interview, 'as long as one is being like a peaceful citizen," report Brian Ross and Gretchen Peters at ABC's blog, The Blotter.

"No, as long as one is being like a peaceful citizen, one would not be taken into custody," said Khan. "One has to stay like a peaceful citizen and not allowed to participate in any kind of terrorist activity."

"The surprising announcement comes as Pakistani army officials announced they were pulling their troops out of the North Waziristan region as part of a 'peace deal' with the Taliban," reports ABC.

[n2doc]

6. Yeah. There was the requisite bs about not doing so

Then one sees the reality that the Pak military is giving up its posts along the Afganistan border region in favor of local taliban militias.
Of course, I am one who believes that OBL died a long time ago.....But the reality is, the situation in southern Afganistan/northern Pakistan is as bad or worse now than 5 years ago, Iraq is much worse, Israel/Palestine/Lebanon is worse, and we have spent hundreds of billions of dollars to "accomplish" this.

I think the Pakistan news (and the ABC crap) fits with Rove's strategy. You have * suddenly spewing on and on about OBL after not saying much about him for literally years. When the pukes are faced with disaster, they make it their own and count on the MSM to spew the propaganda with a happy face.

[glitch]

12. That has certainly been Rove's strategy. I hope he sticks with it because

as a strategy I think its effectiveness is way past its prime.

But agreeing with their 'allies' to not even bother to capture Bin Laden is not getting airplay. They do not want that one out, they haven't thought of a way to spin it.

[mhatrw]

7. And we can all think of another 10 or 20 beyond these. n/t

[nashville_brook]

8. Halliburton sells NUKES to Iran. nice.

[nashville_brook]

9. Halliburton sells NUKES to Iran. nice.

[OneBlueSky]

10. that list should also include something about U.S. elections . . .

being in jeopardy, and the fact that your vote may or may not count, depending on where you cast it . . . (or, in some cases, are prevented from casting it) . . .

[n2doc]

11. Yeah, some of the really inflamatory stuff ain't there

But what is , is bad enough. My feeling on electronic vote fraud is that there is going to have to be a really clear, horrendously clear, case of it before people take to the streets. But I am not sure if it is possible to have fraud so open that it cannot be discounted by some nay sayer. We have clear evidence of fraud in the last 3 elections but it wasn't enough.

[Dems Will Win]

13. Story #1 is actually just in the last few days.

Turns out the permafrost is melting 5 times faster than thought and we really are looking at a super-warming cascade.

In other words, the end of the world.

Wouldn't you know the TV news would miss that?

To not get totally depressed, thank goodness scientist Paul Crutzen figured how to cool the planet by a half degree with sulfur aerosols in the stratosphere.

We're saved!

That's story #2 that was missed in my opinion.

SCIENTIST FIGURES OUT WAY TO SAVE WORLD would be the headline.

[rman]

14. Cheney sold nuclear technology to Iran. excellent

He's probably going to say he has never even heard of Halliburton nor Iran.