PELTIER FINALLY GETS MEDICAL TREATMENT   After suffering for four years with his jaw completely frozen, Native American activist Leonard Peltier finally received medical care on March 21. The five-hour surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, was a complete success and Peltier is reported in good spirits and as comfortable as possible. It was a happy ending for a week that began in panic, as Peltier supporters discovered that he was missing from prison.

Family and friends wer justified in fearing the worst -- that he had been sent to the federal prison medical center in Springfield, Missouri, which had botched two earlier jaw surgeries and left him in constant pain. As we reported in a 1998 report on his case, Peltier feared that he would be killed if sent back to that facility. He wanted to be treated instead at the Mayo Clinic where surgeon Dr. Eugene Keller had agreed to treat him, but the Bureau of Prisons refused permission unless Peltier first signed a blanket release which would allow the prison system to send him to Springfield, or wherever they choose.

But even before the surgery releasing his jaw, Peltier was speaking eloquently about his case and 24 years in prison, as can be found in this interview last month reprinted in the Monitor. Supporters are pushing for Clinton to issue an executive clemency order before his term ends; the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee asks you call the White House comments line today at (202) 456-1111, demanding Leonard's immediate release. (March 25, 2000)

DOES PROJECT CENSORED HAVE A FUTURE?   Many Monitor readers eagerly await with the annual Project Censored awards, with its list of the top stories ignored by media at large. Now in its 24th year, the venerable journalism project announced its 1999 list this month -- and was completely ignored by the mainstream press. Not that this is unusual; the list is rarely acknowledged by media. Even its hometown daily newspaper, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, has mostly ignored the Project -- except for a savage attack on founder Carl Jensen's 1998 book, "Twenty Years of Censored News," as we noted in a Monitor 404 item at the time.

But P.C. fans may find shocking Don Hazen's essay, "Life Beyond Project Censored," coming as it does from a respected figure in the alternative press. "Flawed in its process to begin with, Project Censored tends to reinforce fundamentally self-marginalizing, defeatist behavior while ignoring the role new media is playing in communicating information," writes Hazen. "Instead of honoring timely, investigative-oriented, break-out stories that move from the alternative press to mainstream media, Project Censored chooses to recognize only those stories that remain buried. <>"Part of the problem with Project Censored is the procedure by which stories are selected. PC's excellent panel of judges do not select the stories; rather they are asked only to rate a list of 25 picked by students and faculty from Sonoma State University ...according to Project Censored culture, the way to get an award is if your story doesn't get advanced or echoed in the mainstream media. Sure, it could have been censorship that stopped or slowed the story. But it also could have been that the article was badly written, had facts wrong, had bad timing or wasn't placed or promoted. None of these causes is really factored in the subjective process of PC choosing its stories..."

Hazen makes a compelling argument. He and others on the Alternet staff did a followup/ analysis of the top ten Project choices, and found a mix of good investigative reporting, bad research, and unabashed advocacy journalism.

Kudos went to the #1 story, "Energy Companies Support Brutal Dictatorships and Human Rights Violations," which revealed that Unocal, Exxon, Mobil, and others were directly involved in campaigns of mass murder, rape, torture and slavery. Little notice was given of these stories in the U.S., where most of these companies are based. But in Europe, where these incidents were widely reported, corporations like UK-based British Petroleum and Holland-based Shell took action to stop these abuses. This was a classic example of a worthy "censored" story, as was #9, "Louisiana Promotes Toxic Racism." Here veteran reporter Ron Nixon found the state had aggressively sought chemical companies to relocate in "Cancer Alley" -- the 100-mile stretch between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, heavily populated by poor people of color.

But other stories among the top ten were more dubious. Number 6, "NATO Defends Private Economic Interests in the Balkans," was an analysis that claimed the"obvious" motivation behind NATO's Kosovo War was the U.S. desire for an oil pipeline through the Balkans, according to Hazen and his colleagues, who also noted that the author provided no interviews or other evidence for this conclusion. It wasn't news at all, but rather an interesting -- yet unsubstantiated -- theory.

Another story that Hazen and staff found questionable for being "censored" was #3, "Bloated American Cancer Society Wastes Much, Prevents Few Cancers." Author Dr. Samuel S. Epstein makes the point that many supporters of the ACS in the pharmaceutical and medical industries benefit financially from treating the disease rather than preventing it. Sound familiar? It should; for more than twenty years, Dr. Epstein has appeared on TV programs including 60 Minutes, Face the Nation, Meet the Press, and McNeil/Lehrer. He also has drafted legislation and testified numerous times before Congress. "It would be hard to argue that Epstein is unable to get his message out," Hazen and colleagues note.

Most dubious is story #8 -- "U.S. Plans to Put Weapons in Space, Violating International Law." This doesn't even qualify as news; it's based mostly on hyperbole found 1996 and 1998 Air Force reports that fantasize of Darth Vader-style space superweapons -- to be operational within the next twenty years. Only a single R&D project has been approved, and that was for tests of a missle-intercept laser considered "very desirable" by Pentagon watchdogs at the Federation of American Scientists. The authors of this Project Censored-winning item were also behind the Project's top 1996 story, that the Cassini spacecraft posed a risk to life on Earth -- another concoted space "threat." (Monitor investigated the story closely before concluding their claims were bunk.) That one of the authors has won five previous awards should alone bring pause to the board of Project Censored.

Hazen also makes the point that the Project "[ignores] the role new media is playing in communicating information." Except for one radio broadcast, it appears that no sources outside of printed newsletters, magazines, or journals were considered by the Project. Were there really no worthy offerings from Salon, Consortium News, or any of the other electronic news sources? Hardly. (Full disclosure: In the past two years, the Internet-only Albion Monitor has nominated two stories for Project consideration: How the Cocaine Scandal Helped George W. Bush and U.S. Media Ignores Historic Indonesia Overthrow of Dictator. Neither story was selected.)

So much for armchair quarterbacking -- if asked to name the top five stories of 1999, our staff would easily pick these:

1. Genocide in East Timor
2. Netwar and the WTO Seattle Protests
3. U.S. Warmongering in Kosovo
4. Echelon Satellite Surveillance of Global Communications
5. Nazi Movements on the Rise

All of these are global stories that will have enormous impact on our future, and all were given short shrift in the U.S. media. Of these five, Project Censored only included the Kosovo War. While the Seattle protests won't be eligible until next year -- the protests took place six weeks after the Project's October 15 cutoff date -- it is impossible to understand how the Project can justify ignoring East Timor and one of the worst atrocities committed in the century. Ironically, the Project was one of the first media resources to recognize the historic importance of the 1977 genocide of Cambodians by the Khmer Rouge; if the Project's criteria have changed so radically that now the vanishing of 80,000 people -- one-tenth of a nation -- doesn't make a blip on their radar, it's difficult to defend the Project as still relevant. It's a red flag that the Project has indeed become an anachronism, intent on endlessly rehashing slight variations on familiar stories.

Hazen calls for a new award to "...[recognize] stories dug out, documented, brilliantly rendered and expertly promoted so that they got through the corporate media haze and became part of the public knowledge." It's a noble call to arms, sure, and Project Censored could respond to the challenge -- if it still has enough of an audience. Tate Hausman of Alternet says he believes only 1-2 dozen of their 200 media clients (including the Monitor) have picked up this year's list. If Project Censored has indeed become that marginalized in its stronghold of the alternative press, it may not survive as a credible voice. (March 31, 2000)

NAZIS ON THE MARCH   If the rise of neo-Nazi movements was a top 1999 story, the Y2000 sequel is the fascist's return to power. When in February the Austrian equivalent of America's GOP joined forces with the extreme right to form a new government, it was the first time since WWII that any nation in Europe had a coalition government formed by the extreme right.

Massive anti-fascist demonstrations were seen throughout Europe in the week that followed, and almost every day throughout February there were new industry boycotts, government embargoes, or other strong condemnations of the new government of Austria. These stories were widely covered in the European, Canadian, and Asian press -- but the general American media only reported on the early protests, and even that with fleeting coverage.

Ignoring the world's backlash against Austria is part of a tradition in the U.S. press to slight international news in general -- and particularly when it concerns the dangerous subject of fascism. Skeptical that it's taboo? Read our Monitor 404 item last August, then ponder why the American media has ignored this worldwide boom of neo-Nazi movements. If those stories don't convince you, ask why there's been almost no coverage whatsoever of the recent Nazi marches in Berlin.

Again widely covered in the press outside the United States, the capitol of Germany is now witnessing the first openly pro-Nazi demonstrations since Hitler was in power. The first occurred on the last weekend of January, as 800 "flag-waving and booted youths" (London Sunday Times) marched through Berlin's famous Brandenburg Gate to protest that a proposed Holocaust memorial was "insensitive" to Germany. Then in mid-March, another 500 German neo-Nazis marched again at the Brandenburg Gate in support of the new Austrian government. Blocked by court order from throwing Nazi salutes or singing the good old songs, they satisfied themselves by chanting racist slogans and marching through Berlin's predominantly Turkish neighborhoods.

By not reporting such incidents, the U.S. media sanctions them -- intentionally or no. Think of the difference that the press could have made if it had reported scenes of southern racial hatred in the early '50s, before the civil rights movement took root. Or for that matter, think of the difference the American media could have made by reporting on similar fascist protests during the rise of German Nazism in the 1920s. (March 12, 2000)

THE CENSUS SQUAWK   Unclear-on-the-concept department: Turn back the clock to last year, and recall that conservatives were making a great fuss over the Clinton administration's plans to conduct a scientific census based on sampled data. While only a sample of the population would actually be interviewed, Commerce Secretary Bill Daley emphasized that this would "create the most accurate census that the American people can have."

Wait a minnit, snorted House Speaker Dennis Hastert and other Repubs; the Constitution called for an actual enumeration -- that is, a head count. No witchy "statistical" confabulation for us, no sir! The Supreme Court considered the case and decided that yes, heads must be enumerated.

Shift forward now to the end of March and the count is underway. But who's complaining the loudest? The ultra-conservatives, who now have to answer all those noisy "personal" questions on their census forms.

On hate-radio stations in the San Francisco Bay Area, the consensus among callers is that they're gonna toss their damn census forms and risk the $100 fine. That'll show them Clintonites!

Of course, it will also contribute to an undercount of their household and anyone with their sympathies, which will in turn lend greater weight to those who don't share their ideology.

Surely there is no finer example of Darwinian selection to be found. (March 31, 2000)