Hello, everyone. This is Rumble with Michael
Moore and I am Michael Moore. So, glad to have you all here
with me today. It's or in February now, so I
don't know what that means. Exactly.
Except It is Black History Month.
That's a good thing. It's the Lunar New Year and it's
the shortest month of the year. So welcome everyone.
On today's episode I'm going to have with me.
The people that put together the annual project censored list of
the 25, most censored stories of the Year.
This is an incredible organization.
They've been doing this since 1976 where each year.
They put out the stories that just didn't get the coverage
exposure to the general public that they should have received
and they didn't receive it in large part because our corporate
media has sometimes a different agenda than the one that you and
I have. So today on today's episode,
we're going to hear the stories that no, they didn't want you to
hear so much this year so stay tuned for this.
I'm looking forward to it. Before we get started, I'll let
me thank our Underwriters for supporting my voice and
supporting this podcast. When we got a brand-new
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order. So our guests today are Mickey
huff and Andy Lee Roth. No relation I believe that David
Lee Roth but we'll get into that later.
Mickey is the director of project censored an organization
that I've admired literally for decades and he has brought with
him his associate director. That would be of course, Andy
Lee Roth. And I used to publish this,
let's an annual list of what this group puts together, what
they called the the most censored stories.
He's of the year and censored meaning, there are corporate
media for the most part has that adequately covered these
particular stories. I mean, you may have heard about
them or some little piece of it and then it just dies and it
goes away. But the purpose of project
censored is to is to put it right out there and I thought
it'd be great to have them on Rumble today so that they can
tell us some of their favorite. I'm going to ask them a few not
so much my favorite. So, the weird thing, my family,
my favorite censored story know. My favorite hurricane was Tom.
It's huh. This is such vital work that
they do and it's been going on since Carl Johnson, founded
project censored it, Sonoma State University in California,
back in the mid-70s 1976 I believe.
And so, in my paper, in the Flint voice, starting in the
late 70s, early 80s each year. I would run this list Of the
most censored stories. And so, I'm so honored to have
them here on my podcast. They, they're also the
co-authors of the state of the Free Press 2022.
Well, let's just bring them on right now because I want to jump
right into this. I want to talk about the stories
that were not being told about and and the great work that
project censored is done on these particular service.
So welcome to rumble Mickey and Andy.
Thanks for having us Mike Yeah, thank you.
Michael just to clarify as someone who was in high school,
in Southern California, in the early 80s, I used every
opportunity. I had to try to convince people
that David Lee Roth was my uncle, but since I had thick
coke bottle, glasses, and braces, no one really believed
that I was partying with him on the week.
Nobody bought it nobody. Well, well, that's okay.
I'm proud to know the Andy Lee Roth.
And so thank you for your work with project censored and Mickey
Huff, you're the director of project.
Each sensor, I just want to jump right into this and then we're
going to also have a little bit of a discussion but about, you
know, what's happened to our Free Press in this country.
But let's lay actually before we go into the first story, let's
just explain to people what we mean by censored because people
will say and they'll say this to me because I'll often talk about
things like this and they'll say, yeah, but Mike, this is
United States. We don't have censorship.
We don't have government censorship, that's what they
always point out. We don't have a Ministry of
information that decides what a A can or a podcast or whatever
can can produce and put out there to the public.
And then I say, well, I sometimes worry that corporate
censorship is even more dangerous, at least if it was
government censorship. There's at least a path for the
public to know about it. And to stop it, what we can do
with corporations, who own our media and who decide what we are
to be. Told that seems that I don't
want to say one's worse than the other but It's a dangerous
situation that I think we've been in for a long time and
we're all the worse off because of it.
Give me your feelings about all that.
Yeah, I would say, you know, when we say that an item on our
top, 25 story list has been censored.
We're not claiming that it's been completely and irrevocably
repressed, by the government or some other powerful, you know,
institution of political party, big business organized crime,
whatever. What we're saying is that those
storms He's haven't received coverage commensurate to their
social significance and you can kind of look through the top 25
stories and see. For instance, there somewhere,
the corporate coverage has omitted important facts or
perspectives. You can see stories where, yes,
the New York Times ran an editorial about it, but they
framed it, as a matter of opinion, right?
Discordant news is often gets framed as a matter of opinion in
in the corporate media. We also find stories on our top
25 list every year. Where there has been maybe one
very high quality article or story on that topic but it's
isolated coverage which means again most Americans won't know
about it. And finally there are the
stories that I think people are really expecting.
When they see the word censored, the stories and the topics that
have simply been blockaded, where there's been no coverage
whatsoever by the corporate news media and the stories.
We're talking about today from this year's top, 25 list will,
you know, kind of point to them in these ways, as we move
forward, during this discussion that you as examples of these
different ways in which news is filtered.
So that what we receive is a kind of a paltry version of
what's actually out there and available and happening at
project censored. We don't talk about the
mainstream media following the following.
The direction of Peter Phillips, who guided the project for a
number of years. We use the term corporate media
to refer to the corporate news media because the argument is
and this will, I think resonate with you, Michael the, the news
as defined by the corporate news, media doesn't reflect the
interests of mainstream Americans.
It doesn't speak to their needs. It speaks to corporate interests
and corporate needs. And so we try to be very clear
about distinguishing the Impress, which are the sources
of the stories that make up our top 25 lists every year, and the
corporate coverage that the top 25 list exposes the
shortcomings, the pitfalls, the blind spots.
If you will, well, let's just jump right into the top 25, most
censored stories of the past year and right at the top of
your list. I, sorry, I looked at this and I
read the first words and I thought, oh, this is good.
Yeah, it's a option drug costs. Those are the first three words
and think yeah. This is going to be about all
this is, you know, the situation in this country and how people
are being ripped off. And you have to drive to Canada
if you want to get the same exact drugs, or no, that's not
what. This story is, read the headline
for this is your headline prescription drug costs are set
to become a leading cause of death for elderly Americans.
What, who wants to take that? Who's the first first up here?
But You this is Mickey here, you heard that right?
And the the definitions of censorship that Andy laid out, I
think are really important and the reference to corporate media
is significant because here we see, you know, one of the
biggest corporate Behemoth sin in the world, just certain
you'll get the US would be big Pharma prescription drug costs
set to become the leading cause of death for elderly Americans.
You said, this is based, this story was in common dreams, it
was researched by the former director Peter Phillips and his
It's at Sonoma State so they're still involvement there with
their many other colleges. This is actually based on a West
Health policy, Center study. This is from 2022 in a nutshell.
Michael, what it's saying is that, you know, as peep as we
all get older, as the society gets older, the population of
people gets older and people need more and more prescription
drugs. The cost the rise of those drugs
and the lack of people's ability to pay for them, eventually is
going to lead to people making choices that will Lead to them
getting shorter lives. I mean, quite frankly, that's,
that's pretty specifically where this story is heading.
I'll just add some detailed, but the West Health policy Center
found that what they call Cost related non-adherence.
In other words, the inability to take your prescribed medication
because you can't afford, it will become a leading cause of
death in the United States, by the year, 2030 ahead of
diseases, like, diabetes, influenza, pneumonia and kidney
disease. Are preventable deaths, right?
The policy of that the West Health policy Center,
specifically, laid out a set of recommendations that would limit
the increases in Doug drug prices that would Empower
Medicare to negotiate directly with drug companies on behalf of
their patients. And those policy changes would
prevent over 93 thousand deaths a year and save Medicare some
spending to the tune of In of over 475 billion dollars by
2030. So it's not just that the
corporate media have failed to cover this as a problem but the
solutions embedded in the west Health policy studies, the West
Health policy. Center study, have also been
basically marginalized in the news landscape marginalized in
the news agenda. Well, so you're saying because
older elderly Americans are not able.
To get these drugs because they're so the cost of them is
so incredible that we have about ninety three thousand Americans
dying each year. These are the projections from
the study moving forward, you know and so they estimate it'll
be a hundred and twelve thousand a year, some 93,000 of which
would be preventable with with real policy changes and what are
those changes that have to happen.
So it would be curving the power of big Pharma which you could do
in art by having empowering Medicare to negotiate directly
with drug companies on behalf of their patients.
That's the main one and other other kind of mechanisms, do to
limit the extent to which done drug prices can increase in
continue to increase. How is it that in the richest
country in the world? And I still say that it's rich
in what ways while Rich in money Richest country in the world and
and yet nearly 100,000 people die each year because of the
crazy cost of the prescriptions that they need and they and
thus, they're not taking them. Well, we're not talking about
Universal Health Care in this country Michael and that's,
again another component of the solution.
The only one of the major candidates was really talking
about that in the last election. That was Bernie Sanders.
And then, of course, You know, Joe Biden on the campaign Trail
said, quote nothing will fundamentally change and quote
upon his election. And and here we sit with, you
know, these bills stalled in Congress and sort of waiting
while. People are watching drug prices,
go up and up and they can't afford the medications, they
need. Right.
And we don't hear a whole lot about this.
I mean, when if you turn on cable news, you read a paper or
online, how much do we really know about this?
What is actually a Each tragedy that is easily preventable.
If we had different policies and different prices.
If you go back and look at our top 25 list from the previous
year, one of our top stories, one of our top five stories, was
how inequality is killing Americans and how the gap
between the richest and poorest Americans was the largest?
It's been in 50, some years this at a time when, of course, if
you look at the stock market and No, other kind of, you know,
favored Elite economic indicators.
The country is doing wonderfully, but when you look
at the gaps between the rich and the poor in the country, as
Outlets like truth out in the world, socialist web site, and
inequality, dot-org, reported, that inequality, is it is is
staggering and levels of inequality in the United States
economic inequality. And that is, that is literally
Deadly. Well it's something that when
you incur how do you encourage people?
Like, people are listening to this right now.
Other than going to project censored dot-org to encourage
them to get the word out. Like how can average citizens
Enlighten other citizens, if we don't have a press that will do
that? Well, one of the things we do at
project censored, is we highlight The Independent Media
sources that actually do cover stories in the public interest.
And that's what's really Different about the corporate
media is that they tend to write about.
As we said earlier, corporate interest and big Pharma is a
huge Advertiser. Based, you know, going back to
that first story and the corporate media, you know, they
don't bite the hand that feeds. And so we encourage people to
become more critically, media literate, expand their media
diets, as it were, and to really go out and start looking at
Independent News sources, not because they're quote objective
and quote, but because they're going to transparently source
and factual report about things that Matter most to their
reading constituencies and we have lists on our website of
Independent Media that we've long looked at and alternative
media sources that we've long looked at in used in our book is
every year, Michael is both critical of corporate media but
it's also affirmative of the alternatives to corporate media
and believe it or not we even give props to corporate media.
When they do their jobs as a free press in the public
interest. All right.
Let me go to number 2 here. Project censored top 25, most
censored stories of the past year.
This one reads, the headline is is your headline journalists who
investigate Financial crimes are being threatened by global
Elites explain that? This is a story.
That's really goes to when I talked about these stories that
are blockaded, this is a story that has not been covered by the
corporate media, and it's about how Financial crime, stories are
difficult to impossible to report because the reporters who
seek to investigate them are subject to abuse harassment and
intimidation. That takes everything that takes
the form of everything from defamation lawsuit,
cease-and-desist letters to smear campaigns on social media,
and other forms of online, trolling to verbal harassment,
and even even in some instances, physical threats and violence.
So the harassment faced by investigative journalists
looking into Financial crimes. Of course, has a chilling effect
on reporting about corruption and ultimately infringes on the
Public's. Right to know about things like,
you know, money laundering bribery theft of public funds.
Other illicit acts carried out. Either either carried out by or
facilitated by wealthy Banks, government officials and
corporate. L.
So what kind of intimidation are we talking about?
What is the give me an example or two of journalists who are
trying to get to the core of a story and and find not only just
Roblox of of corporate honchos are other now wanting to talk
but actual real intimidation, suing them going after them so
that they'll stop going after the bad guys.
So this is a this is a study that was conducted by By the
foreign policy Center in November of twenty twenty and it
was a, they asked journalists around the world what their
experience has been, and I'll just rattle off some numbers to
convey the extraordinary proportion of journalists
involved in this kind of reporting have been subject to.
So sixty percent of the respondents working in
sub-Saharan Africa and 50% of those from North Africa and the
Middle East reported threats of physical attack.
When they looked into Financial corruption right there.
Also, you know again to be specific we're talking about
online and offline, surveillance hacking of social media
accounts, being called in and questioned by authorities,
having their credentials either withheld or revoked and various
forms of blacklisting. So it's a clearly this is going
on around the world. This is around the world.
This is global one of The Hotspots for it is actually the
UK because of libel laws in the UK.
And so, a key element of the foreign policy centers report is
how the UK has become kind of a hotspot for going after
journalists because the libel laws, there are more strict and
therefore This led Nick Cohen in a column in the guardian to
refer to the UK as the censorship capital of the of the
democratic world because of the costly court system and the
legal statutes that are in place there.
So this has a chilling effect on journalists.
They may not cover story if they feel like they're going to have
to spend their time in court. They may lose money, etc, etc.
So so sometimes stories aren't being covered, simply.
Because of this kind of harassment and intimidation.
Yeah. This is a censored story about
censorship, right? Right.
Well and that how what what form does that take in this country
United States? Well, you know, a lot of people
think we don't have censorship in the United States because we
have the First Amendment, right? And the first amendment's
protection of freedom of the press and really what the First
Amendment does is it says the government can't exist.
It can't can't. Can't engage in prior restraint,
right? Which is one form of censorship.
But by but not the only form and and in the 21st century where so
much of our news is mediated online, literally mediated
online and we depend on big tech companies like Google and
others. You know, you mentioned earlier
Michael, the idea that the corporations are as much of a
threat to press freedoms as the government Be and I think that's
exactly on point. You know the first amendment in
some sense provides the framework, the skeleton for
checks on the power of government to restrict press
freedoms but the Constitution and the and the Bill of Rights
don't provide us any firm skeleton to put checks on
corporate power and the ability of Corporations to impact
journalists Its ability to inform the public, and that's a
crucial problem. I've written some about what I
call the new gatekeeping, which is algorithmic, artificial
intelligence gatekeeping of the kinds of news stories, we
receive when we're relying on social media platforms, like,
Facebook, Twitter, and others for news, instead of getting it
directly from news organizations themselves, and as soon as you
introduce, those social media platforms and the proprietary,
Rhythms that drive content on them.
We're into perilous ground in terms of transparency of
sourcing and of course as everyone knows the ability of
misinformation and disinformation to spread far and
wide. My could jump in there just add
quickly. This is what what's called
censorship by proxy, right? It's so it's not the first
amendment. Doesn't doesn't get the pail
Spotify to do. They don't get to say what
alphabet, Google Facebook, Twitter.
Etc. And the reason that this is
problematic is that if you go back historically and you look
at how much public money went into these startup, you know,
this is all through the defense department, the orwellian
Department of Defense, it goes back to DARPA the defense
Department's defense, Advanced research projects, agency, all
the money's, the Innovations, the internet GPS.
Drones, this is all stuff that came from taxpayer money going
into the military, during the Cold War.
And so all these companies then later, you know, turn They come
out of nowhere, go private. They're benefiting from all of
this research, from all of this funding, all of these tax
breaks. But then they're also now kind
of Arbiters of the public sphere.
That's been completely encircled or captured.
If you will like regulatory capture how corporations take
over regulatory governing bodies.
We've seen these major big tech companies taking over the Public
Square and that's extremely problematic.
And that's why we really need to look seriously at this kind of
corporate big Tech censorship. And gatekeeping.
Absolutely, let me, I'm just going down the list here.
Canary Mission, they're in the business of blacklisting
pro-palestinian activists and chilling.
Free Speech rights. What is that about?
Well, Canary mission is a far-right group.
They basically, they work against the boycott divestment
sanctions movement. This is a movement of
pro-palestinian activists. So what they try, Do is apply
pressure to either boycott. Get companies to divest from
doing business, with the country of Israel or other Israeli
companies because of the Israeli apartheid situation in
Palestine. Which by the way, Amnesty
International just reported on this past week that they found
that Israel is, in fact, an apartheid state, think South
Africa, about the way they treat Palestinians, and there are
groups Zionist groups, and pro-israeli groups in the US
that aren't Thrilled about people that try to point out
this serious power imbalance in the Middle East and Canary
Mission basically creates blacklists.
And they, it's sort of, you know, it's kind of a Neo
McCarthy 8, kind of which anything that labels people as
being anti-semitic for criticizing Israel and they then
Mount counter type campaigns to get people fired, have them
silenced, and these types of things, this affects people's
employment immigration. Status freedom to travel, Etc.
So, there's there's a lot of groups like this, but do give me
an example of of an activist or a professor, or someone who, who
this group has gone after, in order to harm them.
Stop them from speaking up for the Palestinian people, I think
Peter Phillips is listed on the canary Mission website as a
dangerous faculty person. Peter Phillips, the former
director of project censored but a lot of these People aren't a
lot of these people, Michael aren't big names.
They're under otherwise, unknown activists and part of the part
of the reporting on this story. From The Intercept would who did
interviews with a number of people, number of students.
So these are undergraduate college students who have been
targeted by Karen area mission for basically saying they'd like
Israel to obey international law and respect Palestinians human
rights. The interviews with these people
are sobering in terms of the power of As the group many of
them wouldn't asked not to be named by name because they,
feared retribution, if they spoke publicly to The Intercept
about how they had been affected by the canary Mission Blacklist,
but one of them's, one of them told the intercept.
The first thing that comes up when you Google my name is that
I'm listed on Canary Mission the claim that I'm a terrorist
supporter and extremists. And and as Mickey said, like
this has right? And when that's the First thing
that comes up on your Google list that's probably is going to
cause real trouble for you in terms of finding a job your as
your freedom to travel and so forth and so on.
And we know we know, from prior reports by The Intercept and
others that these black lists are being used by both us and
Israeli government agencies. Both organizations have used
information from Canary mission. In order to question
pro-palestinian Student activists and I want to add
Michael just very quickly. If you go to the front page of
project, censored dot-org, Michigan are coolest.
Just wrote an article about a Cal State Poly.
Pomona Professor accused of anti-Semitism.
This hasn't been directly linked to Canary Mission.
But this is a really riveting story about a student
complained. That was seems to be
manufactured with no evidence that got through the
administration, and they're now using this information against a
lecturer. Right.
Go against the adjuncts, the least protected of people in
higher education. And they're, you know, they're
basically creating a file on this faculty member.
She doesn't believe that she's even going to be invited back to
teach their these K. You'll find these cases all over
the United States and they're rarely reported by the corporate
media. And if they are, like, the
high-profile cases, like, Norman, Finkelstein or others,
or Steven salaita from several years ago, the corporate media
buyer bias is pretty extraordinary.
Because they don't really look at the legitimate historical
apartheid like political criticism of the state of Israel
and they always conflate criticism of Israel with
anti-Semitism. That's a coat corporate media
Trope and it basically comes right out of the Playbook of
canary Mission. Wow, this is very disturbing to
hear this. That this is, this happens to
just the, an average student who shows up participates in
something to stand up for the rights of the Palestinian
people. And the idea is to Share them to
think that they're going to make sure that they're haunted by
this political activism, you know long after they get out of
college, it's it's true, you know, let's be serious like
criticizing the state of Israel doesn't need to be anti-semitic.
That doesn't mean that there aren't anti-semitic people and
groups but let's not conflate them right.
You know, we all need to call out racist groups and
anti-Semitism when we see it but legitimate criticism of
Palestine, the Taught divestment sanctions movement.
The many scholars that we've worked with over the years,
including Peter Phillips, our former director.
They are not anti-semitic and that is a smear tactic used to
silence people, so be DS stands for boycott, divestment, and
sanctions. And using other words, using
these three methods, non-violent political methods to get.
In this case, a country to stop apartheid Behavior against
people. Who live on that land and have
very few if any rights that is correct.
It's basically one of the world's largest outdoor prisons.
I have been there and I have seen it and it's one of the most
disturbing things I've seen probably in my lifetime and so
thank you for pointing this out. I think this is very important.
Okay, let's go to the next one. I have here on my list from your
list of tap censored. Worries.
Police use dogs as instruments of violence targeting people of
color. Now, I read this and I said, oh,
I must have an old project censored list from the incident
62 and I'm like, no way. This is.
Wait a minute, this is 2022. I was just stunned to see that.
It still was a ranking at. Number 9, on the project
censored list police used dogs as instruments of violence
targeting. The people of color.
Pray. Tell, what do you mean?
So we know, right? You don't have to dig deep in
American history, to know there's a highly charged history
of police dogs in the United States, especially in the
Southern United States where they were used against first
enslaved. People and then in the 1960s
against civil rights protesters, but this is a 2021 2022 story
here. The story is brought Us by The
Marshall Project in collaboration, with a number of
other investigative independent investigative Outlets.
It lays bare mounting evidence of the extensive and
disproportionate deployment of police dogs against people of
color. 3,600 Americans are sent each year to the emergency room
for severe bite injuries sustained during an altercation
with Police canines and a disproportionate number of them
are young. Black men, the, you know, when
people think about a dog bite, you know, we think about like a
nip from the family pet but it's important to understand as the
Marshall reports. These 13 linked reports from The
Marshall Project made clear as medical researchers document.
When you're bitten by a police dog, the police dogs are at
Range to bite aggressively and we're talking about something
that's more like a small shark than kind of little Fido sitting
on the living room couch. So, is this because do we just
have an abundance of racist dogs in this country?
How I don't, I don't understand what, why, why dogs in this
country are viciously going after people of color, part of
it is because use of force policies.
Police departments across the country, give police officers
working with, you know, K9 officers are given
nonspecifically way to release the dogs based on their
subjective assessment of the severity of a crime.
What about? So you're saying, it's not the
actual dogs, the dogs just don't go.
Oh, there's a, there's a black kid.
I'm gonna go bite that kid. You're saying that the dog is
being trained to do the race. Is that aren't racist aren't
born, they're they're groomed or taught, right?
And and our dogs ever born racist, not that I knew, so it's
not the dog. Let's just get this clear.
I don't want to get, I don't want to get mail from dog.
Lovers that were saying that dogs are vicious lie, through
their own racism, going after people of color this, they're
being trained by the local police to do this, and then it's
the police to humans that sick. The dog right on the human of
color. Is this correct?
It's a human police officer. Who decided that Joseph Malott a
22 year. Old black student was creating a
danger at a black lives matter protest in California, in June
2020, when he kicked a tear gas, canister away from himself.
And a police officer, saw the kicking of the tear gas canister
as an aggressive act and that led To Malott being one of these
approximately 3,600 Americans who had to go to the ER, because
a police K-9, dog had severely bit him, right?
So it was the Judgment of the officer.
In that case, who said kicking a tear gas canister.
As a dangerous act, we're going to let the dog loose and
Michael, this is another opportunity to bring up how this
story is covered and or censored and a know it did get some
corporate media coverage as We write about in the story, you
know what, NBC USA Today, they cited The Marshall Project.
But other than that the only other coverage you see, right?
That's like a one-off is limited, the local news outlets
and that's one of the big problems that that our media
system fails to do is that there may be something really
important happening in town, a, and another important thing in
town be, but the job of the media and job of Journalism is
the connect, the dots and is George cell.
D said, tell the public, what's really Going on.
So if you don't have an organization like The Marshall
Project, connecting the dots and saying, this isn't a one-off or
a to off. This is something that's
happening systemically or systematically across the
country in many ways. And we're not being told about
it. And in fact, you know, The
Marshall Project study mauled, when police dogs are weapons was
selected for a finalist for a Harvard centers Goldsmith.
Prize for investigative reporting.
This is serious reporting. That should be on the front page
of the New York. Well, especially because people
are concerned about abuse of animals and I can't think maybe
I mean there are worse abuses. I guess that in terms of people
who like to put their cigarettes out on a dog skin, I mean, I
just saw a story about this but but, but to train a dog to go
after a human being simply because of the racial makeup of
the human being that that's this is Form of animal abuse.
I mean, on one level, on the, on the other level though it's,
it's absolutely disgusting that in 2022.
I have to read a headline like this, because I grew up with
this in the 60s and it that kind of behavior by the police,
frankly, in the 60s, when they sic the dogs on John Lewis and
others Selma Etc, that that, that turned much not Not the
majority at that time. But much of White America around
and in favor of civil rights because the images were so
horrific and, and no matter whatever amount of racism, you
had inside yourself. That was a bridge too far for
some way, people to handle. So, I'm glad it's on, on this
list. I think, I think it's puzzling
with this story that, you know, in a time period when there is
quite a bit of corporate news coverage about Police use of
force, right? Even even you know, fatal use of
force. The corporate news.
Media is Mickey's, noted had simply have not picked up on
this story about police dogs as instruments of violence.
That's a Puzzler, right? It would seem to fit right into
a narrative that has been very Central to the corporate news
media's agenda for the last year and a half or two years or so.
But this one doesn't fit. And I don't, I can't say why
that is, but it's puzzling. I maybe it's because it's simply
too. It's too traumatic a story to to
contend with. Well, you know, when you hear
the number, yeah, the only coverage we found of this was
kind of isolated local coverage that failed as Mickey noted to
connect the dots and say, this is a systemic problem in police
departments across the country. You that have canine units.
It's not just happening a little bit here and a little bit there,
right? Wait, Michael, this is, you
know, again training dogs to do. This is similar to the story. 22
in terms of data Miner and racial bias, it stereotypes and
policing of social media. I mean, it's kind of the core of
the same problem. It's, you know, garbage in
garbage out. As I said, its data Miner is
this this company that introduces this racial bias and
stereotypes. Type relying on Prejudice,
prone, tropes, and hunches. And then they were feeding
information to police about basically who to surveil who was
suspicious, right? This is a long practice, you
know, wasn't just long ago that the FBI got caught using terms
like black identity extremists, which was a top story.
It's like going back to cointelpro days but no Michael,
this was a story from our last year's book so this is
definitely a theme. When you were you were
mentioning earlier, you didn't know what year the censored
book. It was, it could have been Book
from the 70s. Unfortunately, this challenge
remains, and we must confront it.
We can't confront it. If we don't face it to sort of
mangle the James Baldwin quote, right?
This is what's so great about project censored.
It's not just the big stories that, you know, maybe you've
heard something about. But it's these little stories
that's a much bigger things about who we still are as a
society. I'm going down the list here.
This one, this one caught my eye on your project censored list
European demand. And for biomass energy projects,
propels the destruction of u.s. force that.
Let me reach, let me say this again.
This story project sensors list is about Europeans.
Essentially I paying for the cutting down of trees in North
America, in order to have their biomass energy plants in the
Lord's burning wood in Europe, and Because of the way that the
UN and other organizations, certainly a lot of Corporations,
they like to call biomass part of the alternative green energy
movement, but what it's doing is, it's burning something from
the planet and putting more carbon up into the atmosphere,
but I notice a lot of European countries.
They like to say, oh, you know, we're we're fifty percent green.
Now, we're 40 percent green and it's like, This story tells you
well they're they're kind of cutting Corners here and, and be
asking you, what they're what they're doing is they're cutting
down our trees, having them shipped over to Europe so they
can put more carbon up into the air.
Take that a little further than from what.
Yeah, well, this one you know, popular belief is that most
European Union nations are, you know, all about solar and wind
power as their primary sources of renewable energy.
But we know from studies, That about 60% of renewable energy in
the EU in EU Nations comes from biomass write this.
So it's which is championed as a renewable resource and to be
clear, biomass is using the energy of plants would waste
materials as a source of heating or power.
Our beach burning of garbage is you can learn garbage, has
alternative green, energy, green energy.
It's right. What's not?
Not counted are the carbon costs of of those activities, right?
So that's where they're, you know, in effect, you know, an
illustrious group of scientists have pointed out that, you know,
the Reliance on biomass generated.
Electricity has the unintended consequence of speeding up
carbon emissions pollution and at this story is one where, you
know, I guess there's a certain irony of Since the u.s. exploits
resources from other nations, All Around the World, perhaps
there's a certain irony that in this case it's our own natural
resources that are being exploited by European countries.
But here the, you know, a historical perspective is useful
because the parts of the United States that are most impacted by
this European demand for biomass Energy are is that it's the
Southern Sea board, it's North and South Carolina.
It's Georgia. Alabama Florida, right?
And so in some ways we're seeing here reproduced in 2021 2022.
Like what are centuries Old Colonial relationships of
source, it's only now they're mediated through these through
these you know, Global corporations.
So you know, this is a story that it fits one of the modes
that I was describing earlier in our conversation.
This is a story that has had isolated corporate news coverage
when we were vetting this story to see.
If it was worthy of inclusion on this year's top 25 list.
We found one outstanding article in the New York Times from April
of 2021, on this topic. It's an excellent report in many
ways. But but even this report had
flaws that point to the shortcomings in corporate news
coverage we found that despite the otherwise excellent quality
of the New York Times coverage of this topic, there was a kind
of an angle of false balancing the, the platform.
You know, the New York Times basically provided a platform
for arguments from in-house scientists on NY burning, the
pellets shouldn't be? Should I'm sorry.
Let me say that again, the New York Times provided a kind of
platform for arguments from in-house.
Scientists about why burning pellets should be considered
carbon neutral. And That's a problem, right?
We know, you know, sure. There are scientists who will
make that case, but they're the very small minority compared to
those that we were talking about just a moment ago who see
biomass electricity as an accelerator of carbon emissions
and, and in the the climate crisis, Michael, I just wanted
to tag on to what you said earlier.
Following Andy, you were talking about biomass Is and how there's
a lot of public relations efforts or propaganda campaigns
talking about biomass has as green, a green movement, right?
So he has permit, the Frog would say It's Not Easy Being Green.
So since it's not so Easy Being Green, these corporations resort
to greenwashing, right? And I think biomass is one of
those things that's part of the greenwashing campaign, that kind
of covers up the real damage done, and the sort of bait and
switch or shell game that's going on here, the European
Union in 2020 said that they were going to reassess those Is,
but again, you know, we're already with, you know, past the
Tipping Point with things, like the oceans warranted warming,
the acidification of the oceans. I mean, this is a real serious
issue. So, and it's also not a secret
and you, well, know, this Michael these corporations often
spend more time money and effort on public relations campaigns
than they do on actually changing their practices.
Yeah, that's I've seen that many times.
Let me tell you, there's so many other stories here to go through
this. I just think again.
I encourage people to go online to project censored dot org and
and you can read these stories, you can, they've got links,
they've got their report that you can obtain for this past
year sensor stories, but let me ask each of you Mickey and Andy
pick one of your, I don't want to say favorite stories, but one
story that I haven't brought up on your list here that you think
definitely needs more. Tension and and and it and it's
somewhat appalling that we don't know more about this and I'm in
yours and your you're glad that you put it on your list.
Each of you just maybe pick one and and you want you want to go
first Mickey. Yeah, I'll go first, I'll go
first by bucking the trend and picking something that's in the
book. That's not in the top 25 because
this is an ongoing recurring problem, and Carl Jensen,
coined, this term itself called Junk Food news.
So we were talking earlier about the junk.
Food diets and fast food diets, and all these kind of, you know,
bad diets that the American public tends to have.
And that's further fueled by a big agribusiness and advertising
and so forth. Junk food news is the kind of
titillating sensationalist distracting stories that
dominate the airwaves dominate, the column inches dominate, the
television programs but yet have almost nothing to do with our
daily lives. And this year, we wrote about
tick-tocking our return to normalcy and talked about
addiction to social media. And we talked about In ability
of Americans, to really put it out, you know, like you couldn't
not know about the Tiger King when that serious was on
Netflix. You know, you can't not know
about what's happening with the Kardashians.
And this has been a problem going back for decades, and it's
actually gotten worse in the bigger problem.
Michael, is that the more and more we have sensationalist
coverage on frivolous, celebrity activities and so forth, Sports,
Etc. That's More time and more column
engines that's that's spent away from the stories, like you,
Andy. And I were just running down for
the last hour. So I would like to call
attention as one of the quote, so-called censored stories as
literally the way that the media ecosystem itself function in the
United States. And we have a couple of chapters
in the book, every year, on junk food, news and news abuse, which
is news as Spin and propaganda, right?
And just in case your folks began to think that were only -
I have a whole chapter every year that's more solutions
journalism based called media democracy in action that
highlights the key sources, organizations and individuals
that are really doing something to make a difference in Free
Press matters. So, we definitely want your
listeners to know that if they go to Project censored dot-org,
there's a lot to find out, including our weekly radio show
the project censored show, documentary films.
But we also share our curriculum for free, our pedagogy, and we
Courage more people to get involved in doing this kind of
critical media, literacy education.
So I think honestly Michael that's one of the censored
stories from the corporate press.
They don't really want us to talk about how to alleviate the
problems of the press because that cuts into their profit
motives and their profit lines or what about you.
Andy? Well, before I list, One More
Story from this year's top 25 list and state of the Free Press
2022. I want to say.
It can seem discouraging to run down these stories and hear all
these things that are wrong. But think about how bad it would
be, if we didn't have independent journalists and
independent news outlets, bringing these stories to the
Public's attention, we'd be in a lot worse shape than we are.
So a shout out to the independent journalists, who
often courageously, you know, put their lives on the line to
bring us these stories and also a, I would be remiss if I
didn't, you know, give A little fist pump for the Project's.
Own campus Affiliates program, it is students undergraduate
students at several dozen college and university campuses
across the country who are initially, identifying and
vetting, the stories that eventually make it into our top
25 story list each year this year.
Some 209, students helped us identify research and ultimately
summarize and promote Public awareness of several hundred
stories that are posted on our project censored website as
validated independent news stories from which the year's
top, 25 stories are drawn. Here's one more from that list.
This has been a this is since the onset of the covid-19
pandemic in March 2020 there has been a historic wave of Wildcat
strikes for workers rights all across.
The country Mike elk at the paid a report in the midwest us a
small Independent News, organization focused on labor
issues as documented no fewer than 1750 unique independent
Wildcat. Worker strikes workers are going
out in the face of increasingly dangerous working conditions
under the pandemic as well as chronically low.
Ages. This story has been all but
invisible in the corporate news media, the corporate news media
failed to cover this story for the better part of 18 months
until they came up with the kind of trite, strike Tober frame
within which to report the story.
But by that time you know the paid a report and Mike elk had
been covering what are in effect.
The largest I believe it's correct to say that the largest
wave of Wildcat strikes in the United States since the 19th,
late 60s, and early 1970s. So this is an amazing thing and
people can go and check out the payday reports, covid-19 strike,
map, Which documents with pinpoints, these things, during
that whole period, there was one other time prior to strike
Tobar, which then awkwardly turned into Like member and I
don't know if we're now in strike through Airy it you know
the frame is not strike you very, thank you.
That's why I'm not a corporate news.
Person the one-time previous that corporate news showed
interest in that kind of labor organization was in August of
2020. When Major league baseball
players and NBA players went out on strike, briefly in protest of
the Pope Wisconsin police, shooting of Jacob Lake.
Then the New York Times, The Washington, Post, CNN, and
others were interested in Wildcat labor, strikes and
actions but when it was, you know, thousands and thousands of
workers at small places all across the country going An out.
There was nothing. That story was completely
marginalized by the corporate news media, as I say until we
got kind of a strike. Belated 18 months after it's
been going strike Tober frame. Now it's great that this is on
the list and a couple weeks ago I had on the Starbucks workers
who've gone out on strike and who have been able to unionize
some of their locations in the country, starting a buffalo.
And I just heard from some people in Flint that they,
there's now Starbucks, there that's signing up to have a vote
to join the union. So now, this is, this is an
important story of the time in which we are living.
And I think you for covering that, those are crucial stories
and it'll be interesting to see as those stories.
Develop, as workers begin to organize.
It places like Starbucks and Amazon all across the country.
It'll be interesting to see whether corporate news.
Average of those stories. Treats them as isolated
incidents or whether the corporate media began connecting
the dots to show that there are systemic patterns driving these
actions and that they are, you know, to use an old metaphor
like headline above the fold news, not kind of a small report
here and there on page 17 of the paper.
And as you well know, Michael corporate media, covers things
from a Judgment corporate perspective.
So they don't cover labor concerns.
They cover labor problems, right?
It's a labor dispute. It's always on the side of Labor
that there's a problem or people are ungrateful.
People are lazy, they don't want to work.
It's never that. These employers just don't pay
them enough money, right? So the framing of corporate
media is really important to look here.
And that makes sources like payday and other independent
journalists really significant because they cover the Angles
and perspectives from the Look interest and from the people
from we the people not from, we the corporations, I saw a great
political cartoon on that the other day.
It's the to, you know, big big money bags, business owners
standing in an executive room and outside the window.
All the workers are protesting with their signs, saying Fair
wages. Now, new contract and the one
big wig boss is looking at the other and says, all they ever do
is think about money. Well, you know that story
Michael All Too. Well, I want to thank you guys
for this and for the great work that you do.
I mean this there's so many here that we have been able to cover
microplastics and toxic chemicals increasingly prevalent
in world's oceans. Google's union-busting methods
are revealed, Pfizer bullies, South American governments, over
covid-19 vaccine activists, call out Legacy of racism and sexism
in forced sterilization. Again, that's been on the list
for 60 years, but it's just all of this.
It's just so these 25 stories here.
There's more you keep this updated throughout the year on
your site. You do good work, I and others
are extremely grateful for what you do.
Encourage people to support project censored, to share it
with other people and send in those He's in your communities
that aren't being covered because it's the way we find out
about this is that we think that's the one good thing about
the internet that might be a second thing, but the one good
thing is that we get to share this.
The middleman has been eliminated.
Yes, we can send this to each other, people can contact me,
you know? And, and you don't back in the
day, if you wanted to reach out to the public, you'd have to
write a letter to the editor. And hope they would publish it.
That's the way it was until the internet.
So so we're lucky we have a method at least that we can use
for the good and I applaud you for what you've done and what
you continue to do. And if you want to find out
more, just go to Project censored that org and in your
eyes will be opened. Andy and Mickey.
Thank you so much project. Censored, and for being here on
Rumble. Thank you.
Michael. Thanks, Michael.
And thanks for everything. You do, man.
We appreciated the opportunity. At least I can do.
Let me tell you you're doing the work that needs to be done and
it's much appreciated. So that's it for today.
My thanks to our executive producer, basil hamdan, our
editor and sound engineer, Nick quas, our jack of all trades and
currently I do band under mysterious circumstances, Donald
Bornstein and everyone else who's helped me?
Put this podcast together. Thank you, one.
And all, and thank you to all of you who listen to rumble with
Michael Moore. I'm Michael Moore and I'll be
back with another episode of Rumble here real soon.
Thanks everybody be well, stay safe.
Without.