Project Censored
Project Censored is an initiative founded at Sonoma State University in Northern California, aimed at highlighting important news stories that are often overlooked or underreported by mainstream media. Established by Carl Jensen, a professor of communications, the project seeks to identify and publicize significant national and international issues through a collaborative process that involves journalists, educators, and the public. Each year, hundreds of articles are nominated, and student researchers select the top twenty-five undercovered stories based on criteria such as coverage extent, issue importance, source reliability, and potential impact.
These stories are then evaluated by a panel of judges, who choose the ten most censored stories of the year. The project underscores the critical role of media in informing the public and seeks to encourage both journalists and the general public to explore alternative sources of information. Project Censored has gained international recognition for its efforts to foster discussions on media self-censorship and has inspired similar initiatives, including Project Censored Canada. Additionally, it publishes an annual yearbook titled "Censored: The News That Didn't Make the News—And Why," further contributing to the discourse on media accountability and transparency.
Project Censored
Founded: 1976
Type of organization: University-based media watchdog body
Significance: Since its foundation, this nonprofit body has called attention to censorship in the news media in annual reports
Project Censored was founded at Sonoma State University in Northern California by Carl Jensen, an emeritus professor of communications studies at the university who served as the project’s director for two decades. After he retired in 1996, Peter Phillips took over as the project’s executive director. The project annually solicits information of national importance on issues that have been largely overlooked by the mainstream news media. From the hundreds of articles nominated each year by journalists, librarians, educators, and the general public, student researchers in a media seminar select the top twenty-five undercovered stories. Criteria used in the selection process include the amount of coverage a story has received, the national or international importance of the issue, the reliability of the source, and the potential impact the story may have.
Twenty-five stories are then submitted in synopsis form to a panel of judges who select the top ten censored stories of the year. The essential issue raised by the project is the failure of the mass media to provide the people with all the information they need to make informed decisions. The primary object of the project is to find, identify, and publicize stories on important issues that have been overlooked or underreported by the major news media. It hopes to stimulate journalists to provide more news coverage of undercovered issues and to encourage the general public to demand more coverage of those issues and to seek information from alternative sources.
Through the years the project has achieved international renown. The project publishes an annual yearbook on censorship—Censored: The News That Didn’t Make the News—And Why. The project has stimulated discussion of news media self-censorship in journalism publications such as Editor & Publisher, St. Louis Journalism Review, Associated Press Managing Editors News, The Quill, World Press Review, and American Journalism Review. The latter described the project as a distant early warning system for society’s problems, a tip sheet for investigative reporting, and as a moral force in American media.
Project Censored was also the model for Project Censored Canada, launched by the Canadian Association of Journalists and the Communication Department at Simon Fraser University in 1993.