Project Censored: The Movie is a documentary film which premiered in 2013.
Project Censored is a media project based at Sonoma State University in California.
Project Censored is an on-going project which began more than forty years ago. This film explains how it was started and what is happening now in the beginning of the 21st century.
Here is some basic information about this film:
** Writers: Doug Hecker and Christopher Oscar
** Producers: Doug Hecker and Christopher Oscar
** Directors: Doug Hecker and Christopher Oscar
** Run time: ca. 60 minutes
Project Censored was founded in 1976 by Carl Jensen who was at the time professor of communication and sociology. The project began in his classroom and students of Sonoma State University are still an essential part of it.
Carl Jensen noticed that some stories receive much more exposure than others. He also noticed that the stories which receive most attention are not always the most important stories. It seemed as if important stories were under-reported or censored by the mainstream media. Based on this observation, he founded the project.
The purpose of Project Censored is to find important stories which are under-reported. Each year, Project Censored will identify a list of under-reported stories and from this list pick the best: the top 25 most under-reported or censored stories of the previous year.
Numerous stories are collected by students in class. Students will register them in categories, asking several basic questions, such as:
# 1. Is the story true?
# 2. Is the story important to society?
# 3. Is the story widely reported by the mainstream media?
# 4. Why is this story ignored by the media?
If the answer to questions # 1 and 2 is yes and the answer to question # 3 is no, the story is selected as a candidate for the annual list of the most under-reported stories of the year.
Project Censored has a panel of judges, who are regarded as experts in media matters. The members of this panel will select the 25 best cases and rank them according to their significance.
In 1983, Carl Jensen created a new term: Junk Food News. This term covers stories which are not very important (perhaps even silly) but which get major exposure in the mainstream media.
News stories in this category are also collected and compiled into an annual list of Junk Food News.
The results are published in an annual report which is known as the Yearbook of Project Censored.
In the beginning, the project was mostly a one-man operation run by Carl Jensen (with support from his wife Sandra). After a while, the project became better known and Carl Jensen was able to secure funding for a small staff to help with practical and technical matters.
When the project began, most people had never heard about Sonoma State University. But as time went by, the project became well-known in California, in the US, and even outside the US. We can say that Carl Jensen put Sonoma State University on the map of the media world.
Students often signed up for his class without knowing much about the project. They signed up, because they had to take a certain number of classes in order to earn a certain number of points. But once they were in the class, many of them became very involved, very interested in the topic, and they understood that they were part of a special project.
Doug Hecker and Christopher Oscar both had some connection with the project in the past. When they realized that there was no film about it, they decided that they were going to make one.
It was a long and time-consuming project. Both had a family and a job. Making a film about Project Censored was something that had to be done during their free time. The work took several years, but in 2013, the film was finally completed. It premiered at the Sonoma International Film Festival.
Many persons are interviewed in the film. I will not mention all names here, because the complete list is too long. Here are a few names (in alphabetical order):
** Khalil Bendib – artist – political cartoonist
** Noam Chomsky – professor – activist
** Daniel Ellsberg (1931-2023) – activist
** Mickey Huff – director of Project Censored since 2010
** Carl Jensen (1929-2015) – founder of Project Censored – director of Project Censored 1976-1996
** Cynthia McKinney - politician
** Greg Palast – freelance journalist
** Michael Parenti – historian
** John Perkins - author
** Peter Phillips – director of Project Censored 1996-2010
** Andy Lee Roth – assistant director of Project Censored
** Oliver Stone – filmmaker
** Howard Zinn (1922-2010) – professor of history
What do reviewers say about this film? Here are the results of two review aggregators:
77 percent = IMDb
80 percent = Rotten Tomatoes (the audience)
As you can see, the ratings are quite good. But if you ask me, they are not good enough.
I want to go all the way to the top with this product. I think it deserves a rating of five stars (100 percent)
PS # 1. I have followed the activities of Project Censored for many years. In 1995, during a visit to the US, I met with Carl Jensen and his wife Sandra at their home in Rohnert Park, not far from the University campus. At that time, he told me that he was going to retire from the project, because he had some problems with his health. He retired in 1996.
PS # 2. For more details about the mainstream media and how they report important events, visit this blog for August 2018.
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Carl Jensen (1929-2015)
Founder of Project Censored
Director of Project Censored 1976-1996
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20 Years of Censored News
By Carl Jensen
(published in 1997)
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