Project Censored, a media research project operating out of Sonoma State University in California has spent several years looking at media accountability and how the freedom of the press aids democracy:

At Project Censored, we examine the coverage of news and information important to the maintenance of a healthy and functioning democracy. We define Modern Censorship as the subtle yet constant and sophisticated manipulation of reality in our mass media outlets. On a daily basis, censorship refers to the intentional non-inclusion of a news story – or piece of a news story – based on anything other than a desire to tell the truth. Such manipulation can take the form of political pressure (from government officials and powerful individuals), economic pressure (from advertisers and funders), and legal pressure (the threat of lawsuits from deep-pocket individuals, corporations, and institutions).

The latest edition of Project Censored is in and available on Amazon:

Here's this year's top 25 stories:

• 1. US Congress Sells Out to Wall Street
• 2. US Schools are More Segregated Today than in the 1950s
• 3. Toxic Waste Behind Somali Pirates
• 4. Nuclear Waste Pools in North Carolina
• 5. Europe Blocks US Toxic Products
• 6. Lobbyists Buy Congress
• 7. Obama’s Military Appointments Have Corrupt Past
• 8. Bailed out Banks and America’s Wealthiest Cheat IRS Out of Billions
• 9. US Arms Used for War Crimes in Gaza
• 10. Ecuador Declares Foreign Debt Illegitimate
• 11. Private Corporations Profit from the Occupation of Palestine
• 12. Mysterious Death of Mike Connell—Karl Rove’s Election Thief
• 13. Katrina’s Hidden Race War
• 14. Congress Invested in Defense Contracts
• 15. World Bank’s Carbon Trade Fiasco
• 16. US Repression of Haiti Continues
• 17. The ICC Facilitates US Covert War in Sudan
• 18. Ecuador’s Constitutional Rights of Nature
• 19. Bank Bailout Recipients Spent to Defeat Labor
• 20. Secret Control of the Presidential Debates
• 21. Recession Causes States to Cut Welfare
• 22. Obama’s Trilateral Commission Team
• 23. Activists Slam World Water Forum as a Corporate-Driven Fraud
• 24. Dollar Glut Finances US Military Expansion
• 25. Fast Track Oil Exploitation in Western Amazon

Walter Cronkite covering the Apollo 11 landing, July 1969. Part 1--watch Part 2 and 3 here.

Walter Cronkite's death this week really brought into sharp focus for me just how much we've suffered journalistically since Cronkite retired in 1981. Gone are the days where we can view our news media as fulfilling their obligations as the Fourth Estate and using the freedom of the press to hold DC accountable for their actions, as originally envisioned by Jefferson:

"No government ought to be without censors, and where the press is free, no one ever will. If virtuous, it need not fear the fair operation of attack and defence. Nature has given to man no other means of sifting out the truth whether in religion, law or politics. I think it as honorable to the government neither to know nor notice its sycophants or censors, as it would be undignified and criminal to pamper the former and persecute the latter."

Sadly, it appears that all we have in the media now is sycophants and censors and very little--if any--free press. And our democracy is mortally crippled by it.

As for this Sunday's offerings, if you are sick as I am of the poor downtrodden privileged white men threatened by Sonia Sotomayor, I don't recommend watching Sen. Jeff Sessions on State of the Union. WH Budget Director Peter Orszag will be making two appearances to reassure us that all is going along with the stimulus plan and the Goldman Sachs bonus bonanza is proof that it's working. And we're still talking health care on The Chris Matthews Show and with HHS Sec. Kathleen Sebelius on Meet the Press. But what I'm looking forward to--space geek that I am--is Buzz Aldrin and Sen. John Glenn reflecting on the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.

ABC's "This Week" - Pre-empted by British Open golf tournament.

CBS' "Face the Nation" - Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah; Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y.; former astronaut and Sen. John Glenn.

NBC's "Meet the Press" - Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius; Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Clarence Page, Kathleen Parker, David Brooks and Kelly O'Donnell. Topics: Is the cost of health care reform President Obama's greatest vulnerability? Who got the better deal out of the Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton coalition? Meter Questions: Will Obama sign a health care reform law this year? YES: 12

NO: 0; Will the Republicans support a health care bill with new taxes?

YES: 7 NO: 5.

CNN's "State of the Union" - White House Budget Director Peter Orszag; Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.; Rev. Jesse Jackson.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - Rwandan President Paul Kagame sits down with Fareed to discuss his nation's 15 year journey from genocide to economic growth and autocratic, but stable governance.

"Fox News Sunday" - Orszag; Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H.; astronaut Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin.

So what's catching your eye this morning?

Wow, Judy, it only took you 85 days in jail, two ill-planned wars that have gone all to hell, a record deficit, the disdain of the global community and the shredding of the Constitution to figure this out? Welcome to the reality-based community.

Topeka Capital-Journal:

Judith Miller, a former New York Times investigative reporter who went to jail to protect a confidential source, said the balance between national security and civil liberties has been tipped, allowing the Bush administration to become secretive about its decisions, intrusive into public lives and reluctant to share information the public has a right to know.

Miller said many Americans don't understand how their access to information and the freedom of the press have been affected in the past few years.

"We are less free and less safe," she said, explaining that there is a "growing secrecy in the name of national security." Read on...

This is my favorite part:

"I'm worried about bloggers," she said. "(A post) starts as a rumor and within 24 hours it's repeated as fact."

While she advocates a federal shield law to protect mainstream journalists from divulging their sources, she doesn't favor extending that to bloggers who don't follow the standards and [ethics] of the journalism industry.

Et tu, Judy? Really, you want to talk "rumors repeated as fact," not to mention standards and ethics? All those "WMDs in Iraq" stories you submitted to the NY Times makes that glass house from which you sit just a wee bit fragile.

Tristram Shandy: Boeing and 'extraordinary rendition'

IntoxiNation: Freedom Of the Press...uh, not so much in the U.S.

Martian Anthropologist: A few authors, a playwright, one former president, a genius, a legal scholar or two, and a statesman on 'patriotism.'

Nuestra Voice: Latinos and African-Americans who have supported the GOP are jumping ship

Boregasm: In the eight states with initiatives on the ballot, Howie Rich-led organizations have provided 88% of the funding. In California, Rich's groups have contributed $3.3 million of the $3.6 collected...
10 Zen Monkeys: More nasty campaigns...

We're Number 1! We're Number 1!

Wait...what's that you say?

We're Number FIFTY-THREE?!?!?!?! Behind Bosnia, Serbia, Slovakia and the Czech Republic????

But...but...the terrorists hate us for our freedoms, don't they?

Mike's Blog Round Up

Sic Semper Tyrannis 2006: Here we have an exchange of e-mail between Joe Galloway and Donald Rumsfeld's press guy, Larry Dirita. Joe Galloway is one of the greatest friends the American soldier ever had. He is the reporter who went to LZ X-Ray in 1965 with the First Battalion, Seventh Cavalry Regiment. He is the reporter in the film "We Were Soldiers." Definitely worth reading. (thnx to reader, Taters)

The Opinion Mill: Unless something major happens, don't expect any tectonic shifts in power come November.

American Politics Journal: A former USAF intel officer, ex-cop, and journalist writes that it's time to revisit the way Junior became Lt. Bush in the first place.

Talk To Action: Just how desperate does Georgia lieutenant gubernatorial candidate Ralph Reed have to be to court and count on the support of a pro-choice, pro-gay, pro-gun control, divorced Catholic politician from New York who has confessed to having sex with his cousin on a regular basis over the course of 14 years?

Greg Palast: Big Brother tries to fool Randi Rhodes...

Bring it On! They forgot freedom of the press...

Glenn Greenwald found this today and I figured I would post the audio. "What journalists would dare defy the wishes of the president? And in America, no less."
Download | play -MP3 (Podcast)

Bennett: "How do we know it damaged us? Well, it revealed the existence of the surveillance program - so people are going to stop making calls - since they are now aware of this - they're going to adjust their behavior - Are they punished, are they in shame, are they embarrassed, are they arrested? No, they win pulitzer prizes - they win pulitzer prizes - I don't think what they did was worthy of an award - I think what they did was worthy of jail, and I think this investigation needs to go forward..."

So much for freedom of the press.

ABC's Tapper: Iraqi sitcom coordinator assassinated while I was there
On "Reliable Sources" Sunday morning, the discussion revolved around" if the media's coverage was fair," and Jake Tapper of ABC recounted a horrifying story that illustrates the violence that permeates Iraq.
Download | play -WMP Download | play -QT

(transcript provided by CNN)

TAPPER: It's a very complicated question, obviously. What journalists, when, who, what are you talking about specifically? I think that there is a lot of violence still in Iraq, and I think that if you listen to commanders on the ground and if you go to Iraq, you'll see that that security situation is an incredibly important one. And as much as the Pentagon may not want to talk about it or may want to talk about the positive, the parliament and the elections and the things that are being achieved, which are tangible achievements, the violence makes it very difficult to get past, you know, the daily boom. Let me just -- one quick story.

We wanted to do a story about the freedom of the press in Iraq, and we went to the set of a new Iraqi sitcom that they're filming, because there's been -there's all this entertainment now, and it's one of the things that the ambassador there has trumpeted.

KURTZ: So what happened?

TAPPER: We got there, and the guy who had set it up with us- we shot-we shot for a little while, and the guy who had helped us arrange it was assassinated the very morning while we were there on the set. And so our cameras were rolling while the director and the producer and the cast and crew found out that the guy that had green-lit the show and the guy that had set up our being there was killed. So no matter how hard we try to cover the positive, the violence has a way of rearing its head.

KURTZ: Talk about changing your storyline.

The editor of The Cleveland Plain Dealer said last night that the newspaper, acting on the advice of its lawyers, was withholding publication of two major investigative articles because they were based on illegally leaked documents and could lead to penalties against the paper and the jailing of reporters. The editor, Doug Clifton, said lawyers for The Plain Dealer had concluded that the newspaper, Ohio's largest daily, would probably be found culpable if the authorities were to investigate the leaks and that reporters might be forced to identify confidential sources to a grand jury or go to jail....read on

I can't even begin to tell you how I feel about this cry baby of an editor. I wonder if he's grandstanding to make a point or just a coward to his profession. " Mr. Clifton declined to provide details about the two investigative articles being withheld, but he characterized them as "profoundly important," adding, "They would have been of significant interest to the public."

If that's the case and they are so important, you owe it to the American people to publish the story. What ever happens, happens. No matter how you feel about the Judith Miller case, If you want to re-establish the importance of an "unafraid" press then PRINT IT.

Cole says: So should you whiners, and if you have information that was leaked to you that are of 'profound importance,' and you don't publish it because you are 'afraid of jail,' you don't deserve my support or sympathy. You deserve my scorn.

Kos Says: NOT a good sign for the future of democracy, folks.

Talk Left says: Newspapers don't actually go to jail. If the reporters are willing to take the heat, the paper should publish the story. What good is freedom of the press if the press is too chicken to exercise its freedom?

Avedon says: This is exactly the kind of chilling effect I was worried about...

TMV says: And here it is for you: a living, breathing example of the "chilling effect."

Kevin Drum says: PROTECTING SOURCES IN CLEVELAND

Steve Gilliard says: The Ohio Plain Dealer is hiding behind Judy Miller to not run a story most likely connected to Coingate.