The Columbus Free Press

Censored

Book review by Bob Powers, May 1, 1996

For two decades Censored has been an annual volume listing the alleged top 25 stories that "didn't make the news." The new edition, published by Seven Stories Press and available in paperback for $14.95, isn't quite what it claims to be.

These stories hardly were censored, since they've all appeared, in one form or another, in print or on TV. For instance, you have to have lived in a cave with no contact with the outside world not to have heard, ad nauseam, that deregulation of the telecommunications industry threatens "America's Marketplace of Ideas." The screaming that has been done by such gadflies as Ralph Nader has been documented by the newspaper wire services and covered, up to a point, on various TV news shows.

Duh. . .

Here are some of the other "censored" stories:

The budget doesn't have to be balanced by penalizing the poor.
Child labor in the U.S. is worse today than in the 1930s.
The Internet is being privatized.
While pushing a nuclear pact, the U.S. spends billions on nuclear weapons.
Medical fraud reaches $100 billion every year.
Newt Gingrich is not a nice fellow, planning--among other things--to gut the FDA.
Hospital stays result in unnecessary deaths for 180,000 patients annually.
Chemical harm done to Gulf War veterans has been covered up.
Fiberglass, which replaced asbestos, has been linked to lung diseases.
Needle exchange programs for drug addicts are a good idea.

Fortunately, the book offers more than its accounting of the so-called censored stories. Lists of alternative media and leftish columnists are valuable, though incomplete. Also helpful is a listing of markets which seek material from writers interested in working for the alternative media.

One chapter offers a chronology of censorship from 605 B.C. to 1995.

If you've been out of touch with the terrible things threatening our very existence, Censored might be worth thumbing through. But if you are an intelligent, inquiring reader, the material here won't cause your eyebrows to rise.

Bob Powers is a former managing editor of The Free Press.

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