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PROJECT CENSORED PROJECT The Project Censored voting team has selected the top news stories that deserved to receive major coverage in the US corporate media last year, but were significantly underreported. he Project Censored team from Sonoma State University, California, under the directorship of Dr Peter Phillips, has released its list of the Top Censored Stories of 2001 and 2002. Media students, faculty staff and community experts were involved in the selection, screening and evaluation process. Project Censored's top 25 stories as well as the runners-up are summarised below in edited form, extracted from the book Censored 2003 (Seven Stories Press; see review this issue). — Editor 1: FCC Moves to Privatise Airwaves F” almost 70 years, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has administered and regulated the broadcast spectrum as an electronic "commons" on behalf of the American people. For a fee, the FCC issues licences to broadcasters that allow them to use, but not own, one or more specific radio or TV frequencies. Thus, the public has retained the ability to regulate, as well as influence, access to broadcast communications. Several years ago, the Progress and Freedom Foundation, in its report, "The Telecom Revolution: An American Opportunity", recommended a complete privatisation of the radio frequencies, whereby broadcasters with existing licences would eventually gain complete ownership of their respective frequencies. They could thereafter develop them in markets of their choosing, or sell and trade them to other companies. The few non-allo- cated bands of the radiofrequency spectrum would be sold off, as electronic real estate, to the highest bidders. With nothing then to regulate, the FCC would eventually be abol- ished. The reasoning behind this radical plan was that government control of the airwaves has led to inefficiencies. In private hands, the frequencies would be exchanged in the marketplace, and the forces of free-market supply and demand would foster the most cre- ative (and, of course, most profitable) use of these electronic "properties". The course of wireless broadcasting is approaching an unprecedented and critical cross- roads. The path taken by the United States, and by the other industrialised nations that may follow its lead, will profoundly influence the ability of the citizenry of each country to control the media democratically. (Sources: The Guardian, April 28, 2001; Mother Jones, September/October 2001) 2: New Trade Treaty Seeks to Privatise Global Social Services global trade agreement now being negotiated will seek to privatise nearly every gov- ernment-provided public service and allow transnational corporations to run them for profit. The General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) is a proposed free-trade agreement that will attempt to liberalise/dismantle barriers that protect government-pro- vided social services. These are social services bestowed by the government in the name of public welfare. The GATS was established in 1994, at the conclusion of the Uruguay Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). In 1995, the GATS agreement was adopted by the newly created World Trade Organization (WTO). Corporations plan to use the GATS to profit from the privatisation of educational sys- tems, health care systems, child care, energy and municipal water services, postal ser- vices, libraries, museums and public transportation. If the GATS is finalised, it will lock in a privatised, for-profit model for the global economy. GATS/WTO would make it ille- gal for a government with privatised services ever to return to a publicly owned, non-prof- it model. Any government that disobeys these WTO rulings will face sanctions. What used to be areas of common heritage like seed banks, air and water supplies, health care, and education will be commodified, privatised and sold to the highest bidder on the open Compiled by Project Censored © 2001-2002 Sonoma State University 1801 East Cotati Avenue Rohnert Park, CA 94928-3609, USA Telephone: +1 (707) 664 2500 Email: censored@sonoma.edu Website: http:/Awww.projectcensored.org NEXUS = 11 THE MOST UNDERCOVERED NEWS IN AMERICA DECEMBER 2002 — JANUARY 2003 www.nexusmagazine.com