Top Censored Stories Analysis (What The Media Doesn’t Show)
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Upon reading these stories, I was not as much shocked that these stories didn’t make mainstream media as I was disappointed. Each one of the stories presented in this book is important for different reasons and deserves to be exposed to the general public. One thing that particularly stood out to me was that corporations will not cover these stories as they are too depressing, lowering buying rates. They want events, not issues to report on. (Huff et al. 22). This results in the gatekeeping of stories that people actually need to know, which reminds me of the Jazz Journalism era we learned about, as the same thing happened there. However, there were a few stories in particular that I strongly feel the public should’ve been notified about.
One story that I deemed as extremely significant was story number one “Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls” (Huff et al 27). The media does not cover how many Indigenous females are going missing, being murdered, or thrown into sex trafficking. The rates at which this is happening are quite astronomical. There were “5712 reports of murdered or missing Native women and girls throughout the United States in 2016—but only 116 of these were logged into the Department of Justice’s database” (Huff et al. 28). That is unacceptable. That is a 5,596 amount difference between the number of reports filed and the number that gained attention from the Department of Justice, but even then action fails to be taken as those responsible for the crimes rarely get convicted (Huff et al. 28). The media overlooks this abuse and target of Indigenous women. I think the only thing I may have seen about this issue was some mediocre infographic on Instagram, which was educational, but not ground-breaking enough to resolve the issue. The lack of media coverage on this issue silences the voices of Indigenous women and makes the perpetrators of the crimes more likely to continue as they know they will face no consequences for their actions. This causes Indigenous women to suffer in silence, as we as a society are blatantly ignorant to the horror that goes on right in front of our faces. Society loves to enact an “out of sight, out of mind” mindset, so when these stories are literally out of sight (no media coverage), the public will not care or speak up about these issues. If this story was released to the general public, it would be spreading like rapid fire. It is insane how fast a piece of news or information can be spread through the media nowadays, especially with the use of social media. Even though the algorithm may block this news, a chance of exposure is better than nothing at all. I believe that this story would be circulating quickly through various social media had it been released to the public, and more people would be made aware of this unresolved issue of the targeting of Indigenous women.
The same lack of coverage happens with the injustices against Black women and girls, which is mentioned in story number seven “Underreporting of Missing and Victimized Black Women and Girls” (Huff et Al. 51). The Black women who go missing are usually never found, as there is no coverage in the media to help them be found. Black women comprise 40% of sex trafficking victims in the United States but only account for 13.1% of the population (Huff et al. 53). Those numbers speak volumes when it comes to determining how much the media cares about the lives of Black women. The common theme here is the issue of race. It is no secret that people of color are suffering and dying at the expense of how our society is built. Racism is very prevalent in society, but the lack of coverage on missing Black and Indigenous women does not allow for society to sympathize with their pain and struggle. I believe that if these stories were exposed to the public, there would be more people advocating for the lives of Indigenous and Black women, considering the treatment of them to be unacceptable, especially when it comes to media coverage and government support. Minimal efforts are being made to stop the crime against Black and Indigenous women, but maybe if society was informed of the severity of what is actually happening, there would be at least a few extra people who care, making society gradually better. The lack of coverage of both of these stories also allows white women to believe that they are the only group of women being taken advantage of. Due to this egotistical view that some white women have, we end up having groups of women from different races pitted against each other, instead of banding together to stop common ground issues such as sex trafficking.
Many of these stories boil down to targeting and racism. Another story that I feel should’ve been exposed to the public is story number five “‘Inequality Kills’: Gap between Richest and Poorest Americans Largest in 50 Years” (Huff et al. 43). Before reading this story, I never considered how the jobs poor Americans do can affect their health, and how they can end up killing them. It was never a thought that crossed my mind, which means it may have not crossed many of the minds of the general public, thus why coverage of this story was needed. Poor Americans risk their health just to survive. The jobs poor Americans do often lead to fatigue, cardiovascular disease, bad mental health, and other issues that could ultimately lead to their demise. They aren’t provided with medication to combat these mental health issues either. (Huff et al. 47). The gap between the life expectancy of poor Black Americans in Chicago as compared to wealthier white Americans is nine years (Huff et al. 44). Nine whole years are lost due to the stress and employment conditions poor Black Americans face. When I read this story I thought back to all the times I’ve heard financially fortunate Americans think Americans facing financial hardships are just able to get better jobs if they try harder. That is not the case and from this story, it is evident that these Americans facing financial hardships are already trying quite hard to maintain their jobs and are losing their lives in the process. Since this story was not released to the general public, much of society assumes that poor people simply experience financial hardships that they will eventually get over. They are not informed of the lower life expectancy of these people or of the health issues they experience. Once again, the lack of coverage doesn’t allow society to be enlightened of the harsh realities of the world and therefore they don’t realize they exist. There is no sympathy for these struggling people and no one advocating on their behalf because no one is informed on the important things happening in the world. All of these stories that I have mentioned so far are human rights issues, and because they have been gatekept, society has become less and less humane, while these suffering groups of people lose their lives.
I have one too many times experienced one of my family members saying “The news is so depressing. I hate watching it.” This sentence is usually followed by them turning it off or walking away from the TV. If society cannot even handle the news that is already covered on mainstream media, that is nowhere near as depressing or devastating as these hidden stories, how can we ever introduce these stories to the media and provide resolutions for these countless issues? The fact that these stories are hard to stomach may make some people turn away, but it may make others, like myself, want to find a way to help these issues get rectified. The challenge with the media however, was even if these stories were released, the relatability factor can cause an issue. Unaffected groups may not care about these stories as they believe they do not pertain to them. But, if these stories show instances of human lives being compromised, and we are all human, shouldn’t they be of relevance to everyone? That’s the logical hope, but not the truth.
The racism and targeting continues within our police forces, the ones who are supposedly deemed as our “protectors”, when a lot of the time they do anything but that, unless you’re white. While police brutality has made the mainstream media as of late, what police are discreetly doing in the midst of the public eye has not experienced media coverage. Story number twelve “Police Officers Implicated in Online Hate Groups as Facebook Profits” (Huff et al. 68) explains that police officers, both active-duty and retired, are forming hate groups on Facebook that are homophobic, racist, anti-Muslim or Confederate, as well as others (Huff et al. 68). If this story was released to the general public, racists and Republicans alike would have a bit of a harder time denying the corrupt intentions of the police as they do in situations of police brutality. These hate groups would quite literally spell it out for anyone in denial that these police officers have bad intentions. The more evidence that is presented on an issue, the more society can be convinced of how the issue is problematic. I wasn’t surprised by the hate groups, unfortunately, but I was surprised that Facebook is being paid almost $1.6 million to advertise these hate groups, even though they go against their “hate speech policies” (Huff et al. 69). In instances where this issue has been talked about, Facebook has been excused as it is difficult to monitor all the groups that exist on their platform (Huff et al. 69). However, that does not make sense to me as they have to know about these groups if they are getting paid to advertise them, meaning they can stop them from growing or existing at all. If this was revealed to the general public, Facebook users could protest the social media because of its ulterior motives, or even use Facebook to spread the horrid actions of these police officers and the company itself. Although, I’m not sure Facebook would lose enough users to care.
The police officers are supposed to protect the members of society, but in reality, they are hating on them and putting them in danger every chance they get. Facebook is supposed to be protecting its users from hate speech, or at least that’s the pretense they put their users under when in reality they are the ones allowing this hate speech to grow. There is a fair amount of deception here that could easily be exposed with media coverage, which is why it’s insanely frustrating that that isn’t happening. We are being lied to in several ways: not being told the whole truth or being manipulated.
Story number six “Shadow Network of Conservative Outlets Emerges to Exploit Faith in Local News” (Huff et al. 48) brings attention to this manipulation we as a society are experiencing, or, well, it would’ve if it was covered by the media. 450 websites operate in unison, pretending to be a source of news, to spread information with a conservative bias, manipulating the people of society (Huff et al. 48-49). The man in charge of it all, Brian Timpone, has a company of his own, Journatic, that was called out for false information and plagiarism (Huff et al. 49). These sites tend to put their conservative spin on gaps left by local news outlets when covering stories (Huff et al. 50). This allows people to consume extremely right-wing media, thinking it’s actual news when it isn’t. This is a manipulation of public opinion and trust. Topics such as candidates, labor unions, and government are discussed on these sites. Feeding that sort of information to Americans from a fake news source results in a bunch of heavily miseducated people (Huff et al. 48). These sites were especially active in Michigan because of its swing state identity (Huff et al. 49). The sites were trying to warp the minds of Michigan citizens in a way that would result in them voting conservatively. Releasing this story to the general public would’ve allowed society to question what other areas of media they are being manipulated in and would encourage them to start fact-checking their information instead of blindly eating up content from the first source they see. It would teach everyone to be aware of the media and the truth. Timpone also created a firm called Newsinator, that did “‘paid political work and offer[ed] marketing services to companies under the name Interactive Content Services’” (Huff et al. 50). Therefore there is not only misinformation by these fake news outlets, but now there is paid marketing of this biased misinformation for companies. Yet, no one knows about it. Thus, manipulation spreads.
Media coverage is so crucial. The people of our society, myself included at times, walk around in a daze because we do not know the reality of what is happening if we do not see it in the media. Media can only be effective if it carries stories that are worth knowing. The media reports the news, but it has lost sight of what kind of news it should be focusing on as it solely focuses on money and not justice. Gatekeeping is terrifying and the continued effects it has on our society is the most horrific part, aside from the gate kept stories themselves. Society cannot improve if only some issues of life are being aired on the news and not others. While the media can never capture the full picture, no matter how hard it tries, even a short article on these unreleased stories would’ve been better than little to no coverage.
References
Huff, Mickey, and Andy Lee Roth. “The Top Censored Stories and Media Analysis of 2019-20.” Project Censored’s State of the Free Press 2021, Seven Stories Press, 2020, pp. 19–107.