Chemtrail article in Project Censored’s Top 10 most censored stories

By Rady Ananda

For the past 35 years, Project Censored has published an annual collection of the top 25 censored news stories. In the 2012 book edition, just released this September, my article, Atmospheric Geoengineering: Weather Manipulation, Contrails and Chemtrails, ranks as the 9th most censored story in the United States.

Originally published at the Centre for Research on Globalization in July 2010, an updated version at COTO Report has seen over 15,000 page views as of this writing. The article is widely posted across the world in several English and non-English speaking countries, giving it far broader readership than we’ll ever know, but likely over a million.

In addition to citing the symposium speech on which I based my article (supported by three dozen other sources), the Project also included a Commonwealth Club podcast “Man-Made Climate Change in the Skies,” in the new book. That audio-only podcast is a panel discussion by a scientist, two college professors and a former California agriculture employee who has been documenting adverse impacts on agriculture from cloud seeding operations, Rosalind Peterson.

Peterson runs the websites, Agriculture Defense Coalition and California SkyWatch. Her 2009 article, “Persistant Jet Contrails & Man-made Clouds Change our Climate Harming Agriculture & our Natural Resources” is also published in the new book. Also see this 68-minute interview by InfoWars.com.

Ironically, and as if to prove Project Censored’s point, after I posted a link last year to the Atmospheric Geoengineering piece on the “progressive” link site, buzzflash.com, I was banned, and all my contributions removed, though my links often made their front page.

Not surprisingly, even today, Atmospheric Geoengineering continues to be marginalized. A recent hit piece by Rebecca Bowe described “several claims in this year’s list” as “stretching things a bit.” She disparaged my article and Project Censored for having “a fringe obsession with supposedly suspicious airplane contrails.”

Unbeholden to the corporate line, independent media has a different view of my work. Activist Post recently gave me an honorable mention in its Ten Most Influential People in Alternative Media.

“The reporter mischaracterized your story,” said Professor Mickey Huff, the director of the Project. “We have told her and her publisher about it.”

No doubt, chemtrail deniers are more numerous than those who believe the official version of what happened on 9/11. Yet, publicly available evidence confirming existence of this decades-long project renders such denial absurd. The evidence is overwhelming. This is likely why the subject made it onto Project Censored’s Top Ten.

The Project has also been censored for reporting on 9/11 truth, as this KPFA interview from last year reveals. Inter Press Service contracted with Peter Phillips and Mickey Huff to write the piece, and then refused to publish it and permanently severed their relationship. Huff says the footnotes went on for two pages, though the piece was only a page and a half long. 9/11 Truth is covered in Project Censored’s 2011 edition.

A history professor at Diablo Valley College in Contra Costa County, California, Mickey Huff explains that the selection process for censored stories begins with public nominations.

A committee of college students from over 30 colleges around the world then reviews them for media coverage using a variety of databases including Lexis Nexis. If a story is under-represented, the students then fact check the article and consult with experts. After stories have been validated, a team of judges ranks their favorites and the results are calculated.

In addition to the top 25 censored stories for the year (April 2010 through March 2011), the book covers several more topics related to media censorship and democracy. Here’s the Top Ten 2012 countdown:

#10 Statistical Games with the Unemployment Rate. At Information Clearing House, Greg Hunter showed that instead of 9%, the real unemployment rate is over 22%.

#9 Chemtrails. Atmospheric Geoengineering: Weather Manipulation, Contrails and Chemtrails, Rady Ananda, July 10, 2010.

#8 The Truth on Nuclear Power. The Union of Concerned Scientists published a report describing 14 near-miss nuclear accidents in 2010 in the US. (One is Fort Calhoun, which I covered here and here.) Other nuclear pieces mentioned in this category include Jeff Goodell’s “America’s Nuclear Nightmare” at Rolling Stone.

#7 U.S. Army and psychology’s largest experiment – ever. Horrified by war? Be positive! A series of APA articles describing and promoting a program of “psychological resilience” is confronted by Roy Eidelson, Marc Pilisuk and Stephen Soldz at Truthout.

#6 Google Spies for CIA, US Military. In January 2010, Eric Sommer wrote “Google’s Deep CIA Connections” for Pravda.ru.

#5 Prison Companies Fund Anti-Immigrant Legislation. Exposed in depth by Peter Cervantes-Gautschi at AlterNet, Wall Street is profiting from immigrant lock-ups.

#4 Wall Street Engineers Food Crisis. On March 24, 2011, David Moberg wrote “Diet Hard: With a Vengeance” for In These Times showing that speculating on food commodities, along with income inequality, cause hunger – not lack of production.

#3 Obama’s Extrajudicial Hit List. State sanctioned assassinations outside the scope of law is somehow okay by this dictator. This is an under-reported story later covered by Glenn Greenwald at Salon and William Fisher at IPS. Originally titled “Death by Drone: ‘CIA’s hitlist is murder’,” IPS later changed it to “Death by Remote: But Is It Legal?”

#2 Army of Fake Personas to Promote Propaganda. Two sites broke the story on Feb. 22, 2011: Darlene Storm at Computer World and Stephen Webster at Raw Story. In March, Guardian writers Nick Fielding and Ian Cobain covered it.

#1 US Soldier Suicides Exceed Combat Deaths in 2010. Cord Jefferson broke the story on Jan. 27, 2011 at Iceland’s Good Magazine.

If you like the work the Project is doing, it survives on book sales. You can buy Censored 2012: The Top 25 Censored Stories of 2010-11 for $20 plus shipping and handling. Prior editions are also available.

Manna from heaven for also supporting my work.

Related:

UN Climate Concern Morphs into Chemtrail Glee Club, Dec. 6, 2010
UN Bans Chemtrails, Oct. 28, 2010

Updated Oct. 2nd to remove some sour grapes.