Certainly not the press in the US or Japan, right? Many of us can't imagine that the news media in our so-called democracies could be censored.  There are many differences in the style and structure of the media in every country, but perhaps we should consider what  Peter Phillips, assistant professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and director of Project Censored, a media research organization, has  to say about the situation in the the United States:

"Media corporations have been undergoing a massive merging and buy-out process that is realigning our sources of information in America. Conglomeration changes traditional media corporate cultures. Values such as freedom of information and belief in the responsibility of keeping the public informed are adjusted to reflect policies created by bottom-line oriented CEOs. Media owners and managers are motivated to please advertisers and upper middle class readers and viewers.

"Journalists want to see their stories approved for print or broadcast, and editors come to know the limits of their freedom to diverge from the bottom line view of owners and managers. The results are an expansion of entertainment news [and] infomercials...aimed at increased profit taking.

"...In 1997, the new CEO of the Los Angeles Times found it necessary to assign a business manager to each section of the newspaper in order to insure that a proper profit-oriented product was developed and to help maintain a corporate climate that reflected the management desires of the board of directors.

"The eleven largest or most influential media corporations in the United States are General Electric Company (NBC), Viacom Inc. (cable), The Walt Disney Company (ABC), Time Warner Inc.(CNN), Westinghouse Electric Corporation (CBS), The News Corporation Ltd. (Fox), Gannett Co. Inc., Knight-Ridder Inc., New York Times Co., Washington Post Co., and the Times Mirror Co. These eleven major broadcast and print media corporations now represent a major portion of the news information systems in the United states. For many people their entire source of news and information comes from these eleven corporations.

"...They are the media elite of the world.  They...represent the collective vested interests of a significant portion of corporate America and share a common commitment to free market capitalism, economic growth, internationally protected copyrights, and a government dedicated to protecting their interests. ...It is more than safe to say that major media in the United States effectively represent the interests of corporate America, and that the media elite are the watchdogs of acceptable ideological messages, the parameters of news and information content, and the general use of media resources.

"Do the media elite directly censor the news?  It is difficult  to prove direct censorship by management of particular stories in the news. But an organizational tendency is to comply with the general corporate culture, and career-minded journalists and editors sharing this common corporate culture will create what direct censorship cannot: a general compliance with the attitudes, wishes, and expectations of the media elite and in turn corporate America.

"Keeping democracy safe in America requires an informed electorate and a strong watchdog press. But major media today are tending to favor news stories on sex scandals, celebrity events, and crime, leaving less or little room for analytical news on important social issues. If privately owned commercial media will not meet the task of keeping democracy safe, then it is time for a strong public supported national news system.

We want to believe that the news media is giving us all sides of an issue. Yet take, for example, an article by Columbia University professor  and renowned Middle East scholar Edward Said on the U.S.-Iraq crisis. In the article, entitled "Apocalypse Now",  Said used evidence by UNICEF showing that more than 600,000 children had died as a result of sanction-caused malnutrition, disease and lack of medical care to make the case that the sanctions were "vindictive, sadistic and inhumane".  Yet no U.S. media touched the story; it was published only in London and Cairo.

Likewise, when U.S. Secretary of State Albright was asked  on U.S. television about the more than half a million children who had died in Iraq as a result of sanctions (as of 1996), she said, "Well, this is the price that we feel we are willing to pay (my emphasis). Forgetting the callousness and hypocrisy [in my opinion] of her statement (it is ok for the U.S. to carry out mass slaughter in order to put an end to Saddam Hussein's suspected weapons of mass destruction--a form of "genocide" in the words of linguist and social commentator Noam Chomsky), it is noteworthy that her statement was totally ignored by the rest of the U.S. media.  This is the same media which does not hesitate to refer to Saddam Hussein's brutality and which has portrayed the bombing of Iraqui targets as a glorified video game.

You will have to judge for yourself whether it is accidental that the same news media which uncritically prints and televises military-supplied bombing footage and gives us endless coverage of presidential sex scandals does not see fit to cover an important but embarrassing statement by the Secretary Albright or critical comments by a well-known expert.

Does Japan have a free press?  You will have to ask yourself whether government-connected "Kisha Clubs" exist to allow the public access to information or to control journalists by threatening to deny them information if they become too critical of government institutions, including the Imperial Family.  You will have to ask yourself if you feel you have been exposed to all sides of an issue by the media and if they cover it in any depth.

In short,  this page gives you an opportunity to put your assumptions to a test.  The links to alternative news sources will allow you to decide if the press in the U.S. and Japan (or wherever you live) is worthy of being called free and fair.

In addition to the alternative news sources, there are links to progressive political and social organizations.  Obviously they reflect my own biases (though I do not necessarily agree with everything they say).

I hope you find them informative.