Underreported news gives government chance to hide the truth

While overreporting is sometimes destructive and always annoying, it is underreporting that dangerously restricts the exercise of our right to free speech. It is the failure of major news sources to report stories critical of our government. It is a form of censorship that permits governments to act in secret.
We can learn a lot about underreporting by reading "Censored 2005" and its annual predecessors.
"Censorship 2005" is written by Peter Phillips and managed by the Sociology Department of Sonoma State University in California. Its central feature is a report on the 25 most underreported news stories of 2004. Each story is updated by its author, usually with references to more resources. The book also provides information on censorship in general and its use throughout the world.
The 25 stories are chosen through an exhausting process of elimination, beginning with the selection of perhaps 1,000 stories, whittled down by various reviews, culminating in the final selections by a panel of judges experienced in the gathering and reporting of news.
The stories in "Censored 2005" reveal otherwise hidden government activities — disturbing reflections of our society's drastic unraveling by a conscienceless administration.
The No. 1 censored story covers the greatly increasing wealth inequality in our country. In 2003, the top 1 percent of the U.S. population owned about one third of the country's wealth, a result of "legislative policies carefully crafted and lobbied for by corporations and the super-rich over the past 25 years," Phillips wrote.
The most shocking story deals with the uranium contamination of our own troops and the civilian populations of Iraq and Afghanistan, caused by U.S. military operations. The contamination results from the post-9/11 use of tons of radioactive depleted and non-depleted uranium munitions. Four million pounds were dropped on Iraq in 2003 alone.