It says something about the state of affairs of the U.S. media when even Project Censored appears to have censored the Hunter Biden laptop story.
Project Censored is a media research group founded in 1976 at Sonoma State University in California that produces an annual list of 25 stories that were ignored or covered up by the media in the past year.
Project Censored’s 2020 list omits perhaps the most egregious instance of media censorship in modern history – the media’s blatant pre-election censorship of the discovery of Hunter Biden’s laptop at a computer repair shop in Oct. 2019.
The laptop contains emails and information that show Biden’s family, including his father, the GOP candidate for president, may have engaged in foreign influence peddling when Biden was vice-president.
Project Censored Director Mickey Huff agreed in an email Tuesday that the Hunter Biden laptop story was censored but denied the Project has engaged in censoring. He said the Project’s list was compiled in March, prior to the discovery of the laptop, and the book was published in December. He said the laptop story will be considered for next year’s book.
“[W]e can’t cover what did not happen yet lol,” he wrote.
However, a search Tuesday morning of “Hunter Biden” on the Project’s web site produced only one article written on Nov. 25, 2019. It makes no claim of censorship. It fleetingly refers to the Democratic Party’s disregard of the activities of Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, in Ukraine during the Obama administration.
Pre-Election
Only one major media outlet, The New York Post, reported on the unsavory contents of laptop on October 14.
Twitter and Facebook immediately throttled or suppressed sharing of the Post’s coverage on their platforms.
Joe Biden and the national media called allegations of influence peddling “Russian disinformation,” which was later disproven. National Public Radio said the allegations were a distraction not worthy of coverage. Fox News declined to run the story citing credibility concerns. The Associated Press, The Washington Post and The New York Times (etc.) ignored and/or discredited the story.
Polling shows that most voters had no knowledge of the alleged influence peddling. A report by the Media Research Center found one in six Biden voters in important swing states would have changed their minds if they had known the full story. “A shift of this magnitude would have changed the outcome in all six of the swing states won by Joe Biden, and Donald Trump would have comfortably won a second term as president,” states the MRC.
A Rasmussen Reports telephone and online survey recently found that 52 percent of likely U.S. voters think news organizations ignored the story to help Joe Biden’s campaign.
Post-Election
Only after the election did it come to light that Hunter Biden’s business dealings have been under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) since 2018.
Hunter Biden admitted on Dec. 9 that the DOJ has been investigating his taxes, though the federal probe reportedly includes claims of money laundering and alleged business dealings with foreign countries. Hunter Biden has a 10% share in a Shanghai private-equity firm and earlier sat on its board. Biden’s admission followed the issuance of a subpoena to Hunter Biden by the DOJ.
Incomplete List
Project Censored’s annual list typically focuses on progressive causes involving corporate wrong-doing and abuses with respect to immigration, prisons or the environment. Here are the top five censored stories mentioned by Project Censorship, all politically correct and in keeping with the group’s past political perspective:
1. Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
2. Monsanto “Intelligence Center” Targeted Journalists and Activists.
3. US Military – A Massive, Hidden Contributor to Climate Crisis.
4. Congressional Investments and Conflicts of Interest.
5. “Inequality Kills: Gap between Richest and Poorest Americans Largest in 50 Years.
For next year’s list, perhaps Project Censored should ask itself whether Project Censored’s decision to engage in what appears to be partisan censorship (failure to cover the issue on its web site) deserves a mention.
Project Censored is funded by the Media Freedom Foundation (MFF), a nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation based in Petaluma, CA, that was established in 2000. Huff is listed a president.