MINNEAPOLIS — Censorship, a tool often wielded by despots, is also a pastime of democratic governments and their corporate media lapdogs.

Whether journalists are operating as part of a free press or as the puppets of a repressive government, the goal is the same: control public perceptions by carefully bending information to suit a particular agenda.

And while our corporate-owned media may have thought they’d mastered the art of propaganda, a recent Gallup poll suggests otherwise.

According to that poll, a staggering 72 percent of Americans don’t trust mass media.

Much of this drop in public confidence can be traced to the media’s efforts to treat politics as theater and entertainment. It also doesn’t help that media figures serve as mouthpieces for the corporatocracy and the military-industrial complex.

In both cases, the media has failed to deliver on its most important public service: reporting news and information via a critical, questioning lens.

This is why truly free, independent media is so critical in the fight against censorship. As the corporate-owned, government-aligned mass media kowtows to the powers that be, independent media is there to shine a light on conflicts of interest, threats to constitutional rights, and other issues that the public has a right to know about.

Since its founding in 1976, Project Censored has unmasked propaganda surrounding the most pressing issues of the day, providing coverage that speaks truth to power.

Today, I’m joined by Mickey Huff, director of Project Censored, to discuss the top five censored stories of 2016 — stories the mainstream media swept under the rug or manipulated to suit corporate or government interests.

Learn more about fake news and see the top censored stories of 2016 in the full episode of Behind The Headline: