This is the sixth year that ETS! has looked at the most over-hyped and under-reported stories of the year. We started doing the list in 1996 with the perception that the US public, instead of getting the information it needed to make informed decisions in a democracy, was being distracted with an endless barrage of feel-good trivia.

And every year, it's gotten worse. But 2001, and in particular the past three months, have reached a new low in terms of actively misleading the public. This sort of list has become more important than ever.

For the same reasons, alternative media is more important than ever. But it's no substitute for demanding that America's big networks and newspapers stop acting as a combination of stenographers to power and shills for their entertainment divisions, advertisers, and corporate owners. Without that pressure, we'll get the garbage we deserve, and the intellectual junk food that many people demand. But while they clamor for Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Super Bowl coverage, Survivor XIV, and ten-day Accu-Pinpoint Astrological Weather, here's the news they did, and didn't, get:

Most Overrated Stories of the Year

The Mariners. Summer is a good time to go on a long vacation away from Seattle; otherwise you have to eat, drink, and breathe Ichiro.

Psychologizing about how much our nation has changed after September 11. The daily newspapers and TV news shows need to remind us that "we've all changed" almost every day. After all, we might forget. Uh ... what was I talking about? And hey, how 'bout a story or two on how the rest of the world hasn't changed, nor the US' role in it? Bonus demerits to NPR and other outlets that have been trotting out daily maudlin WTC victims' stories for three months solid, a blatant propaganda effort to remind people that we need revenge for, um, we forget.

Federal interest rate cuts. Much hoopla precedes federal interest rate cuts, because supposedly it makes it cheaper for businesses and consumers to borrow money. But credit card interest rates haven't gone down, and mortgage rates have dropped only a tiny bit. Stock prices are continuing to swoon, companies are laying off more people, stores are begging for customers, and we've reached the conclusion that monetary policy is a load of horseshit.

Whatever the stock market is doing. Before the collapse, lots of folks used to check stock and mutual fund prices daily, if not hourly. Now nobody cares. We love it. But Wall Street can't stand not being the center of attention, and it shows. Quit whining!

Boeing moves its headquarters. Local politicians, newspapers, and Boeing employees thought it was the end of the world when the corporate sharks swam to Chicago ... we say "good riddance! And extend our sympathies to our friends and ripped-off taxpayers in Chicago!"

Bill and Melinda Gates' charitable donations. Look. They have to give away money every year to get a break on their taxes, okay? Their donations are big because they've got so much money. So give it a rest.

The end of the recession is near! In truth, it's really getting further away every day. But some people just can't see that the bubble has burst until the soap's all puddled at their feet.

And last, but not least, the fucking Harry Potter movie. The books are a lot of fun. Kids love them. More kids are reading now than ever before, especially boys. Yes, we know. But the Harry Potter marketing phenomenon has got to go. We here at Eat the State! read a lot of books, including children's literature. Harry Potter books rank second to a number of children's classics, including nearly all of Roald Dahl's books. There is no Charlie & the Chocolate Factory action figure or happy meal. And that's the way it should be.

The Year's Most Important Underreported Stories

First we'll list the local stories, then work outward to the national and international stories.

The 2001 elections might never have happened, if you were reading the newspapers. Who did you vote for? Most people didn't. And damn few of us remember who was elected and who lost.

In the wake of Tim Eyman's successful initiative to limit increases in property taxes (remember?), Washington State is headed for a budget crisis. So Governor Locke and "legislative leaders" appointed 11 people to a new taskforce to study Washington's tax structure. Who's on the panel? The usual big business types (Bill Gates, Sr. is the chairman). What they come up with will certainly not raise taxes for businesses.

Meanwhile, some smart folks have pointed out that Washington State's budget shortfall could be eliminated if the legislature repealed special tax credits for businesses, including Boeing's exemption from sales tax on airplanes. You won't see this in the Seattle Times.

Nor has there been much reporting on the fact that instead, the vast majority of state budget cuts will be in programs and services to the state's neediest citizens. Not that our legions of newly needy will need the state's help or anything. And past safety net cuts--made in times of prosperity--are kicking in, too; a large number of folks on Welfare to Work are just beginning to reach the end of their benefits, with no jobs in sight.

A new Alaskan way viaduct is in the planning stages, with no debate in the local papers. Ditto for expanding the 520 bridge.

The Bonneville Power Authority killed the best salmon run in recent history. During the drought this summer, the BPA refused to spill enough water over dams on the Columbia River to flush young fingerlings out to sea. 80-90% of the fish population died in the river, which will effect runs well into the future.

Microsoft and the Bush Administration gutted anti-trust laws. Meanwhile, the local press quoted Microsoft's lawyers ad nauseam, reported the price of Microsoft stock, and whined about how badly rich peoples' stock options are suffering.

The Seattle Police Department needs a civilian review board. Mardi gras, the suspicious shootings of Aaron Roberts and David John Walker, complaints from the African American community, and this year's WTO debacle are the direct result of the lack of civilian oversight. In addition, the highly flawed inquest process was given ample exposure in ETS!, but nowhere else.

California energy prices sank the movement for energy privatization. Several states put on hold or canceled their plans to privatize utilities after California's mess showed them what privatization really means: the taxpayer takes it in the shorts.

Massive protests greeted George Bush's Jan. 20 inauguration. Protesters were an overwhelming presence at key points on the Pennsylvania Avenue inaugural parade route, and TV cameras carefully avoided those areas, the fences surrounding the parade route, or any acknowledgment of public anger over last December's coup d'etat.

Bush and the Republicans have shamelessly used the September 11 tragedy to try to push through reactionary legislation. The list is long: Fast-track trade authority, huge tax breaks and refunds for corporations, a massive bailout for airline companies, a taxpayer funded safety net for the insurance industry, a defense budget that's increasing far beyond what the military asked for, a revival of the missile defense boondoggle, and $3 billion spent so far to catch one guy. The only thing they haven't got yet is permission to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Give them a week or two. Meanwhile, urgent social needs, like prescription drug benefits and other health care crises, have been swept off the table.

John Ashcroft and George Bush have suspended large portions of the Bill of Rights for those "suspected" of being terrorists, and anyone else in the general vicinity. They've accomplished it by doing an end-run around Congress and issuing executive orders, leading House Republicans (members of their own party, no less) to call the Bush administration a tyranny.

Last week, Ashcroft made a special trip to Europe to try and soothe our allies in Britain, Spain, Belgium, Germany, and Italy (Ashcroft, it seems, is terrified of France). Notably, the French government is offering to help defend Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person in the US to be charged with complicity in the 9/11 attacks. Spain is refusing to extradite terrorist suspects because of Bush's military tribunals. The world is clearly appalled, but the US press is asleep at the wheel. When the land of Franco and the Spanish inquisition has to lecture the US on due process, you'd think there's a story afoot.

Only the Wall Street Journal has reliably and repeatedly reported that the anthrax spores found in three letters to congressmen is a US weapons-grade variety. Yes, that means either a military or ex-military guy sold it to the perpetrator, or the perp is another Timothy McVeigh.

The Bush tax cut was a flop long before 9/11. The piddly refunds people received were quickly spent on paying off debt or buying essentials, not on shopping sprees, as the Republicans had hoped. Which means more tax cuts will also fail to help the economy. But that hasn't stopped the Bushies from pushing for them.

And almost nobody knows--because the media didn't tell them--that the rebates weren't rebates at all That $300 will simply be added to your tax bill next year instead. The government is getting every penny from you it originally expected to, unless you're in the upper income tax brackets whose tax rates were permanently cut. The "Bush rebate" was a cheap accounting trick, and a massive fraud perpetrated on those who thought they were getting extra money, a fraud obediently reinforced by most news reports.

The murder of one anti-globalization protester and the beating, detention, and torture of hundreds more by police in Genoa, Italy, and its political aftermath, shocked the European press, but not the US press.

There were three advances in the struggle for cheap medicines for the Third World this year. First, a South African court case against major pharmaceutical companies forced drug companies to lower their prices on AIDS medicines to Africa. Second, more countries are now lining up to pass laws giving them the right to buy generic versions of patented drugs. And, finally, the WTO was forced to retreat and allow countries the right to buy generics when necessary, without the threat of being sued through the WTO.

The Afghan interim president, Hamid Karzai, is a CIA man. This obvious fact is left out of the US media's biographies of Karzai, but the foreign press is quick to point out that he worked for the CIA during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and is working for them now, stirring up the southern Pashtun tribes against the Taliban. And he'll work for them in the future, too.

The Northern Alliance's most visible warlord, General Dostum, is a former Soviet and Taliban general renowned for his brutality. That brutality was on full display after Dostum's forces took Mazar-i-Sharif, to the yawning indifference of US, but not global, media.

Afghanistan's women can't vote. The US press goes on about the two women cabinet members in the interim government, but Afghan women don't even have the vote yet, much less any identification papers that would allow them to register to vote, even if it were legal. And there are no protections for women who want to cast off the burqa (the Northern Alliance is as socially conservative as the Taliban). A democracy can't exist with over half its population disenfranchised.

The war is about oil, but not about an oil pipeline through Afghanistan, as some folks claim. No, it's about "stabilizing the region" to prevent radical Islamic Afghanistan from exporting nationalist Islamic guerrillas north to the Caspian Sea dictatorships that the US supports. (Gotta keep those dictators gainfully employed extracting oil for our SUVs.)

And finally, the US remains the biggest terrorist nation in the world. We're the largest arms exporter. We give weapons to Israel (which is assassinating members of the Palestinian government, for god's sake). We supply Indonesia (which just murdered a major opposition leader in Irian Jaya a couple weeks ago). We support a Mexican government that's busy torturing peasants even as you read this. Dictatorships in Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia would fall like dominoes without US taxpayer money and the help of US corporations. Behind it all lies the implied threat: the US military will crush any regime that strays too far out of line. No combination of world powers has been able or willing to hold this rogue state accountable for its transgressions. That's why the world loves us.