Award-winning journalist Liane Casten gave a lecture on Tuesday night titled “Corporate Media: Beating the Drums of War.”

Casten discussed a variety of topics that she thinks the U.S. media has purposely ignored.

Topics ranged from the dangers of certain chemicals that cause cancer to the real reasons behind the attack on Iraq.

“At what point are we going to be able to start asking the tougher questions and demand more from our media?” she asked the audience.

Casten thinks that the media have often deliberately kept the public uninformed about products that pose a danger to their health. She said the press is often more concerned with the effect such news would have on the sales of harmful products than they are with the health of the people who are being harmed by the products.

“What is going on with the media that they’re not willing to tell the stories to stop the pollution?” Casten asked.

Casten and several friends formed the Chicago Media Watch to report the stories that mainline newspapers ignore.

“We tell the stories that the media won’t tell,” she said. “If the media were honest, if the media had integrity, we would not be in business.”

Casten has been published in several magazines and newspapers, including Mother Jones, The New York Times supplement and the Chicago Sun-Times.

“I believe that it was a very informative speech,” said Antwanisha Spencer, a freshman special education major.

Zakal Shah, a freshman secondary education major, found the lecture interesting.

“I learned a lot about how media affects the war,” she said. P.J. Kim photo

Journalist Liane Casten spoke Tuesday night about the U.S. media.