Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

No News Is Bad News: The Death Dance of Journalism and the Twilight of Democracy
Bill Quigley
20 May 2009
🖨️ Print Article

by Robert McChesney

In this 90 minute address, Dr. Robert McChesney argues that the disappearance of journalism from newspapers and broadcast media marks the twilight of democracy.  Back in the days when Frederick Douglass and other abolitionists started their newspapers, the US Postal Service was mailing them for free.  At the time, newspapers were 90% of post office volume, and accounted for 2% of its income, a massive government subsidy.  Only a massive subsidy --- a stimulus program for journalism, and stripping corporate owners of dozens and hundreds of stations that some of them own, can begin to make real democracy possible.

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


More Stories


  • ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
    Black Radicalism and the Return of the “Subversive Negro”
    16 Sep 2026
    NSPM-7 and the State Department's international campaign against "far-left political terrorism" represent new and more dangerous forms of domestic repression in the 21st century, while reconstructing…
  • Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Colin Kaepernick’s “The Perilous Fight”
    16 Sep 2026
    In this series, we ask acclaimed authors to answer five questions about their book. This week’s featured author is Colin Kaepernick.
  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    A Climate “Movement” Homonym: (Or, How the Big Apple’s Annual Environmental Gathering Surfaces an Imperative Inquiry, Climate Week or Climate Weak?)
    16 Sep 2026
    The climate movement has been captured by a professional managerial class that prefers charity galas and virtue signaling to building power.
  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Find me another 11,780 votes?
    16 Sep 2026
    "Find me another 11,780 votes?" is the latest from BAR's Poet-in-Residence.
  • The Cradle News Desk
    Yemen vows ‘no security’ for Saudi Arabia after major missile, drone attack
    16 Sep 2026
    The Yemeni attack involved dozens of ballistic missiles and drones, targeting sites from which Saudi warplanes took off to strike Yemen.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us