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


  • Ending Violence with the Beloved Community in Chicago
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Ending Violence with the Beloved Community in Chicago
    22 Sep 2023
    Orion Meadows is a non-violence trainer with Institute for Nonviolence Chicago.
  • Partisan Gerrymandering and Voting Rights
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Partisan Gerrymandering and Voting Rights
    22 Sep 2023
    Michael Li is Senior Counsel in the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.
  • Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Hair in the game…
    20 Sep 2023
                                                           …
  • Why Barack Obama Can't Shut Up
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Why Barack Obama Can't Shut Up
    20 Sep 2023
    Barack Obama devastated millions of people all over the world and speaks of his actions as if they were committed by someone else. It is a masterful performance by a man committed to deception.
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: The Question of Compensation: A Third World Perspective, Norman Girvan, 1972
    20 Sep 2023
    Where are multinational corporations in discussions of reparations? The late Jamaican political economist Norman Girvan provides an answer.        
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us