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


  • LETTER: For George, The Seventh of August Movement, 1971
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    LETTER: For George, The Seventh of August Movement, 1971
    16 Aug 2023
    A letter commemorating George Jackson speaks to the origins of Black August.
  • Manchild in the land of cotton
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Manchild in the land of cotton
    16 Aug 2023
                                                         
  • Black August for the Pendleton 2
    Too Black
    Black August for the Pendleton 2
    16 Aug 2023
    Black August is an important month of political education, but it should not solely be about the past. The continued existence of a mass incarceration state targeting Black people…
  • BAR Book Forum: Musab Younis’s Book, “On the Scale of the World”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Musab Younis’s Book, “On the Scale of the World”
    16 Aug 2023
    This week’s featured author is Musab Younis. Younis is Senior Lecturer in the School of Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary University of London. His book is On the Scale of the World…
  • RFK, Jr. Exposes His Right-Wing Tendencies Again, This Time On Abortion
    Jacqueline Luqman
    RFK, Jr. Exposes His Right-Wing Tendencies Again, This Time On Abortion
    16 Aug 2023
    Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. made and then tried to walk-back comments which supported banning abortion in some circumstances. But he's stuck with his own words and the supposedly anti-establishment…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us