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


  • Mutulu Shakur's Revolutionary Legacy
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Mutulu Shakur's Revolutionary Legacy
    14 Jul 2023
    Efia Nwangaza is a South Carolina based attorney.
  • Eritrea's Continuing Struggle Against U.S. Interference
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Eritrea's Continuing Struggle Against U.S. Interference
    14 Jul 2023
    Elias Amare is a journalist and editor at Horn of Africa TV.
  • Mayor Eric Adams Proposes Ending the Right to Shelter
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Mayor Eric Adams Proposes Ending the Right to Shelter
    14 Jul 2023
    Krys Cerisier is an organizer with Vocal-NY’s Homeless Union.
  • The State's Constant Attack on Black Liberation
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    The State's Constant Attack on Black Liberation
    12 Jul 2023
    Indictments, disruptions, arrests, defamation, incarceration and even assassination are the weapons used to discredit Black people who act in opposition to the system and who call for liberation…
  • ESSAY: American Imperialism and the British West Indies, Claudia Jones, 1958
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: American Imperialism and the British West Indies, Claudia Jones, 1958
    12 Jul 2023
    Claudia Jones reminds us of the progressive potential of the failed West Indies Federation. But her analysis unwittingly anticipated the rise of its bourgeois descendant, CARICOM.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us