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


  • El Sayed Harris
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    El-Sayed Is the Arab Obama
    11 Aug 2026
    The Democratic Party will recalibrate its messaging after its well-funded senate candidate in a Michigan primary lost to Abdul El-Sayed, who by his own admission is a capitalist, not a socialist, and…
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    DOCUMENT: Declaration of the Rights of Caribbean Peoples to Self-Determination and Self-Government, West Indies National Emergency Committee, 1940.
    11 Aug 2026
    “Conflicts over colonies constitute the major source of war in the modern world.”
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Saudi Arabia Forms a 14-State Coalition to Stop Ansar Allah
    11 Aug 2026
    Saudi Arabia has formed a 14-state coalition to stop Ansar Allah, which has threatened to blockade its oil tankers in the Red Sea.
  • Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright
    Why The Democrat Party’s Precipitous Slide from De Facto to De Jure Racism Should Surprise No One
    11 Aug 2026
    “...when I talk about our political institutions, there is no reason for any American to continue to be victimized by what we still refer to as the Republican and Democratic parties…We don’t have to…
  • x
    Djibo Sobukwe
    Fidel Castro, the Cuban Revolution and Africa
    11 Aug 2026
    In commemoration of the Fidel Castro centenary on August 13, 2026, we present remarks given by Djibo Sobukwe at The Symposium on Fidel Castro and the Cuban Revolution on January 21, 2017,…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us