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
  • omnibus

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


  • LA Protest
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Los Angeles Protests, Immigration, and Black Politics
    20 Jun 2025
    Thandisizwe Chimurenga is a Los Angeles-based journalist and host of RootWork, which can also be seen on Black Liberation Media’s YouTube channel. She joins us to discuss the recent protests in…
  • Break the Chains
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Breaking the Chains in Swaziland
    20 Jun 2025
    Our guests are Titus Vilakati of the Break the Chains Campaign, which calls for the release of political prisoners in the southern African nation of Swaziland and the end of human rights abuses…
  • Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Tell Congress, No War on Iran!
    18 Jun 2025
    If Trump asks congress for approval to wage a war on Iran, he will probably get it.
  • Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    ESSAY: Iran And Beyond: Total War Is Still On The Horizon, Glen Ford, 2007
    18 Jun 2025
    “So they go forward with the old plan, the only one they've got. Attack Iran.”
  • Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Somaliland, US Ally in the New Cold War
    18 Jun 2025
    Somaliland aspires to be an “independent” US military enclave in the Horn of Africa.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us