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jeff cohen
Progressive Movement Mourns Loss of Beloved Media Scholar Robert McChesney
"The world of media scholarship, journalists far and wide, and anyone who cares about a free press, a functioning democracy, and a better world has suffered a tremendous loss," said Common Dreams' managing editor.
Mar 27, 2025
Robert McChesney—prominent media scholar, Free Press co-founder, dogged defender of democracy, and friend of Common Dreams—died Tuesday at the age of 72.
McChesney's many books, nearly three dozen in total which he either wrote or edited, include: Rich Media, Poor Democracy (2000); The Problem With the Media (2004); The Death and Life of American Journalism (2010, co-authored with John Nichols); Dollarocracy (2012, also with Nichols);Digital Disconnect (2013); and Digital Democracy (2014).
He was the Gutgsell endowed professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign, and also co-founded the Illinois Initiative on Global Information and Communication Policy with Dan Schiller.
"Bob McChesney was a brilliant scholar whose ideas and insights reached far beyond the classroom. He opened the eyes of a generation of academics, journalists, politicians and activists—including me—to how media structures and policies shape our broader politics and possibilities," said Free Press president and co-CEO Craig Aaron.
Free Press mourns the passing of co-founder Robert W. McChesney, a brilliant scholar & generous mentor who captured corporate media's profound influence on the health of our democracy. https://www.freepress.net/news/press-releases/free-press-mourns-death-co-founder-and-scholar-robert-w-mcchesney
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— Free Press (@freepress.bsky.social) March 27, 2025 at 8:08 AM
"While McChesney spent much of his career charting the problems of the media and the critical junctures that created our current crises, he believed fundamentally in the public's ability to solve those problems and build a media system that serves people's needs and sustains democracy," Aaron continued.
"His ideas were bold and transformative, and he had little patience for tinkering around the edges," he added. "Rather than fighting over Washington's narrow vision of what was possible, he always said—and Bob loved a good sports metaphor—that we needed to throw the puck down to the other end of the ice."
A Common Dreams reader, contributor, promoter, and supporter for over 25 years, McChesney will be deeply missed by all those associated with the independent, nonprofit news organization.
"Both in my personal political development earlier in life and as a working journalist in the profession," said Common Dreams managing editor Jon Queally, "McChesney had a profound influence on how I came to understand media systems and the political economy overall."
"Rich Media, Poor Democracy pretty much changed my life, a book that I once taught to high school students—which they loved, by the way—as it explains, in an accessible but penetrating fashion, just how corrupting the news and information landscape can be when it is controlled wholesale by corporate interests," Queally continued.
"The world of media scholarship, journalists far and wide, and anyone who cares about a free press, a functioning democracy, and a better world has suffered a tremendous loss with the passing of Bob McChesney," he added. "Our hearts go out to his family and many friends."
Rutgers University communications professor Andrew Kennis also highlighted the importance of Rich Media, Poor Democracy. He told Common Dreams that McChesney—who along with Noam Chomsky wrote openers to his 2022 book Digital-Age Resistance: Journalism, Social Movements, and the Media Dependence Model—influenced his own work.
"Bob McChesney's impact on media was immeasurable," Kennis said in a phone interview. "He was a steadfast public intellectual who inspired millions with accessible critiques of capitalism and its corrosive effects on democracy. He argued that the United States' descent into neoliberalism came at the expense of popular sovereignty."
Kennis said he got to know McChesney through Chomsky, adding that "Noam called Bob 'pretty much the best political economist' in the country, and practically the world."
"Bob very much self-identified as a political economist in general, but especially about communications," he explained.
In a 2013 appearance on "Moyers & Company," hosted by Bill Moyers on PBS, McChesney joined with friend and frequent co-author Nichols, national affairs correspondent for The Nation, to discuss their book, Dollarocracy: How the Money and Media Election Complex Is Destroying America.
"Democracy means rule of the people: one person, one vote," McChesney explained to Moyers during the interview. "Dollarocracy means the rule of the dollars: one dollar, one vote. Those with lots of dollars have lots of power. Those with no dollars have no power."
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote the introduction to Dollarocracy. Jeff Cohen, founder of Fairness and Accuracy in Media (FAIR) and founding director of the Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College, called his friend McChesney a "proud socialist" who "told me how glad he was to go door to door" canvassing for Sanders when he ran for president in 2016 and 2020.
Writing for FAIR, Cohen said that "no one did more to analyze the negative and censorial impacts of our media and information systems being controlled by giant, amoral corporations."
"Particularly enlightening was his 2014 book, Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism Is Turning the Internet Against Democracy," Cohen continued, "in which McChesney explained in step-by-step detail how the internet that held so much promise for journalism and democracy was being strangled by corporate greed, and by government policy that put greed in the driver's seat."
"That was a key point for Bob in all his work: He detested the easy phrase 'media deregulation,' when in fact government policy was actively and heavily regulating the media system (and so many other systems) toward corporate control," Cohen added.
In 2015, at the National Conference for Media Reform in Denver hosted by Free Press, McChesney sat down with Common Dreams to discuss the importance of independent outlets as well as the inspiring promise of journalism that can "change the world" by exposing one person at a time to news or information they might not otherwise ever learn or come by:
Robert McChesney on Common Dreams
Nichols wrote for The Nation Thursday that while McChesney was a "globally respected communications scholar who was wholly welcome in the halls of academia," he "was never satisfied working within an ivory tower."
Indeed, a lesser-known aspect of McChesney's work was his immersion in one of the late 20th century's emerging music scenes.
"One of the first things that Bob did to have an impact on society was with the grunge movement in Seattle," Kennis told Common Dreams. "That was kind of his street cred before he went full nerd."
"Bob was doing some independent journalism and was studying in Seattle and was closely covering the emergence of Nirvana and other garage bands back then; that's how he got his first big dip into journalism," he said. "And he was a big fan, and part of the fabric of indie rock."
McChesney—who studied history and political economy at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington and earned a Ph.D. in communications from the University of Washington in Seattle in 1989—co-founded the The Rocket, an alternative weekly newspaper that highlighted groups such as Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, Screaming Trees, Sleater-Kinney, and Mudhoney as they rose to prominence. Ironically, The Rocket was sold to a big San Francisco publisher whose financial mismanagement killed the once-independent paper.
"Bob was a towering character," Kennis said, "always dedicated from the beginning to the end to the good fight."
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Fired by MSNBC for Giving Voice to Iraq War Opposition, Phil Donahue (1935-2024) Was Courage Personified
The journalist and TV show host, who died Sunday at the age of 88, made his mark on our society. He fought for the underdog. He did it with style and grace and a wonderful sense of humor. He changed my life and the lives of so many others.
Aug 19, 2024
Phil Donahue passed away Sunday night, after a long illness. He was beloved by those who knew him and by many who didn’t.
He started as a local reporter in Ohio, was a trailblazer in bringing social issues to a national audience as a daytime broadcast TV host, and then he was pretty-much banished from TV by MSNBC because he—accurately, correctly, and morally—questioned the horrific U.S. invasion of Iraq.
In the 1970s, Phil took progressive issues and mainstreamed them to millions through his syndicated daytime show. He was a pioneer in syndication. He also pioneered on the issues; his most frequent guests on his daytime show were Ralph Nader, Gloria Steinem, and Rev. Jesse Jackson. They appeared dozens of times as Phil boosted civil rights, women’s rights, and consumer rights. He regularly hosted Dr. Sidney Wolfe warning of the greedy pharmaceutical industry and unsafe drugs. Raised a Catholic, he also featured advocates for atheism.
Mainstream media obits will likely focus on his daytime TV episodes that included male strippers or other titillation, but Phil was serious about the issues—and did far more than most mainstream TV journalists to address the biggest issues.
I was a senior producer on Phil’s short-lived MSNBC primetime show in 2002 and 2003. It was frustrating for us to have to deal with the men Phil called “the suits”—NBC and MSNBC executives who were intimidated by the Bush administration and resisted any efforts by NBC/MSNBC to practice journalism and ask tough questions of Washington before our young people were sent to Iraq to kill or be killed. Ultimately, Phil was fired because—as the leaked internal memo said—Donahue represented “a difficult public face for NBC at a time of war.”
But before we were terminated, we put guests on the screen who were not commonly on mainstream TV. We offered a full hour with Barbara Ehrenreich on Labor Day in 2002; a full hour with veteran journalist Studs Terkel; interviews with progressive members of Congress, including Bernie Sanders and Dennis Kucinich; and segments with the "maverick" Texas Observer columnist Molly Ivins; and offered platforms to foreign policy experts like Phyllis Bennis and Laura Flanders as well as Palestinian advocates, including Hanan Ashrawi.
No one on American television cross-examined Israeli leaders like Phil did when he interviewed then-Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres, and later, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak. They seemed stunned—never having faced such questioning from a U.S. journalist.
But “the suits” ruined our show when they took control and actually mandated a quota system favoring the right wing: If we had booked one guest who was antiwar, we needed to book two that were pro-war. If we had one guest on the left, we needed two on the right. When a producer suggested booking Michael Moore—known to oppose the pending Iraq war—she was told she’d need to book three rightwingers for political balance.
Three weeks before the Iraq war started, and after some of the biggest antiwar mobilizations the world had ever seen (which were barely covered on mainstream TV), the suits at NBC/MSNBC terminated our show.
- YouTubeyoutu.be
Phil was a giant. A huge celebrity who supported uncelebrated indy media outlets. He loved and supported the progressive media watch group FAIR (which I founded in the mid-1980s.)
Phil put Noam Chomsky on mainstream TV. He fought for Ralph Nader to be included in the 2000 presidential debates. He went on any TV show right after 9/11 that would have him to urge caution and to resist the calls for vengeful, endless warfare that would pointlessly kill large numbers of civilians in other countries. He opposed active wars and the Cold War with the Soviet Union. He supported war veterans and produced an important documentary on the topic: “Body of War,” on the life and death of Tomas Young.
Phil Donahue made his mark on our society. He fought for the underdog. He did it with style and grace and a wonderful sense of humor. He changed my life. And others’ lives.
He was inspired by the consciousness-raising groups he saw in the feminist movement and he sought to do consciousness-raising on a mass scale . . . using mainstream corporate TV. He did an amazing job of it.
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'History Will Not Judge This Kindly': DNC Platform Committee Votes Down Medicare for All Amendment
"It's like opposing the New Deal during the Great Depression. Unforgivable."
Jul 28, 2020
A Democratic National Committee panel on Monday voted down an amendment that would have inserted a plank supporting Medicare for All into the party's 2020 platform, a move progressives decried as out of touch with public opinion and a slap in the face to the millions of people who have lost their health insurance due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The DNC Platform Committee rejected the Medicare for All amendment introduced by longtime single-payer advocate Michael Lighty by a vote of 36-125 during a virtual meeting Monday. The committee also voted down separate attempts to include support for expanding Medicare to children, dropping the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 55, and legalizing marijuana.
"Shameful. And during a pandemic," tweeted progressive radio host Kyle Kulinksi in response to the defeat of the Medicare for All amendment. "History will not judge this kindly. It's like opposing the New Deal during the Great Depression. Unforgivable."
\u201cBREAKING: The DNC Platform Committee has VOTED DOWN support for #MedicareForAll: 36 yes - 125 no - 3 abstain\u201d— People for Bernie (@People for Bernie) 1595881355
Winnie Wong, former senior adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) presidential campaign, tweeted late Monday that she "can't even imagine what went on in the heads of those 125 DNC Platform Committee members who voted Medicare or All down."
"The fact that our nation is the only advanced industrial country without universal healthcare cannot be blamed on Republican obstruction alone. It was also caused by Democratic leaders who've spent decades catering to corporate interests."
--Jeff Cohen, RootsAction.org
"Today. Now. When the country is in the deathgrip of a global pandemic and people are dying because they can't afford to the upkeep of their sick-care," Wong wrote. "Shameful."
Lighty said ahead of the vote that with more than 100 million people and counting either uninsured or underinsured amid a deadly pandemic, "it is vital that the Democratic Party join the NAACP, the Poor People's Campaign, the Rising Majority, Mijente, community-based organizations all over the country and demand guaranteed healthcare for all through an improved Medicare for All system."
Speaking in support of Lighty's amendment during the platform meeting Monday, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, former health director for the city of Detroit and 2018 Michigan gubernatorial candidate, said the Covid-19 pandemic has "revealed that our house of healthcare was built of straw."
"We have a for-profit healthcare system that's left 27 million more people without healthcare because we attached healthcare to jobs," said El-Sayed.
As of late Tuesday, more than 600 DNC delegates had signed a petition vowing to vote against the Democratic platform if it doesn't include support for Medicare for All, a policy solution supported by around 80% of Democratic voters and a majority of House Democrats. Most of the petition's signatories are Sanders delegates, according to organizers, but some Biden delegates have also signed on.
Mike Casca, a spokesman for Sanders, said in a statement that the Vermont senator "believes that the Democratic Party platform should advocate strongly for Medicare for All."
"The senator appreciates that, amid a deadly pandemic which is creating a national health emergency, his delegates understand that now more than ever we must guarantee healthcare as a human right," Casca said.
The draft (pdf) version of the Democratic platform includes one mention of Medicare for All but does not endorse the policy that would provide comprehensive healthcare to everyone in the U.S. for free at the point of service.
"Generations of Democrats have been united in the fight for universal healthcare," the draft reads. "We are proud our party welcomes advocates who want to build on and strengthen the Affordable Care Act and those who support a Medicare for All approach; all are critical to ensuring that healthcare is a human right."
Progressives said the brief nod is nowhere near enough. "Democrats who understand the profound need for Medicare for All don't want a pat on the head," Norman Solomon, national director of progressive advocacy group RootsAction.org and a Sanders delegate from California, told Politico on Monday. "We want a genuine political commitment to healthcare as a human right."
In an op-ed for Common Dreams on Tuesday, RootsAction.org co-founder Jeff Cohen wrote that "the fact that our nation is the only advanced industrial country without universal healthcare cannot be blamed on Republican obstruction alone."
"It was also caused by Democratic leaders who've spent decades catering to corporate interests (while collecting their campaign donations)--and refusing to fight for universal coverage," Cohen added. "This history of Democratic obstruction and vacillation is why hundreds of elected delegates to next month's Democratic convention have put their foot down."
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