Reform The Media

This man is Bob McChesney. He's a professor of communications at the University of Illinois at Urbana, a media historian, and a co-founder of Free Press and perhaps the top media activist in the United States.

I first learned about Bob McChesney back around 2002-2003. I kept seeing his name pop up when I searched for information on media criticism. I understood that something was askew with the news media in the U.S., but I couldn't put my finger on exactly what it was. So when I first listened to a lecture he gave for the Mountain Area Information Network, lo and behold, it was like the clouds lifted and the sun broke through. It was powerful. Bob McChesney's understanding of the problem of American journalism, it's history and role in democracy, is vast and compelling, and something about his offhanded, sensible Midwestern style, just got through to me. It all started to come together, and I began to understand that the U.S. media have a number of biases stemming from their place in the U.S. class structure, their obsession with ratings, their political ties and so forth.

Since then I've listened to that lecture and the accompanying interview with MAIN's Wally Bowen at least 8 times. Each time I learn something, some historical detail or enlightening perspective on the media that I didn't have before. That lecture's so packed.

For years before I heard and read Bob McChesney and began to understand where he's coming from, I had my criticisms of the media and their bias, but I could never quite put my finger on what they were doing. I wasn't clear on what the game was and the rules were. I think I tried to see the bias in the news media in terms of Democrat vs. Republican, as many progressives and liberals do today, but that model often didn't fit. McChesney made me see how the bottom line was usually power and the media's constant protection of the powerful and wealthy.

AT MSNBC, VOTER IGNORANCE IS GOAL ONE.

Chris Matthews and one of MSNBC's reporters demonstrate yet again how they would, if they could, skip grade school to instead go stick the guy's head in the toilet who suggested putting the words "an informed electorate" into the Constitution.

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On candidates for a humane and moral society

This is something I wrote back in, I think, 2005, following the awful crush of disappointment and anger that so many of us felt after the 2004 election.

I think what the Dems need to do is run candidates who bring the message with them that what the Republicans are doing to the country is morally wrong. Enriching the rich while leaving others to rot, sending people to kill and die without just cause, obstructing health care insurance reform, destroying the social safety net, torture --- these are all moral issues.

Humanity should be more important than corporate profits or political power. Compassion should be a higher priority than saving some money. Good citizenship does more good than correct political incorrectness.

Religion should be a private matter and empathy should be built into public policy. Human and civil rights should be our top priorities.

We need leaders who can take a People First message out to the people here and abroad and proclaim it loudly. We need someone who can get Americans out of this selfish mindset and make them feel like being good citizens, like pitching in for the cause.

The core values of a more generous and trusting society should be front and center. (This is what Arianna Huffington calls "going big" --- carrying a big moral message that draws people together, the way Bobby Kennedy did during the Viet Nam war.)

I think a lot of liberals have known in the backs of their minds that liberal policies tend to lead to that more trusting, engaged, decent society anyway, but not everyone knows this.

I think many "red" voters who really do care about people, but were sucked in by Bush's phony promise of morality, would go for a big message like this.