Our MAD "Hero of the Month": Bob McChesney in memoriam +VIDEO
America lost a brilliant and fierce advocate for a better-informed, stronger, and healthier democracy. No one has had a bigger impact on our community. Bob is our Media and Democracy hero for April.
Why are Americans so poorly informed about their world?
Why do just a handful of giant media corporations dominate most Americans’ media diets?
How do we get out of the twin information and democracy crises?
One person has done the most to understand and propose solutions to these questions: Professor Robert W. McChesney. Bob died on March 25, 2025 and America lost a visionary and thought-leader. The Media and Democracy Project community also lost one of our heroes and sources of inspiration and camaraderie. It is impossible to do justice to his impact and legacy - he was the dominant figure of his era in the subjects of “media and democracy”. Bob spent decades educating and inspiring countless people in the media reform movement. He emphasized that the health of American democracy and our media environments are inseparable. He was proud to call himself an activist - which we found inspiring. Bob presciently predicted that with the advent of online commerce in the early 2000’s that the advertising revenue that supported journalism as a byproduct - would be siphoned away from news organizations. He foresaw that that would undermine the financing of journalism and that would negatively impact American democracy. He made clear that our modern information environment dominated by corporations and a handful of oligarchs is not a random series of events or even “survival of the fittest” - but rather the consequence of policies and national priorities. Bob spoke to our MAD community twice, and twice signed on to our efforts advocating for news organizations to adopt pro-democracy election coverage.
You MUST WATCH the 15 -minute “media and democracy MASTERCLASS“ video above. In it you can see for yourself Bob’s clarity of vision as you hear from him his vision for a truly democratic media system supporting journalism in service to American society and democracy.
For additional appreciation of Bob’s legacy read this outstanding tribute to Bob in The Nation by his long-time collaborator John Nichols https://www.thenation.com/article/society/robert-mcchesney-obituary/
Bob’s inspirational call-to-action to civic leaders, journalists, and people that care about American society and democracy is that we all need to do is to mobilize in support of media reform collectively.
Several evergreen Bob quotes:
“As the mainstream media has become increasingly dependent on advertising revenues for support, it has become an anti-democratic force in society.”
“Our existing media system today is the direct result of government laws and subsidies that created it.”
Bob, we are forever grateful to you for your brilliance, generosity, and humanity. We will forever be inspired by you and your tireless pursuit of a better-informed and truly democratic America. Rest in power.
On behalf of each of us and our community that you helped inspire.
Thank you.
The MAD leadership Team: Brian, Carolyn, Holley, Jonathan, Noelle, Sujata, and Milo