Robert Waterman McChesney (; December 22, 1952 – March 25, 2025) was an American professor notable in the history and political economy of communications, and the role media play in democratic and capitalist societies. He was the Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.Robert W. McChesney , Department of Communication , University of Illinois
/ref> He co-founded Free Press, a national media reform organization. From 2002 to 2012, he hosted ''Media Matters'', a weekly radio program every Sunday afternoon on WILL (AM), Illinois Public Media radio.

Background and education

McChesney was born in

Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...

, Ohio, on December 22, 1952, to Samuel Parker McChesney, an advertising salesman for '' This Week'' magazine, and his wife Edna Margaret "Meg" (née McCorkle) McChesney, a nurse. He grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and attended The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, where he studied history and political economy.

Career

After college, McChesney worked for a time as a sports stringer for United Press International (UPI) and published a weekly newspaper. In 1979, he was the founding publisher of '' The Rocket'', a

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

-based rock music magazine that chronicled the birth of the Seattle rock scene of the late 1980s and 1990s. McChesney began to report on the media itself and became an expert in the field, entering academic studies in this area. He did graduate work at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW and informally U-Dub or U Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. Founded in 1861, the University of Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast of the Uni ...

, obtaining a PhD in Communications there in 1989. He was the Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication of the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. He also taught at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

Assessment of the media

McChesney said the term " deregulated media" was a misnomer. He described media organizations as a government-sanctioned oligopoly, owned by a few highly profitable corporate entities. They have legislative influence and control news coverage and can distort public understanding of media issues. In his article "Farewell To Journalism" (October 2012), McChesney described what he considered the deterioration of the current US media system; he said that this freefall threatens the democratic system itself. He highlights what scholars believe to be the key characteristics of healthy journalism, and says, "It is necessary...that the media system as a whole makes such journalism a realistic expectation for the citizenry." McChesney proposed a $200 annual Citizenship News Voucher to support journalism. A backer of

Bernie Sanders Bernard Sanders (born September8, 1941) is an American politician and activist who is the Seniority in the United States Senate, senior United States Senate, United States senator from the state of Vermont. He is the longest-serving independ ...

's 2016 and 2020 presidential bids, McChesney was critical of how major news outlets covered Sanders's campaigns.

Personal life and death

McChesney and his wife, Inger Stole, had two daughters. He died from glioblastoma at his home in

Madison, Wisconsin Madison is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. It is the List of municipalities in Wisconsin by population, second-most populous city in the state, with a population of 269,840 at the 2020 Uni ...

, on March 25, 2025, at the age of 72.

Bibliography

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References

External links

Robert W. McChesney bibliography
* Micha Odenheimer
"Your Free Internet is in Danger", Interview with Professor Robert W. McChesney at acheret.co.il
* {{DEFAULTSORT:McChesney, Robert W. 1952 births 2025 deaths 20th-century American journalists 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers Academics from Ohio American male journalists American mass media scholars American media critics American political writers American radio personalities Deaths from brain cancer in the United States Deaths from cancer in Wisconsin Deaths from glioblastoma Evergreen State College alumni Illinois socialists Indymedia Journalists from Ohio Mass media theorists People from Shaker Heights, Ohio University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty University of Washington alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty Wisconsin socialists Writers from Seattle