The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution That Will Begin the World Again

by John Nichols and Robert W. McChesney

Book Overview

Daily newspapers are closing across America. Washington bureaus are shuttering; whole areas of the federal government are now operating with no press coverage. International bureaus are going, going, gone.

Journalism, the counterbalance to corporate and political power, the lifeblood of American democracy, is not just threatened. It is in meltdown.

In The Death and Life of American Journalism, Robert W. McChesney, an academic,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1568586361
• ISBN13: 9781568586366
• Release Date: July 2011
• Publisher: Bold Type Books
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.23 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.1" x 9.2"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Excellent book

As a communication scholar, this book has tremendous theoretical and practical recommendations about where journalism needs to head. It is one of the only out there offering real answers to the most serious problem facing our democratic nation today. I love McChesney's work in general and I wish I could give more than 5 stars.

Truly free media, not corporate CENSORSHIP

No one in their right mind would call our current media free and fair and democratic. Aside from PBS all privately owned corporate news media is biased to the n-th degree. The truth has a hard time getting out if it gets out at all, not to mention all the manipulation that's going on. I saw the authors of this book on PBS and their solution makes perfect sense. The easiest and most cowardly thing to do is to incite people and Americans have been incited by fearmongers about government involvement. I admit that the way the U.S. Government is run (and has been run) doesn't put my mind at ease but there is a time and a place for government involvement if it's done right. It CAN be done and this is one of those times. Having lived under communism, socialism and now capitalism I can tell you that capitalism is not all that it's cracked up to be. Communism doesn't work for sure but in the past couple of years we have seen that unbridled capitalism doesn't work either. It has to be checked with socially responsible rules and regulations for the public good. The current news media is owned by corporations who only tell you about things that benefit them or their interests and CENSOR everything else. If you think that that's free, fair and democratic then I have a bridge I want to sell ya. If Americans would care to travel to other countries (instead of living out their lives in the town, city or state they were born in) then they would realize that they are being fed mostly BS. They would not be afraid of many of the things they have been led to believe. They would see that when it comes to publicly funded media there is nothing to fear because publicly funded media is the most democratic, fair and trustworthy you can get. The BBC, CBC and most Scandinavian news media has nothing to fear and many times they are their government's own worst critics. They have a very high standard for journalism and you can trust them to give it to you straight. Getting a coupon or voucher that I can give to ANY news outlet I want to as long as they are non-profit would be the best thing for this country. The government would guarantee a certain percentage of GDP to be spent on those coupons and no politician could block the money, withhold it, manipulate it or retaliate with it if a newspaper or other media outlet published something they didn't like. That is what these authors are talking about and there is nothing radical about that.

Be afraid of small-minded critics.

Not only is this book NOT radical, it is intelligently written, well-researched, timely, and important. A functional democracy requires a healthy press, and clearly the US press is suffering under the influence of private capital. (Fox News is the poster child of our moribund press, but it is not alone). Public investment in journalism is a refreshing idea and one that should be take seriously.

honesty in media

This is another in a long line of enlightening and valuable studies by the authors pertaining the role of big business in the demise of American news media in the name of profit. It is required reading for anyone concerned with the loss of the democratic values that once served as the foundation of journalistic enterprise.