Robert McChesney And John Nichols: Saving Journalism
07/15/2010 at 8:00 p.m.
American journalism is collapsing, and that puts our entire democracy at risk. That's the message that Robert McChesney and John Nichols brought to Seattle earlier this year. The two media watchers point to the mass closure of foreign news bureaus, the folding of major US newspapers like the Seattle P–I, and the consolidation of commercial broadcast stations across the country. They quote the founding fathers, who believed a robust fourth estate was critical to a free nation.
But McChesney and Nichols aren't all doom and gloom. They offer some bold new solutions to the problem, including government subsidies for news organizations and a move away from the strictly for–profit business model.
Robert McChesney is a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. John Nichols is the Washington correspondent for The Nation. Together they co–founded the media reform network Free Press, and their latest book is "The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution that Will Begin the World Again."
McChesney and Nichols spoke at Town Hall Seattle on January 19, 2010.
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