Quotessence
Home / Authors / Robert Waterman McChesney
Robert Waterman McChesney

Robert Waterman McChesney Quotes

Professor

Filter quotes by topic

AllMediaPeopleIfsInterestCapitalistPoliticalRadioCompetitionCountryGovernment

Famous Robert Waterman McChesney Quotes

“You will never ever, in any circumstance, win any struggle at any time. That being said, we have a long way to go. At the moment, the battle over network neutrality is not to completely eliminate the telephone and cable companies. We are not at that point yet. But the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control.”

WayLongSaidMomentsWinningGoalCompanyStruggleMediaCircumstancesBattleUltimatePhonesCapitalistTelephonesLong WayCablesUltimate GoalNeutralityLong Way To Go
Author:Robert Waterman McChesney
Create image

“The Internet, too, has strong attributes of a public good, and has undermined the “private good” attributes of old media. Internet service providers obviously can exclude people, but the actual content -the values, the ideas- can be shared with no loss of value for the consumer. It is also extremely inexpensive and easy to share material. Sharing is built into the culture and practices of the Web and has made it difficult for the subscription model to be effective.”

PeopleMadeIdeasValuesCultureStrongEasyDifficultLossPracticeShareMediaMaterialsInternetModelsBuiltMade ItConsumersAttributesProvidersPublic GoodInexpensiveSubscriptionService Providers
Author:Robert Waterman McChesney
Create image

“In many respects, we now live in a society that is only formally democratic, as the great mass of citizens have minimal say on the major public issues of the day, and such issues are scarcely debated at all in any meaningful sense in the electoral arena. In our society, corporations and the wealthy enjoy a power every bit as immense as that assumed to have been enjoyed by the lords and royalty of feudal times.”

Has BeensBitsEnjoyLordIssuesCitizensMajorsMassDemocraticMeaningfulEnjoyedCorporationsOur SocietyWealthyImmenseArenaRoyalty
Author:Robert Waterman McChesney
Create image

“A big part of my book deals with the caliber of journalism. Our journalism in general is deplorable, and on elections in particular it's very ineffectual. There are a lot of problems, a lot of them having to do with to problems within the professional code of journalism, which defines its role as the regurgitation of what people in power say. Another big problem is that we allow people with money to basically buy what's talked about in campaigns through running TV ads.”

PeopleBookProblemRunningElectionJournalismCode
Author:Robert Waterman McChesney
Create image

“Deregulation is a popular term that's used across the political spectrum. And it's one of these terms like "choice," that corporate interests have used because they know their focus-group buzzword testing makes it sound like a popular word. Because, who can be against deregulation? Being free, having liberty, not having someone tell you what to do, being deregulated, hey, that sounds great. But deregulation is a non sequitur in the realm of media policy or media regulation. The issue is never regulation versus deregulation; our entire system is built on media policies and subsidies.”

PoliticalChoicesTermInterestLibertyPolicyBeing Free
Author:Robert Waterman McChesney
Create image

“Very rarely are you going to see the large shareholder or CEO of a corporation march into a newsroom and say, "Cover this story, don't cover that." It's a much more subtle process. The professional code adapts, but what we try to see, is how commercial and corporate pressure shape both the professional code and the sorts of things that are considered legitimate journalism and illegitimate journalism.”

TryingJournalismCodeMarchCeo
Author:Robert Waterman McChesney
Create image

“In the US, commercial interests stole the airwaves early on, before public broadcasters could get a stab at it. And the deal that was made with public broadcasting was, "Okay, we'll allow there to be a handful of public stations to do the educational programming that commercial broadcasters don't want to do, but the deal is they can't do anything that can generate an audience, anything that's commercially viable." Anything they do that could be commercially viable could be considered unfair competition to commercial interests and should only be on the commercial stations.”

InterestAudienceOkayCompetitionEducationalUnfair
Author:Robert Waterman McChesney
Create image

“In the last two years we've seen a sea change in the United States on media issues. Two years ago, people would have read this, then opened the window on the ledge of the 18th floor and jumped. They would have said, "Okay, it's over, there's nothing I can do, it's just getting worse." But in the last two years, what we've seen is that millions of Americans have gotten aware of the issue, they've organized on it, they've risen up, and we're seeing the beginnings of a burgeoning media reform movement across this country.”

PeopleCountryWindowOkay
Author:Robert Waterman McChesney
Create image