Author, professor McChesney to lecture on media Nov. 16

Robert McChesney, Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, will present "The Death and Life ofAmerican Journalism" at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 16, in the Bone Student Center Old Main Room. School of Communication student organizations Communication Opportunities for Majors and Minors (COMM) and Lambda Pi Eta (LPH), are partnering with the League of Women Voters of McLean County to offer this program, which is free and open to the public.

McChesney's work concentrates on the history and political economy of media, emphasizing the role media plays in democratic and capitalistic society. The president and co-founder of Free Press, a national media reform organization, he has written or edited seventeen books, in addition to more than 150 journal articles and book chapters and another 200 newspaper pieces, magazine articles and book reviews. Rich Media, Poor Democracy, published in 1999, won the ICA Fellows Book Award in 2009. It also won the 1999 Goldsmith Book Prize and the 1999 Frank Luther Mott-Kappa Tau Alpha Research Award.

McChesney argues that the media, far from providing a bedrock for freedom and democracy, have become a significant antidemocratic force in the United States and, to varying degrees, worldwide. His latest book, by the same title of his presentation, was written with John Nichols. It offers suggestions to solve the problems with our media. In addition, McChesney hosts "Media Matters," a weekly radio program, every Sunday afternoon on WILL-AM.

 "Jefferson, Madison, all the founding fathers and subsequent generations didn't think that you only had journalism if rich people could make money doing it. They didn't think that way," said McChesney. "They understood that the first duty of our Constitution was for the state to make sure we had a viable press system, for the sake of self-government. They understood that it shouldn't be understood as a market, it should be understood as a public good."

For more information about this event, please contact Danielle Lawry, drlawry@ilstu.edu. For more information COMM and LPH, please contact Steve Hunt skhunt2@ilstu.edu, or visit the School's website at www.communication.illinoisstate.edu/.