Will the Last Reporter Please Turn Out the Lights

by McChesney, Robert W.

• ISBN13: 9781595585486
• ISBN10: 1595585486
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-05-03
• Publisher: New Pr

Summary

The sudden meltdown of the news media has sparked one of the liveliest debates in recent memory, with an outpouring of opinion and analysis crackling across journals, the blogosphere and academic publications. Yet, until now, a comprehensive and accessible introduction to this new terrain has been noticeably missing. Celebrated media analysts Robert W. McChesney and Victor Pickard have assembled twelve seminal pieces on the crisis in journalism, revised and updated for this volume. Influential commentators provide a comprehensive portrait.

Author Biography

Robert W. McChesney is the Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He is the author of several books on the media, including the award-winning Rich Media, Poor Democracy, and a co-editor (with Ben Scott) of Our Unfree Press: 100 Years of Radical Media Criticism (both available from The New Press). He lives in Urbana, Illinois.

Victor Pickard is an assistant professor in the Department of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University, and has worked on media policy as a Research Fellow at the public policy think tank the New America Foundation, and as a Senior Research Fellow at the media reform organization Free Press. His work has been published in a number of leading scholarly journals. He lives in New York City.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. ix
The Crisis Unfolds	p. 1
ôOut of Print: The Death and Life of the American Newspaperö	p. 3
ôGoodbye to the Age of Newspapers (Hello to a New Era of Corruption): Why American Politics and Society Are About to Be Changed for the Worseö	p. 18
ôNewspapers and Thinking the Unthinkableö	p. 38
ôBuild the Wallö	p. 45
ôThe Reconstruction of American Journalismö	p. 55
ôA Surfeit of Crises: Circulation, Revenue, Attention, Authority, and Deferenceö	p. 91
ôDown the News Holeö	p. 103
ôBright Frenetic Millsö	p. 113
ôThe Money and Media Election Complexö	p. 119
ôTestimony Before the Subcommittee on Courts and Competition Policy, Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Congress of the United States, A New Age for Newspapers, Diversity of Voices, Competition, and the Internetö	p. 128
The American Traditions	p. 131
ôThe Washington-Madison Solutionö	p. 133
ôU.S. International Broadcasting: An Untapped Resource for Domestic and Ethnic News Organizationsö	p. 138
ôThat Was Now and This Is Then: Walter Lippmann and the Crisis of Journalismö	p. 151
ôSimply a Piece of Stupid Despotism: How Socialists Saved the First Amendmentö	p. 162
ôRevisiting the Road Not Taken: A Social Democratic Vision of the Pressö	p. 174
ôNews for All: The Epic Story of Race and the American Mediaö	p. 185
ôThe Wall Street-Based Absentee Ownership Model of Our News Is Brokenö	p. 194
ôA Better Future for Journalism Requires a Clear-Eyed View of Its Presentö	p. 202
ôThe Disease of Objectivityö	p. 209
ôWhen Losers Write Historyö	p. 214
The Way Forward	p. 223
ôGiving the Networked Public Sphere Time to Developö	p. 225
ôHow Journalists Must Operate in a New Networked Media Environmentö	p. 238
ôThe Future of Journalism Diversityö	p. 249
ôThe Rise of the Right: Conservatives Are Wading into Investigative Reporting. Can Their Journalism Survive Their Politics?ö	p. 257
ôProfessional Journalists, Hands Off! Citizen Journalism as Civic Responsibilityö	p. 264
ôWhat's the Incentive to Save Journalism?ö	p. 277
ôWhat About the News? An Interest in the Publicö	p. 289
ôOne Click Away: The Case for the Internet News Voucherö	p. 299
ôThe Daily Show and The Colbert Report in a Changing Information Environment: Should 'Fake News' Be Held to Real Standards?ö	p. 306
ôPublic Funding and Journalistic Independence: What Does Research Tell Us?ö	p. 314
ôThe Future of Journalism: Addressing Pervasive Market Failure with Public Policyö	p. 320
ôPublic Media to the Rescue?ö	p. 340
Notes and References	p. 351
About the Contributors	p. 367
Permissions	p. 372
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