Summary Profile

Robert W. McChesney is the Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 2008 the Utne Reader listed McChesney among their “50 visionaries who are changing the world.” In 2002 he was the co-founder of Free Press, a national media reform organization — www.freepress.net — and served as its President until April 2008, when he stepped down to devote more time to other interests. McChesney also hosts the "Media Matters" weekly radio program every Sunday afternoon on NPR-affiliate WILL-AM radio — http://will.uiuc.edu/am/mediamatters/default.htm; it is the top-rated program in its time slot in the Champaign-Urbana area.

From 1988 to 1998 he was on the Journalism and Mass Communication faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. McChesney earned his Ph.D. in communications at the University of Washington in 1989. His work concentrates on the history and political economy of communication, emphasizing the role media play in democratic and capitalist societies. McChesney has written or edited seventeen books. McChesney’s most recent book is The Political Economy of Media: Enduring Issues, Emerging Dilemmas (Monthly Review Press); this is the companion volume to Communication Revolution: Critical Junctures and the Future of Media (New Press, 2007). His other recent books include: with John Nichols, Tragedy and Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy; The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communication Politics in the 21^st Century (New Press, 2004); and, with Ben Scott, Our Unfree Press: 100 Years of Radical Media Criticism. McChesney’s other books include: the award-winning Telecommunications, Mass Media, and Democracy: The Battle for the Control of U.S. Broadcasting, 1928-1935 (Oxford University Press, 1993); Corporate Media and the Threat to Democracy (Seven Stories Press, 1997); with Edward S. Herman, The Global Media: The New Missionaries of Corporate Capitalism (Cassell, 1997); the multiple award-winning Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times (New Press, 2000); and, with John Nichols, Our Media, Not Theirs: The Democratic Struggle Against Corporate Media (Seven Stories Press, 2002). In 2008, Rich Media, Poor Democracy was awarded the ICA Fellows Book Award, which recognizes books that "have made a substantial contribution to the scholarship of the communication field, as well as the broader rubric of the social sciences, and have stood some test of time."

McChesney has also written some 150 journal articles and book chapters and another 200 newspaper pieces, magazine articles and book reviews. His work has been translated into eighteen languages. Since launching his academic career in the late 1980s, McChesney has made some 500 conference presentations and visiting guest lectures as well as more than 600 radio and television appearances. He has been the subject of more than 70 published profiles and interviews. In 2001 Adbusters Magazine named him one of the "Nine Pioneers of Mental Environmentalism." In 2006 right-winger David Horowitz included McChesney on his list of the "101 most dangerous professors in America." McChesney co-edits, with John Nerone, the History of Communication Series for the University of Illinois Press, serves on the editorial boards of several journals, and is a research advisor to numerous academic and civic organizations. While teaching at Wisconsin, he was selected as one of the top 100 classroom teachers on the Madison campus.

In addition to his academic work, McChesney serves on the Board of Directors for several nonprofit and noncommercial media organizations. From 2000 to 2004 he served as co-editor of Monthly Review — www.monthlyreview.org — the independent socialist magazine founded by Paul Sweezy and Leo Huberman in 1949. Prior to entering graduate school in 1983, McChesney was a sports stringer for UPI, he published a weekly newspaper, and in 1979 was the founding publisher of The Rocket, a Seattle-based rock magazine. At the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in McChesney's hometown of Cleveland, the founding of The Rocket is credited as the birth of the Seattle rock scene of the late 1980s and 1990s. In his spare time, McChesney writes on professional basketball for a number of websites.