Robert W. McChesney, America’s leading left-wing critic of corporate media, has died

Robert McChesney, Free Press Co-Founder and Staunch Defender of Media and Democracy, Has Died

Robert McChesney, co-founder of the advocacy group Free Press and a tireless defender of media and democracy, has died at the age of 72. McChesney was a prolific author, with nearly three dozen books on media, democracy and digital rights, including “Rich Media, Poor Democracy.” He was also a beloved professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Bob McChesney appeared on Democracy Now! multiple times over the years. In 2016, he addre…

Robert W. McChesney, America’s leading left-wing critic of corporate media, has died

Robert W. McChesney, the lion of anti-corporate media scholarship, is dead at the age of 72. He was, for decades, probably the most prominent academic critic of American media from the left, focused on all the ways our idealized vision of a “free press” was actually hampered by the power of big business, the wealthy, and government. McChesney came from my favorite subgenre of media scholars: those who had a career in working journalism before en…

Celebrating the Life and Work of Robert W. McChesney (1952-2025)

From radio to the internet, a reading of his body of work offers a grand and inglorious tour of media history, and how we got to the horrific era of disinfotainment we’re in today.

Robert McChesney, a co-founder of media advocacy nonprofit Free Press and a globally respected media scholar and author, died from cancer at 72

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