I first heard Bob McChesney on an episode of Alternative Radio at a time when I subscribed to AR and got a monthly batch of audio cassette tapes through the mail. Bob gave a lecture about media, focusing on media business and policy of media, and I found myself entranced to the lecture listening to it. It was clearly an important topic and resonated with me in particular because media for me was my entrée into political activism, where a lot of other activists (in my experience) got involved in media activism arriving at it after having worked in something else first. I consider that lecture a big reason why I got and stayed active on media issues.

I heard more of Bob's talks on Alternative Radio; in fact, the first time I wrote to "Professor McChesney" was in response to a challenge of sort he made on an episode of AR where he talked about Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom (an important book but a book I strongly do not recommend reading). Bob believed that the word "democracy" did not appear at all in the book; I read the book and kept tally of the number of times the word "democracy" appeared in the book; I found it exactly once.

Alternative Radio has made all of his past talks available online and available for purchase (and you should). I went on to read Bob's books -- the first book of his I read was the first book he wrote: the landmark book "Telecommunications, Mass Media, and Democracy", about the struggle over the trajectory of American radio in the 1920s and 1930s. I consider that book pivotal in the modern media activist movement because it showed what past media activist movements tried to do. That history of past media activism, now a century old, had been robbed from us and Bob did a great service to resurrect that history and bring wider awareness to that tradition of activism. I myself would get involved in Chicago Media Watch and later Chicago Media Action, and Bob had followed us and our efforts throughout. I had the good fortune to meet Bob in person at the very first National Conference for Media Reform in Madison, Wisconsin, in 2003.

Bob hosted a weekly radio show on WILL-AM 580 for 10 years, called "Media Matters" (not to be confused by the media watch group with a similar name), and for me it was appointment listening. It was immeasurably helpful in that it helped tune into the various strands of media, activism, and politics that would help shape my involvement in Chicago Media Action during the years of its peak activity. I first heard of net neutrality on an interview I heard on Media Matters, and decided after listening to the interview to work on the issue.

I would go on to read many, maybe all, of the books that Bob wrote or co-wrote. He was a remarkable writer -- lucid, interesting, powerful, inspriring. Bob and I and the number of others from Chicago Media Action maintained contact and saw each other a lot as we conference-hopped for nearly a decade at the various media conferences, including the National Conferences for Media Reform, and conferences of the Union for Democratic Communications (UDC). One time before Bob and his frequent co-author John Nichols gave a book talk, I met Bob and John for pizza in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood.

I also had the good fortune to interview Bob on my own radio shows on Chicago stations WHPK and WLUW, as we talked about his books and various issues raised in those books. I'm happy to report that those interviews remain available online. Also, Bob gave a talk at North Central College in Naperville, which is also available online. The last time I saw Bob in person was at the Chicago UDC conference at Loyola University downtown -- a conference locale rich with connections to Chicago Media Action: Loyola University was the home of where Chicago Media Action was founded, and Loyola was and remains the licensee of radio station WLUW.

Bob was ceaselessly supportive of Chicago Media Action and all efforts for an independent media, as well a stalwart champion of grassroots media. He was unabashedly left politically as exemplified by his long-standing role for twenty years as co-editor of the independent socialist magazine Monthly Review. Chicago Media Action did what we could to return the favor to him to his efforts, like those at Free Press and WILL. Bob also had more interests than just politics and media -- it turns out that Bob also blogged about basketball under the pen name Elrod Enchilada.

As it happened, I wrote to Bob the month that he died, asking him for some feedback for the Chicago Media Action newsletter. (And yes, Bob subscribed to the Chicago Media Action newsletter when it came back online.) I got a text message on the morning of March 27, 2025 -- a link forward of an article from John Nichols in the Nation magazine informing the world that Bob McChesney had died. I didn't know that he was actually suffering from cancer; Bob had suffered from glioblastoma -- the same aggressive brain cancer that claimed the life of Chicago Media Action's founder, Chris Giovanis. I learned that fact from Bob McChesney's obituary in the New York Times, which to the Times' credit actually published an obituary of Bob, despite Bob's consistent criticism of the Times and the media establishment generally. There are many other online obituaries and tributes to Bob McChesney, and this essay marks an obituary that I'm writing for Bob as well.

Bob was steadfast in his efforts to improve the media, improve the society, and improve the world. He was unafraid to strike out at the root of problems, which is why his passing is such is so keenly felt and such a devastating loss. I fear, with the possible coming emergence of a fascist America, that all of our efforts to improve society, not just within the past 20 years, but perhaps going back to the end of the second World War, will be for naught. I hope not, and I'll certainly work to do what I can to ensure that is not the case. It would be a shame for our legacy, and certainly Bob's work, to go into the dustbin of history.

Bob quoted as the last line in his book "Telecommunications, Mass Media, and Democracy", a line from the scholar Samir Amin: "The future is still open. It is still to be lived." In this we can take heart that Bob has set a stellar example, one that we should draw inspiration from and emulate with his hard work, steadfastness, and fearlessness. We have a lot of victories to recall with pride, achievements that we were able to achieve; that should not be forgotten. In fact, they should be keenly remembered, and the word of that should spread as a source of inspiration for the struggles to come. Bob would not want it any other way.

Bob McChesney, presente!

And also, there's one follow-up point from last week's newsletter, "The Media Reform Movement: Whence and Wither". I received an email from Craig Aaron, co-CEO of Free Press, explaining why Free Press hasn't organized a National Conference for Media Reform (NCMR) since 2013. His reply:

I loved and miss doing NCMRs. But there are two main reasons we haven't done more.

The practical one is that they were very expensive to do while trying to keep registration costs down. After Denver [the NCMR in 2013], there just wasn't the support within philanthropy to invest in big events like that.

The strategic one was that pulling off the conferences was a huge drain on our staff, and we really couldn't organize other efforts at the same time. So we decided to shift resources toward ongoing campaigning and organizing rather than the marquee events.

I do miss the great sense of community at those events and the opportunities to put so many new voices on stage and in the spotlight. We're at a new political moment that feels a lot like the one that motivated those events in the first place. So who knows. If I could find the right baseline of support, I could be talked into doing another one maybe.

DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed on this website are those of the individual members of Chicago Media Action who authored them, and not necessarily those of the entire membership of Chicago Media Action, nor of Chicago Media Action as an organization.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.