Academic Career
McChesney received a M.A. and a Ph.D. in communications at the University of Washington in 1986 and 1989, respectively. From 1988 to 1998 he was on the Journalism and Mass Communications faculty at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is currently a professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
McChesney has written or edited 23 books. His most recently published book, written with John Bellamy Foster, is The Endless Crisis: How Monopoly-Finance Capital Produces Stagnation and Upheaval from the USA to China (Monthly Review Press, 2012). With John Nichols, is the author of the multiple award-winning The Death and Life of American Journalism: The Media Revolution that Will Begin the World Again (Nation Books, 2011). His other recent books include: Will the Last Reporter Please Turn out the Lights (New Press, 2011), with Victor Pickard; Communication Revolution: Critical Junctures and the Future of Media (New Press, 2007); and The Problem of the Media: U.S. Communication Politics in the 21st Century (Monthly Review Press, 2004). Some of 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) and the multiple award-winning Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times (New Press, 2000). 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 105 journal articles, 150 book chapters and another 300 newspaper pieces, magazine articles and book reviews.
Since launching his academic career in the late 1980s, McChesney has made some 800 conference presentations and visiting guest lectures as well as more than 1,000 radio and television guest appearances. He has been the subject of more than 130 published profiles and interviews. In 2010, McChesney received the Dallas Smythe Award, “the highest honor given by the Union for Democratic Communications. It is awarded to researchers and activists who, through their research and/or production work, have made significant contributions to the study and practice of democratic communication.” Along with John Nichols, McChesney was awarded the U.S. Newspaper Guild’s 2010 Herbert Block Freedom Award; according to the Guild’s Executive Council, “the two of you have done more for press freedom than anyone. Your body of work is second to none. This is a transformative year for journalism. If we're able to chart a course that will preserve what matters, it will be in large part due to both of you.” In 2011 McChesney was given the “Communication Research as an Agent of Change” lifetime achievement award from the International Communication Assn. In 2012 McChesney was awarded the C. Edwin Baker Award for the Advancement of Scholarship on Media, Markets and Democracy, presented by the International Communication Association.
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. From 2000 to 2004 he served as co-editor of Monthly Review – the independent socialist magazine founded by Paul Sweezy and Leo Huberman in 1949.
McChesney has served on the editorial board of The Progressive and the board of directors for In These Times, and served on the Board of Directors of Free Speech Radio News He writes periodically for The Nation and frequently for Monthly Review.
Some of McChesney's books include:
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