Mcchesney Quotes & Sayings

Emma McChesney was engaged in that nerve-wracking process known as getting things out of the way. When Emma McChesney aimed to get things out of the way she did not use a shovel; she used a road-drag. — Edna Ferber

managing a company by looking at financial data (lag measures) is the equivalent of "driving a car by looking in the rearview mirror. — Chris McChesney

As the mainstream media has become increasingly dependent on advertising revenues for support, it has become an anti-democratic force in society. — Robert McChesney

Also, the commercial media in a superior position, really, to any other corporate lobby, because where would people hear about commercial media or corporate media criticism, where would they hear criticism of them other than in the commercial media? — Robert McChesney

Copyright protects corporate monopoly rights over culture and provides much of the profits to media conglomeratesm encouraging the wholesale privatization of our common culture. — Robert Waterman McChesney

There is no real answer (to the U.S. economic crisis) but to remove brick by brick the capitalist system itself, rebuilding the entire society on socialist principles. — Robert Waterman McChesney

Because what's going on now, and this applies mostly to television stations in the largest markets too, but TV stations basically are now the primary receivers of campaign spending. — Robert McChesney

What I've found is that there is a tremendous interest in these issues, across the political spectrum, sort of left-right terms we used to describe people don't really hold here exactly. — Robert McChesney

In the United States [ ... ] the two main business-dominated parties, with the support of the corporate community, have refused to reform laws that make it virtually impossible to create new political parties (that might appeal to non-business interests) and let them be effective. Although there is marked and frequently observed dissatisfaction with the Republicans and Democrats, electoral politics is one area where notions of competitions and free choice have little meaning. In some respects the caliber of debate and choice in neoliberal elections tends to be closer to that of the one-party communist state than that of a genuine democracy. — Robert W. McChesney

The notion that journalism can regularly produce a product that violates the fundamental interests of media owners and advertisers ... is absurd. — Robert Waterman McChesney

Our existing media system today is the direct result of government laws and subsidies that created it. — Robert McChesney

So the system we have in radio and television today is the direct result of government policies that have been made in our name, in the name of the people, on our behalf, but without our informed consent. — Robert McChesney

And understand that scarce spectrum is used today for example for cell phone operators, they have to pay for the airwaves they use, for their services. — Robert McChesney

The problem of how to make the Internet advertising friendly bewildered and obsessed Madison Avenue for much of the 1990s. Advertising won. — Robert Waterman McChesney

You know, a left-winger, the barrier to success if you're on the left in commercial radio is a mile and a half higher than it is if you're on the right. — Robert McChesney

But having said that, there's also a sea change in attitude towards media. — Robert McChesney

Because Hightower's problem, among other things, is that advertisers would be a lot less interested in his show than in Limbaugh's, even if they have similar ratings, because of what Hightower is saying. — Robert McChesney

Local television news, on both radio and television, is so appalling. Makes print journalism look like the greatest stuff ever written. — Robert McChesney

But having said that, what's happening with campaign finance reform and our political culture is devastating. — Robert McChesney

Maybe if you and ten of your friends could pool your savings and borrow some money and actually buy some obscure station in Sonoma, and then take some chances and have some fun. — Robert McChesney

So that what you tend to see is someone like a Rush Limbaugh, he's the classic case because he's the most successful, he didn't sort of like come out of his mother's womb with the highest ratings in the country. — Robert McChesney

Basically what they're saying is, if you want to be on TV, if you want to be a credible candidate, you've got to buy ads. And if you're not buying ads, you're not a credible candidate, we don't cover you. — Robert McChesney

When the government picked companies and gave them monopoly rights to frequencies in San Francisco and Los Angeles and New York and Chicago, it was picking the winners of the competition; it wasn't setting the terms of the competition. — Robert McChesney

The relationship between the media owner, their relationship isn't strictly with people and audiences. It's also with advertisers, and that's the most relationship in radio; in fact it pays the bills. — Robert McChesney

When the government allocates monopoly rights to frequency, and there are only a handful in each community, it's picking the winners in the competition. — Robert McChesney

Which is supposed to mean they're doing something in their broadcasting they would not do is they were simply out to maximize profit; if they were really public service institutions, not purely profit maximizing institutions. — Robert McChesney

Too many of our prejudices are like pyramids upside down. They rest on tiny, trivial incidents, but they spread upward and outward until they fill our minds. — William McChesney Martin

One survey that I saw that was published I think in Variety or Electronic Media within the last three weeks says that now the average hour of radio in the United States has 18 minutes of commercials. — Robert McChesney

Our purpose is to lean against the winds of deflation or inflation, whichever way they are blowing. — William McChesney Martin

The cost of congressional and presidential campaigns has been leaping every two or four years. I think this year it will be 60 percent more than 1996; well over twice as much as in 1992 in the presidential and congressional races. — Robert McChesney

If you're running for reelection in the House of Representatives race, you know, it's very important to you that you be on fairly good terms with the local affiliates in the largest market in your area. I mean you don't want to antagonize them. — Robert McChesney

If the Internet is worth its salt, it has to help arrest the forces that promote inequality, monopoly, hypercommercialism, corruption, depoliticization and stagnation. — Robert Waterman McChesney

If you look at the history of broadcasting, what you find is the National Association of Broadcasters is a trade association whose mission is to protect the interests of the commercial broadcasters. — Robert McChesney

The Federal Reserve ... is in the position of the chaperone who has ordered the punch bowl removed just when the party was really warming up. — William McChesney Martin

So the competition isn't once you got the license, running the station; it's getting the license. — Robert McChesney

W. Edwards Deming, the father of the quality movement, taught that any time the majority of the people behave a particular way the majority of the time, the people are not the problem. The problem is inherent in the system.2 As a leader, you own responsibility for the system. — Chris McChesney

And they've got to be held accountable; our broadcasting system has to be made accountable; and unless it is, it's going to be very hard to change anything else for the better in this country. — Robert McChesney

The commercial broadcasters have tremendous influence in Washington, D.C., for a couple of reasons. First, they're extremely rich and they have lots of money and they have had for a long time, so they can give money to politicians, which gets their attention. — Robert McChesney

So it's a much more difficult issue to organize around, because you can't get media at all to make your case. And that's where cases tend to be made politically. — Robert McChesney

But the ultimate goal is to get rid of the media capitalists in the phone and cable companies and to divest them from control. — Robert Waterman McChesney

The range of debate between the dominant U.S. [political] parties tends to closely resemble the range of debate within the business class. — Robert Waterman McChesney

The number one lobby that opposes campaign finance reform in the United States is the National Association of Broadcasters. — Robert McChesney

What's good for the United States is good for the New York Stock Exchange. But what's good for the New York Stock Exchange might not be good for the United States. — William McChesney Martin

It's been my experience," observed Emma McChesney, "that when a firm condescends to pay a woman twice as much as a man, that means she's worth six times as much. — Edna Ferber

In the United States, both the upper levels of the Republican and Democratic Parties are in the pay of the corporate media and communication giants. — Robert Waterman McChesney

Basically, the more you try to do, the less you actually accomplish. This is a stark, inescapable principle that we all live with. — Chris McChesney

Advertising is the voice of capital. We need to do whatever we can to limit capitalist propaganda, regulate it, minimize it, and perhaps even eliminate it. The fight against hyper-commercialism becomes especially pronounced in the era of digital communications. — Robert Waterman McChesney

The public gets not one penny from them in return for those airwaves. — Robert McChesney

The Internet, too, has strong attributes of a public good, and has undermined the "private good" attributes of old media. Internet service providers obviously can exclude people, but the actual content -the values, the ideas- can be shared with no loss of value for the consumer. It is also extremely inexpensive and easy to share material. Sharing is built into the culture and practices of the Web and has made it difficult for the subscription model to be effective. — Robert Waterman McChesney

In many respects, we now live in a society that is only formally democratic, as the great mass of citizens have minimal say on the major public issues of the day, and such issues are scarcely debated at all in any meaningful sense in the electoral arena. In our society, corporations and the wealthy enjoy a power every bit as immense as that assumed to have been enjoyed by the lords and royalty of feudal times. — Robert Waterman McChesney

The whole process of getting licenses to broadcast, which took place decades ago, was done behind closed doors by powerful lobbies, and wealthy commercial interests got all the licenses with no public input, no congressional input for that matter. — Robert McChesney

Any serious effort to reform the media system would have to necessarily be part of a revolutionary program to overthrow the capitalist system itself. — Robert Waterman McChesney