Robert McChesney

Robert W. McChesney is the Gutgsell Endowed Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In 2002, he co-founded Free Press, and served as its president until April 2008. McChesney hosts the “Media Matters” weekly radio program every Sunday afternoon on NPR-affiliate WILL-AM. McChesney has written or edited seventeen books. His most recent books are The Political Economy of Media: Enduring Issues, Emerging Dilemmas and Communication Revolution: Critical Junctures and The Future of Media. His 1999 book, Rich Media, Poor Democracy, was awarded the 2008 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’s work has been translated into fourteen languages. Prior to academia, McChesney 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 Web sites.