Robert W. McCeni, who warned of corporate media control, dies in 72

Robert W. McCeni, an influential left-wing media critic, who argued that corporate owners were poor for American journalism and that the Silicon Valley billionaire who dominated online information was a threat to democracy, died on 25 March at Madison, Vis. He was 72 years old.

The reason for this was glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer, his wife, Ingr Stoll, said.

Professor McCedi was made the basis of both in academics – they had Ph.D. In communication and universities is taught-and ink-on-paper journalism: He was the founder publisher of The Rocket, a Seattle Music magazine that reviewed the first single of Nirvana.

His primary thesis was expressed in more than a dozen books and in the score of articles and interviews, that the corporate -owned news media used to highly comply with political powers and prohibited ideas that exposed Americans. He further argued that the promise of the Internet – a wild waste market of Rai – was throtted by some vast owners of online platforms.

An early book, “Rich Media, Poor Democracy” (1999), warned that consolidation in journalism would reduce democratic norms. Perhaps in its most famous work, “Digital disconnect: how capitalism is changing the Internet against democracy” (2013), he rejected Utopian’s approach that the digital revolution would enter an open range of information sources and strengthen democracy.

Instead, he showed how the Internet was destroying business models for newspapers, while the lowest common-manner-dinomineator Flf: Celebrity Gossip, CAT video and individual naval gauge with citizen-brain coverage of local government with gauge.

Professor McKeni blamed capitalism.

He wrote, “The purpose of profit, professionalism, public relations, marketing and advertising – all defined characteristics of contemporary corporate capitalism – are fundamental for any assessment of how the Internet has developed and likely to develop,” he wrote.

An unpublished socialist, Professor McCassi argued that the government should give all Americans a $ 200 voucher to donate non -profit news outlets of their choice.

He campaigned for the Presidential race of Senator Burney Sanders. Mr. Sanders returned the favor by further writing Professor Mchahsoni’s book “Dollar and Media Election Complex Is Distract America” ​​(2013), written with John Nicole.

In Interview Along with Truthout, a non -profit news site focused on social justice, Professor McKesi, attacked Mr. Sanders’ mainstream media coverage in the 2016 President Primary that he lost to Hillary Clinton. CNN and MSNBC, he said, “Centrist” was deeply biased in favor of the candidates, representing the status quo.

Professor McCesny said, “One can only imagine how Sanders would have done if he had coverage from MSNBC, which Obama got in 2007-08,” said Professor McCesny.

Conservative writer David Horovitz put Professor McCesny in the list of “in the US in the US” in 2006, which included him “Tanner Fundamentalty”, inspiring American students.

On the other hand, UTNE Reader in 2008 Name Professor McCeni “50 visionary who are changing your world.”

Professor McCeni warned in 2016 that when corporate giants dominate online information – at that time, they were veteran Facebook and Google – they have a lot of power about the world.

“This is actually opposed to a free press and anything close to a free society,” that Said In an interview with the left-wing news outlet “Democracy Now!”

The way of dealing with such monopoly was to nationalize them, he said. He suggested a government acquisition that would create internet beamoths in a semi-public service like the post office.

Professor McCeni was also one of the founders of the public interest group, Free Press, who opposed corporate consolidation in the news business and led a national campaign for net neutrality, calling for the same access to the Internet for all material producers, which from Netflix to individual bloggers.

Robert Waterman McCedoni was born on 22 December 1952 in Cleveland, which was an advertising executive Samuel P. One of the two sons of McKeni Junior was a syndicated magazine inserted in Sunday’s newspapers, and Edna (McCoural) McCleni.

He grew up in the Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights and participated in a prep school pompret in connecticut. In 1977, he graduated with a bachelor’s degree from Evergreen State College in Washington, where he studied politics and economics.

In 1979, after working as a sports stringer for UPI and an editor in Seattle Sun, an alternative weekly, he became a publisher of the rocket, who charts the origin of the Seattle Group-Rock Scene in the 1980s and 90s.

Intellectually restless, he then enrolled in a graduate school at Washington University, earning a PhD. In 1989 in communication. For a decade, he taught Journalism and Public Communications at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

He and his wife, Dr. Stalls, who have Ph.D. In communication, then went to Urbana-Shampain at the University of Illinois, where he was a gutgssel-rich professor in the communication department.

“Will the last reporter please turn the lights?” (2011), with Victor Picard, and “Corporate Media and the Threat to Democracy” (1997).

In addition to his wife, he is alive by his daughters, Amy and Lucy McCedani; And a brother, Samuel P. McCeni III.

In a late book, “Peepal Gate Ready: The Fight Against A. Jobal Economy and A Citizen’s Democracy” (2016), written with Mr. Nichols, Professor McCesny argued that Artificial Intelligence and Digital Revolution will eradicate many categories from jobs.

He said, “Capitalism as we know this is very bad for the technical revolution, which we are starting to experience,” he said in an interview about the book.

“Our argument is that we currently have a civil democracy,” he has gone. “This means that we mean a governing system, where all the important decisions of the government correspond to the interests and values ​​of the richest and most powerful Americans, and they have the corporations.”