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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 Waterman McChesney

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More quotes by Robert Waterman McChesney

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Our existing media system today is the direct result of government laws and subsidies that created it.
Robert Waterman McChesney
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So the competition isn't once you got the license, running the station it's getting the license.
Robert Waterman McChesney
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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 Waterman McChesney
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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
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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 Waterman McChesney
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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 Waterman McChesney
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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
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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 Waterman McChesney
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As the mainstream media has become increasingly dependent on advertising revenues for support, it has become an anti-democratic force in society.
Robert Waterman McChesney
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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
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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 Waterman McChesney
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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 Waterman McChesney
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But having said that, there's also a sea change in attitude towards media.
Robert Waterman McChesney
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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
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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
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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 Waterman McChesney
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The number one lobby that opposes campaign finance reform in the United States is the National Association of Broadcasters.
Robert Waterman McChesney
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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
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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 Waterman McChesney
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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 Waterman McChesney