"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"
About this Quote
McChesney is naming the quiet choke point of modern politics: attention. The line isn’t about a single campaign’s bad luck with reporters; it’s a structural diagnosis. If you can’t “get media” to carry your argument, you don’t just lose a publicity battle - you lose the arena where legitimacy is manufactured. His phrasing is bluntly transactional: “make your case” sounds like a courtroom, but the court he’s describing is public life, and the jury is tuned by headlines, booking decisions, and the algorithms that decide what’s even visible.
The intent is strategic, almost instructional. He’s explaining why certain issues - typically ones that challenge concentrated power, like media reform itself - are harder to build movements around. You can organize door-to-door, write policy papers, stage protests, but if the issue can’t be translated into the formats media rewards (conflict, personalities, novelty, soundbites), it won’t become “political” in the sense that matters: something elected officials feel pressure to respond to.
The subtext is a critique of democracy’s dependency on privately controlled channels of communication. “At all” carries the sting of gatekeeping: not simply biased coverage, but non-coverage, the most effective form of editorial power because it leaves no opponent to argue with. Contextually, this sits squarely in McChesney’s long-standing argument that media consolidation and commercial incentives narrow the spectrum of thinkable politics. If politics is where cases get made, media is where cases get admitted.
The intent is strategic, almost instructional. He’s explaining why certain issues - typically ones that challenge concentrated power, like media reform itself - are harder to build movements around. You can organize door-to-door, write policy papers, stage protests, but if the issue can’t be translated into the formats media rewards (conflict, personalities, novelty, soundbites), it won’t become “political” in the sense that matters: something elected officials feel pressure to respond to.
The subtext is a critique of democracy’s dependency on privately controlled channels of communication. “At all” carries the sting of gatekeeping: not simply biased coverage, but non-coverage, the most effective form of editorial power because it leaves no opponent to argue with. Contextually, this sits squarely in McChesney’s long-standing argument that media consolidation and commercial incentives narrow the spectrum of thinkable politics. If politics is where cases get made, media is where cases get admitted.
Quote Details
| Topic | Justice |
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