"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"
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Broadcast wasn’t “won” by the best ideas; it was parceled out like waterfront property. McChesney’s line lands because it reframes a technical-sounding regulatory history as an origin story of democratic failure. Licenses aren’t just paperwork in his telling - they’re the gates to culture, news, and political imagination. When those gates are built “behind closed doors,” the public doesn’t merely miss a meeting; it loses leverage over the medium that will later claim to speak for it.
The phrasing is prosecutorial: “powerful lobbies,” “wealthy commercial interests,” “no public input,” then the stinging add-on, “no congressional input for that matter.” That last clause is doing heavy work. It’s not only an indictment of corporate capture; it’s an indictment of representative government’s abdication, suggesting a state either outmaneuvered or quietly complicit. McChesney’s intent is to puncture the myth that American media naturally evolved into its current form. He wants you to see it as a series of policy choices made in a narrow room, then naturalized for decades as inevitability.
Context matters: early 20th-century spectrum allocation, the rise of commercial radio, and the bargain that traded public trusteeship language for private control and advertising-driven programming. The subtext is contemporary: if the system began as a closed-door settlement, today’s concentration, homogenized local news, and platform-era dominance aren’t accidents - they’re the predictable dividends of an original deal the public never got to vote on.
The phrasing is prosecutorial: “powerful lobbies,” “wealthy commercial interests,” “no public input,” then the stinging add-on, “no congressional input for that matter.” That last clause is doing heavy work. It’s not only an indictment of corporate capture; it’s an indictment of representative government’s abdication, suggesting a state either outmaneuvered or quietly complicit. McChesney’s intent is to puncture the myth that American media naturally evolved into its current form. He wants you to see it as a series of policy choices made in a narrow room, then naturalized for decades as inevitability.
Context matters: early 20th-century spectrum allocation, the rise of commercial radio, and the bargain that traded public trusteeship language for private control and advertising-driven programming. The subtext is contemporary: if the system began as a closed-door settlement, today’s concentration, homogenized local news, and platform-era dominance aren’t accidents - they’re the predictable dividends of an original deal the public never got to vote on.
Quote Details
| Topic | Justice |
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