"People Get Ready" by Bob McChesney and John Nichols

Bob McChesney, professor emeritus of communication at the University of Illinois, and Wisconsin journalist John Nichols collaborated to write "People Get Ready" in 2016, a book that talked about the consequences of the technological revolution.To follow that up, McChesney and Nichols wrote a piece last year for the Columbia Journalism Review on a dramatic proposal, the Local Journalism Initiative.McChesney spoke with Steve Tarter about the latest proposal, an idea he feels is so important that the very future of democracy in the United States hangs in the balance."The tsunami of misinformation, and the extent to which it now permeates our politics, results from a much larger problem," said McChesney. "It's the collapse of local journalism as a viable institution in cities, villages and towns across the nation.""Unless the collapse of local journalism is addressed directly and successfully, it is impossible to see how the threat of a more authoritarian, even fascistic, future can be subdued--or put another way, how functional self-government and the rule of law can survive," he stated.McChesney proposes an initiative that will establish well-funded, competitive, independent, locally based and uncensored nonprofit news media in every town, city and county in the United States.He expands on that idea in this interview. For more information on the initiative:https://www.freepress.net/sites/default/files/2022-03/to_protect_democracy_recreate_local_news_media_final.pdf