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This article asks "What lessons does commercially produced news teach young people about the meaning of democracy and of citizenship?" Three competing models of democracy are introduced: Neo-liberalism; Communitarianism; and Participatory. With these three models as reference points, one week of Primedia's Channel One video news program--the week of the 1999 World Trade Organization (WTO) protests in Seattle, Washington--is analyzed. While the concept of "democracy" is never directly taken up in this programming, it is argued that the stories, advertisements, and formal structure construct a compelling vision of neo-liberalism as the normative standard for democracy in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]