BRATTLEBORO-No one is more passionate about independent media than the fearless broadcast journalist Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!
Over the past 30 years, while covering stories, Goodman has been beaten, arrested, threatened with arrest, charged with criminal trespass, and detained at borders, among other fearful things. Yet the focus of this high-energy and deeply admired woman remains single-minded: protect the First Amendment, protect free speech, tell truth to power, and, most of all, get the news out.
And with Democracy Now!, the news definitely gets out. The show airs on more than 1,500 radio and TV stations with more than 700 across the U.S. and Canada, and in more than 40 countries across Europe, Latin America, Africa, the Caribbean, Australia, and New Zealand, according to Angela Karran, who manages the program’s station relations.
As Goodman, 69, puts it, “Reporters know no borders.”
“When we cover war and peace, we’re not brought to you by the weapons manufacturers,” she says. “When we cover the climate catastrophe, we’re not brought to you by the oil, gas, and coal companies. When we cover inequality, we’re not brought to you by the banks and other financial institutions. We’re brought to you by you, the listener, the reader, and the viewer. And it’s a global critical audience.”
Now filmmakers Carl Deal and Tia Lessin have made a documentary film about Goodman, her life, and her work: Steal This Story, Please!
The film — along with Deal, Goodman, and her brother, Vermont journalist David Goodman — will be at the Latchis Theatre on Friday, June 19, for a special showing of the film at 7 p.m. The film will be followed by a question-and-answer session.
The film will continue to run through Thursday, June 25.
Before the show, Vermont Independent Media, which publishes The Commons and The Deerfield Valley News, Brattleboro Community Television (BCTV), and WVEW-LP will host Amy Goodman at a reception at 5 p.m. at Sages at 6 Flat St.
Democracy Now! is broadcast on both the radio station and the television station.
Steal This Story, Please! has already been shown at almost 200 theaters and is still building up steam. Goodman was poised to catch a plane to England to promote the film at two major festivals when she and Deal took time last week to talk by phone to The Commons.
They also did an interview with BCTV Executive Director Johnny Gifford on behalf of BCTV and WVEW.
With Goodman, what you see is what you get. She is exactly as intense, warm and passionate in conversation as she is on her program.
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The first question was an easy one. Was the name of this film — ahem — lifted from Abbie Hoffman’s 1971 book, Steal This Book?
Of course, Deal said.
“Obviously we’re aware of that, and in fact, we modeled the principal design of the title on the first edition of his book,” Deal said.
Goodman agreed and pointed to some of the other shoulders she stands on: muckraking journalists like George Seldes and I.F. Stone.
“There was a film made about Stone, you know,” she said. “He said to young journalists, ‘If you can remember two words, remember these: governments lie. And if you can remember three words, remember: all governments lie.’”
As a journalist, Goodman believes passionately that having an exclusive story is a failure.
“It’s the idea of, ‘Please, take this story, spread it far and wide,’” she said. “I consider an exclusive a failure if we’re just the ones that are broadcasting it. I want people to take it. It’s why we never put a paywall at Democracynow.org.”
She referred back to 2016, when she went to Standing Rock in North Dakota when the Lakota and Dakota tribes were opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline, which was designed to transport crude oil over 1,172 miles.
“We thought we’d be there among many journalists, but as usual we were the only national journalists who were there,” Goodman said. “As you know, the Dakota Access Pipeline security guards unleashed dogs and there was footage of them with blood on their noses and mouths. We posted online within 24 hours and we had 14 million views. Then all the networks played the video.
“And that’s what we consider a success,” she said. “That’s what independent media is. That’s why it’s so important.”
After Goodman broadcast her footage, the North Dakota authorities issued an arrest warrant for her.
“I think that also shows the importance of independent media,” Goodman said. “I went back to face the charges. They elevated them to felonies, which was ludicrous. We broadcast from there, and when the judge had to sign off on the charges, there was so much coverage.
“Imagine, a journalist being charged for showing the images!” she continued.
”So the judge refused to sign off on it,” Goodman said. “That really shows how critical it is when the media really shows what’s happening on the ground.”
The judge also dropped charges against Native Americans who had also been protesting.
“We’ve got to show the images,” Goodman said. “We have to tell the story. We have to go to where the silence is because it’s not silent. People are organizing, people are raucous and rowdy, but it doesn’t hit the corporate media radar screen.”
Despite the dangers, Goodman said that she is not afraid while she is working.
“The people that we cover face so much worse,” Goodman said. “I mean, surviving a massacre, or the Indonesian military armed with U.S. weapons.”
There, on Nov. 12, 1991, the military killed 270 Timorese.
“As American journalists, we enjoy a certain privilege,” Goodman said. “Not always, but more often, certainly, than the people we cover. And they are incredibly brave, whether in Haiti, whether in East Timor, whether people in the streets of Minneapolis. I think we just have to move forward.”
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Media challenges today include billionaires buying corporate media so they can control the message.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, for one, owner of the once-mighty Washington Post, laid off one-third of its entire workforce, including 300 journalists, in February. CBS News brought in a new editor-in-chief, Bari Weiss, who not only fired 6% of her staff but decimated the once-revered 60 Minutes.
Deal, the film’s co-producer, is part of Block the Merger, a group that has organized to fight media corporate mergers.
“This is what Amy said, about working every single day and organizing and having your voice heard,” he said. “It does pay off, and you can make a difference.”
The latest in the series of corporate mergers by allies of President Donald Trump “is the one between Paramount and Warner [Bros.] Discovery, which owns CNN, HBO, and HBO Max, among many other properties,” Deal said. One of those properties is CNN, the 24-hour cable news channel.
“So, you see what’s happening here is commercial media capitulated into the power of the Trump administration,” he said. “It’s bad for the consumer, it’s bad for the public, and it’s even bad for the people who create the entertainment that you consume.”
Thousands of activists have come together to oppose this merger, including actress Jane Fonda and her Committee for the First Amendment, Deal said.
“And the latest reporting is showing that it’s having an impact,” he said. “Paramount said before that they wouldn’t budge, but now they’re willing to negotiate. And part of that is because this movement has organized the [California] state’s attorney general to threaten legal action.”
Calling Goodman “the greatest champion today for independent media, for independent voices,” Deal said that at Block the Merger, “we’re trying to emulate that.”
“We’re trying to rally support for people to find local independent media outlets,” he said. “For journalists to realize that there are other ways to have an impact.”
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Can reporting change the reality of a political situation? Goodman believes it can and it will.
“You never achieve democracy,” she said. “You have to fight for it every single day, and you never know when that magic moment comes. But if you’re involved with building social change, you’re helping to build a foundation. And when that moment comes, you’re going to make history. You’re going to help shape the future.”
Goodman got into the news business as a child, following the lead of her younger brother, Vermont journalist David Goodman, who hosts VTDigger’s Vermont Conversation podcast.
“My brother lives in Waterbury,” Amy Goodman said. “We’ve written books together. He’s a great political and outdoor environmental journalist. I was inspired by him when we were kids.”
Goodman said that David, 2½ years her junior, started a newspaper, Dave’s Press, when he was 8 years old.
“It was sort of a glorified family calendar, and when he wrote in the newspaper that my mother spanked me, my mother put her foot down and said, ‘No dirty laundry in the paper!’” she said.
“That’s because it went out to the whole extended Goodman family. And David cried censorship! And he really cried, because he was 8 years old. But we got this newspaper out, and we would debate the issues of the day in the Letters to the Editor page.”
For example, their grandfather would write in and say, “I love you very much, but I disagree with your views on war.”
At the time, it was the Vietnam War.
According to his sister, David wrote back: “Dear Grandpa: Thank you for being my first subscriber, but your views on war are stupid.”
“And that’s how it would go,” Goodman said. “So we’ve been partners in rhyme and crime ever since.”
Behind that wordplay is a serious problem.
“All too often now, committing journalism is considered a crime in this country,” she said. “Journalists are being sued by the president of the United States. It is a very severe threat to the First Amendment.”
The First Amendment, adopted in 1791, prevents the government from interfering with five fundamental freedoms: religion, speech, press, assembly, and the right to petition the government.
“There’s a reason why our profession, journalism, is explicitly protected in the Constitution,” Goodman said. “It’s essential to the functioning of a democratic society. And the flip side of the freedom of the press is the public’s right to know. That is what makes a democracy meaningful, that people have trustworthy information they can make decisions on.”
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Goodman and her staff just celebrated the show’s 30th anniversary at Riverside Church in New York. “Angela Davis came there and talked about the importance of dissent,” Goodman said, describing the day.
Juan González, who has been her professional partner since Democracy Now! Began, was a founder of the Young Lords in New York, a radical Puerto Rican civil rights and community empowerment group that was analogous to the Black Panthers.
“He talked about framing the story, and that’s what he talks about in the film — how important it is to frame your own narrative,” Goodman said. “Those who started the Young Lords in New York became some of the leading journalists of New York.”
Also at the event was Bruce Springsteen, who sang a song he wrote earlier this year, “Streets of Minneapolis,” a protest song that speaks to the federal government’s immigration enforcement surges by militarized federal personnel in that city who claimed the lives of Renée Good, Alex Pretti, and other civilians.
“I think that shows us how important it is to have community media across the political spectrum, because the community in Minneapolis rose up with the ICE surge,” Goodman said. “They rose up across the political spectrum and said, ‘We will protect our neighbors.’”
At the end of the night, all the musicians gathered on the stage, including Michael Stipe of REM and Patti Smith, and they sang Smith’s song “People Have the Power.”
That is what Democracy Now! will continue to do, Goodman said.
“Covering the movements that make history, that is our job,” she said. “It is to go to where the silence is. As I said, it’s not silence. That’s where the action is. And for so long, the corporate media has brought you this same sad circle of pundits who know so little about so much, explaining the world to us and getting it so wrong.
“We need the people closest to the story telling us what is happening. That’s why I call Democracy Now! ‘News with a heart.’”
Goodman, who has visited Brattleboro in the past, is excited to be coming back.
“This is a celebration of independent media,” Goodman said. “And being at the Latchis, where the film is going to run for a week, I consider all of these outlets, whether it’s Brattleboro Community TV or Democracy Now! or The Latchis, I consider them sanctuaries of dissent. And dissent is what’s going to save us.”
She pointed out that “Democracy Now! is a global news outlet. We started on nine stations, and we now broadcast on 1,500 public radio and television stations around the country and around the world. We are supported by listeners, viewers, readers, and some foundations, but we don’t take government support. We don’t take corporate support. We are independent.”
The Latchis is equally excited to host the show.
“I have been feeling a deep sense of anxiety and concern over the severity of the current threats to our democratic institutions and how crucial free, vigorous, and independent media are as bulwarks against these threats,” said Latchis Executive Director Jon Potter.
“I also regard the Latchis as a similar bastion of free thought and open, honest discourse” he continued.
“When the opportunity to show this film and have Amy come to the Latchis came up, it took less than a nanosecond to jump at the chance,” Potter added.
“Few Latchis events have garnered as much intense interest as this, which speaks to Amy’s heroic place on journalism’s front lines and to how much people recognize the importance of the freedom of the press,” he said. “This is a big deal for our community and hopefully a rallying cry for all of us.”
Joyce Marcel is a reporter and columnist for The Commons, where she regularly covers politics, homelessness, economic development issues, and the arts.
This News column by Joyce Marcel was written for The Commons.