In Conversation with Democracy Now's Amy Goodman

Bart Brodsky: Your news show, Democracy Now: The War and Peace Report, covers stories that are generally underreported by the major media. Such as the plight of the Palestinians, student loan practices, Obama's abandonment of single payer healthcare, impacts of the banking crisis on minorities. And each story seems to be almost a mini-documentary, with footage shot on location. The other night, while Charlie Rose on another channel was asking polite lifestyle questions of Condoleezza Rice, you were interviewing a Berkeley historian about presidential lies and the definition of torture. How do you decide what stories to cover?

Amy Goodman: Really, Democracy Now is a brain trust. I work with a group of producers and reporters, and we look around the world every day for critical stories. By no means is it everything, but our focus is to bring out the voices of the grassroots, bring out the voices of people who are not usually heard, and tell the story from their point of view. And have a forum for discussion and debate among people in power and those who do not have power...

BB: Yes.

AG: ...really focus on people who think outside the box. Because we're talking about crises today that require unique solutions. We're talking about massive problems, from global warring to global warming to the global economic meltdown, and it's critical that we really open up the discussion, break the sound barrier, and not just bring on the usual suspects that you get on the networks, beating the drums for war.

BB: Yes, absolutely. Bill Moyers has mused publicly, "Why isn't Amy Goodman invited onto the Sunday talk shows?" Why aren't you? Are you being blacklisted, or do you just not want to go?

AG: No, I would certainly want to be a part of that discussion, because they very much set the agenda in this county. They determine public opinion, Noam Chomsky's "manufactured consent," and all too often they're manufacturing consent for war. But I think there is a real opening now for a widening of the discussion and for people focusing in places other than the corporate networks. After all, when President Bush told the world that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction—when he got it wrong it exposed more than him. It exposed the press corps that had acted as a conveyor belt for the lies of the administration.

BB: Do you see the press as being more responsible now?

AG: I think we can compare what they did in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. Even though half the population was opposed, really, almost completely icing out the anti-war point of view—we're seeing very much the same thing now when it comes to Afghanistan. Where are the dissident voices? And those voices are not in a minority. I think people are tired of war now, do not see that as an answer. When you look at the US in the world today and travel the NATO countries, and the outcry in places from Canada to Britain, opposed to the occupation of Afghanistan.

BB: Most Americans are opposed, too, aren't they?

AG: That's right. We live in a globalized world, yet, when it comes to getting information that is opposed to the administration point of view or opposed to the conventional way of doing things, that might represent a majority of opinion, we don't get that point of view reflected. And it needs—we need to break the sound barrier.

BB: You are an incredibly gutsy reporter. You've put yourself in harm's way more than once, and a few years ago, in a really classic interview, you asked tough questions of Bill Clinton, to the point where he referred to you as "disrespectful." How can a reporter, any reporter, ask the necessary questions and still retain access?

AG: Well, it's not about maintaining access, I think. My brother David Goodman, who's also a journalist, and I have written three books together. We write about the "access of evil," trading truth for access—

BB: Yes.

AG: We watch it on television every day, when these reporters get exclusives. So often they're based on the politician feeling that they won't be challenged.

BB: So, it's more important to ask the questions, right?

AG: Yes, absolutely. To ask the questions. And in the end these politicians need journalists more than these journalists need politicians.

BB: So, journalists need more guts.

AG: Yes.

BB: Obama has taken a lot of heat from Republicans on the right. Do you think that progressives should go easy on the Obama administration or push him harder from the left?

AG: I think that journalists just have to do our job. We just have to ask the tough questions that deal with these absolutely critical issues of the day, of war and peace, life and death.

BB: Your critics have accused you of practicing advocacy journalism. I'm not sure what that means, but do you feel that your values ever get in the way of covering a story? Is there any conflict or compromise that you deal with?

AG: If we're going to look at advocacy journalism, then I think that you have to look at the network reporters, the reporters in the mainstream media. They are the best model. You know their points of view in and out when you watch television. Frankly, I don't think it's about having a point of view. Everyone has a point of view. It's about being honest. It's about being fair. It's about being accurate. And when people feel that they have a chance to be heard, it doesn't matter whether you agree with them or not. I think Democracy Now is known for giving people a fair hearing, and the listeners and viewers can make up their own minds.

BB: And you're widening the dialog, as opposed to narrowing it. It's my own bias, I think you do it very, very well. Now, you and a fellow reporter were arrested and beaten at the 2008 Republican convention. The major media seems to have missed that story. What's the current status of your case?

AG: My colleagues, two of Democracy Now's producers, Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar, were arrested when they were covering a protest on the first day of the Republican Convention in downtown St. Paul. I was on the convention floor where I got a call on my cell phone that they had been arrested, so I raced with my cameraman to the center of town to get them freed. Now, we have top security clearance credentials to cover the convention, to interview presidents and vice presidents and congressmenbers, and so we should be able to record and interview protesters on the street without being arrested. We should be able to put things on the record without getting a record. So when I raced up to the riot police who were lined up, they had fully contained this parking lot where people inside had been arrested. I ran up and said, "My colleagues have been arrested. I need to have them released." They could see I had my credentials hanging around my neck that gave me access to inside of the convention, to the convention floor. Within seconds they ripped me through the line, they had my hands behind my back, they handcuffed me, they pushed me up against the wall, pushed me onto the ground. I was demanding to see my producers because I knew they'd been bloodied. I saw Sharif across the parking lot, his hands handcuffed. They finally brought me to him. I kept repeating to the police, "You can see we both have credentials, they're hanging around our neck." And the secret service came up and ripped the credentials from around our necks. And then they put me into the police wagon and charged me with a misdemeanor, obstructing the administration of justice, or something like that. And Sharif and Nicole were facing "probable cause" riot charges, felony charges. I was taken off to the police cages and the police garage where they put the protestors, and Nicole and Sharif were taken to jail. Ultimately we were released that night because of real outcry around the country, people emailing, calling, asking why we were arrested. But more than 40 journalists were arrested that week, not mention hundreds of protest—

BB: Forty journalists?

AG: Over forty journalists were arrested. In fact, when we were released, I think because of the public outcry, Sharif was in the cell with an AP photographer and he didn't get released at that time. It shows the power of public pressure.

BB: Was the case against Sharif and Nicole dropped?

AG: Ultimately all the charges against us were dropped. But it took several weeks. It was a very serious problem. When Nicole and Sharif were arrested—that was an hour before I'd gotten there—Nicole was filming. The riot police came at her, telling her to get down on the ground, face on the ground. They put their knee or boot in her back, they were pulling on her leg. Her face was on the ground so it bloodied her face. Sharif was telling the police to calm down. He had a microphone. They pushed him up against the wall. They kicked him twice in the chest and got him down on the ground. This is not only a violation of the press, of freedom of the press, it's also a violation of the public's right to know. It has to be challenged; otherwise, journalists will be afraid to go out and cover what's on the streets. Here are these conventions that are supposed to be the celebrations of democracy—

BB: Yes.

AG: You know, it's not just about what's said on the convention floor. That's a very orchestrated message. It's about who's sponsoring the parties in the corporate suites. It's about who's on the street. It's our responsibility to cover it all. And democracy is a messy thing, and we're supposed to give voice to all that's going on.

BB: Does Democracy Now or Sharif or Nicole have any recourse to litigation against the local police?

AG: We're deciding what to do.

BB: I wish you well on that. I hope they're feeling better, too. Now, daily newspapers are dying, but I think the real story is the loss of local news coverage. There are many solutions that have been put forth, including nonprofit endowment, maybe more public broadcasting, pay-per-click web only publications. Do you favor any particular solutions? And can democracy itself survive without newspapers?

AG: It is really scary what's going on right now, because the press is the way to keep government accountable, to be the watchdog of those in power. To see one newspaper after another going down—it's really a shocking development. I think that independent, nonprofit media is the most important way to go. I don't think we should be out there working for advertisers. I think information is invaluable. It's the currency of a democracy.

BB: Do you favor private endowments or public funding, or some mixture of both?

AG: I would be interested in both. I think there are many ways to do it, but I think that non-corporate journalism, the kind that Pacifica is known for, is a noble experiment that is a very important model. If you appreciate what you hear, just contribute. It became the model for NPR and PBS and I think it is a model that will survive well into the future.

BB: There are some other local experiments in that regard with newspapers. We'll just have to keep watching. Your recent book written with your brother, David, Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times, was a best-seller, right?

AG: Yes, and it's just coming out in paperback. We're really excited, and we're traveling to many cities [around the country and] in California. We go to Palo Alto, to Berkeley, to Marin, to San Francisco. We're celebrating KPFA's 60th Anniversary, April 15.

BB: Back to the book, for those of us who haven't read it yet, what's the takeaway message?

AG: The subtitle of Standing Up to the Madness is "Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times." It's about people and groups who don't go looking for trouble, but when it comes to them they stand up. Whether we're talking about librarians standing up to the Patriot Act, psychologists standing up to their own association, The American Psychological Association, and overturning a decision, demanding that psychologists not participate in torture, whether it's kids performing an anti-war play when their principal said no, to the global warming scientists who challenged the Bush administration when they vacuumed the words "global warming" off of government websites. And then going back in history to see those people like Rosa Parks, who in sitting down was standing up for all of us, fighting segregation. And there's so many people doing so many things now. I think it's not so much about looking to the leaders. It's looking to all the people around us who are truly leaders in their own communities and acknowledging that and giving voice to that.

BB: You certainly do that every day with the show, and you give us a wide range of indispensable information. Is there any special message you have for your Bay Area audience?

AG: Oh, I just hope you come out when we're in California so we can celebrate independent voices together. And you really have a national treasure in your community. KPFA celebrating 60 years is such a tremendous accomplishment. It really is a model for media around the world. The idea of listener sponsored, unimbedded, independent investigative news. I hope Democracy Now continues in that tradition. We're just expanding it to television and the internet and celebrating all of independent media from public access like Access San Francisco to PBS. We cannot do this alone. All of independent media together—that's where it's at.

BB: Well, thank you very much for being such a strong voice in that regard. And I very much appreciate your taking the time to talk and perhaps at some point in the future we can do a longer interview.

AG: Thank you, Bart.

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