Rochester Indymedia Interviews Amy Goodman

After Amy Goodman spoke in Syracuse NY on the importance of "Independent media in a time of war" Rochester Indymedia conducted this interview.

Dawn Zuppelli of Rochester Indymedia interviews Amy Goodman from Democracy Now!
April 5th, 2004

DZ- For those who are unfamiliar with Democracy now! Can you explain what kind of programming Democracy Now! Provides and how it differs from National Public Radio?

AG- Democracy now! is daily grassroots, unimbedded, international, independent news hour. We broadcast across the week. Dedicated to bringing out the voices of the people all over the world through dialogue and debate. And really going as close to the story as we can using the basic principles of good journalism. Not turning to very few pundits who know very little about a lot of things. But to the people who know about there own communities and digging a little further and finding not your usual suspects on every single story but finding people who are intimately connected to that story, who have something to tell us, original, authentic.

DZ- Right now Rochester is working on a campaign, activists have gotten together to bring Democracy Now! to our local airwaves. I am wondering from the communities you have been to and seeing struggles won to have more stations provide Democracy now! What suggestions do you have for us in Rochester?

AG- well I think different groups have different strategies. What I have been most impressed with is how successful they have been and I think it is a great testament to public radio and public television that they are responding to the public. If you are determined enough and have enough support, and that all counts, I think the radio or the TV station will respond. That is the essence of a media that serves a democratic society.

DZ- What would you say to Indymedia activists, you are often quoted as saying “go to where the silence is” what does that mean and how do we accomplish that?

AG- It means going to hear voices that are not usually heard. Which is not too hard these days. Most people’s views are not heard in the mainstream media, in the corporate media, it doesn’t represent the mainstream. The silence is all around us. It’s not really deafening. It’s the voices that are deafening that are being silenced by the corporate media. And as for reaching out, it’s going to cover different events and different groups you’d be surprised at the concern across the political spectrum about what’s happening in this country about invasions of privacy and corporate control of our lives. I think that standard political divisions are breaking down like between conservative and liberal I don’t think it is so easy to categorize people anymore.

DZ- your coverage of Aristide was monumental, historically your being there influenced how the corporate press covered this story. How did you influence the corporate press and their representation of that situation?

AG- well it was a rare opportunity where we were very much determining what the press reported. I was reporting for DN! and also AP was taking our reports, associated press, is the newswire for the world. And it made a huge difference to not have the kind of agenda the corporate media had around Haiti and Aristide which has simply been to take the administrations word for what has taken place. I’m not saying all sides shouldn’t be questioned. But there has been almost no questioning of the establishment, of the bush administration on this issue. And to hear the other side was absolutely critical it was one of those cases where you are hearing an entirely different story. And when people say “how can others feel this way” it’s because they had a whole other set of facts. And once again the media had relinquished their role and simply acted as a spokesperson for those in power. We have to do better than that. We owe it this country, we owe it to the people of this country and the world. As we live in the number one superpower on earth, and how we understand the world matters it has a tremendous effect. We have to dig deeper than our media is right now.

DZ- What are the three most censured stories right now that we are hearing least about?

AG- I think poverty in this country, you raise the issue of Haiti, what is happening there and what the U.S role in the coup was. And U.S foreign policy. What the U.S is doing. How the U.S government manipulated information and the American public and they couldn't have done it without the media. So I think one of the biggest stories is how low the media has gone and how important it is that we take it back.

DZ- A day in the life of Amy Goodman as you search out your news, where do you go and where do you suggest we go for alternatives and other choices?

AG- All over. You should go to the internet. Read newspapers from around the world. We read E-mail, people call in, reading newspapers from all over this country, taking in the different networks because it is not only about a story and getting as close to it as you can but it’s also looking at how the media has shaped it. You can not ignore how people understand a story and where they are coming from and that comes from how the media has covered it in the past. So it is often deconstructing one story and finding the people who can tell the story from their own personal experience.

DZ- Thank you so much.

AG- Thank you.