You Can't Keep a Good(Wo)man Down: Why Rochester (and Every Place Else) Needs Amy Goodman and Democracy Now!

Amy Goodman, co-host of the radio news program, Democracy Now! has been doing all along what the big corporate media journalists have forgotten how to do. This article provides links to several recent news articles about Goodman and explains why Rochester (and every place else) needs to have the Democracy Now! radio broadcast easily available to all. It also provides an easy means for making your voice heard in the campaign to bring Democracy Now! to Rochester.

I have had the pleasure -- and the privilege -- of hearing href="http://www.democracynow.org">Democracy Now! host href="http://www.democracynow.org/staff.shtml">Amy Goodman in
person three times now.




The first time was last November at the href="http://freepress.net/conference">National Media Reform Conference
in Madison, WI. You can hear her presentation href="http://www.freepress.net/conference/multimedia/goodman110803.mp3">here.
The second was April 5, at LeMoyne College in Syracuse. (Read Rochester
Indymedia's interview with Goodman href="http://rochester.indymedia.org/newswire/display/2187">here.)
The third was May 13, at the University of Buffalo.




The event at UB was packed -- a standing room only crowd, with more
than 50 people spilling onto the stage, and more having to listen to
Goodman from out in the corridors. People who made it inside the
auditorium stayed there happily for two hours despite the heat and 90+%
humidity. Although I had already heard much of what Goodman had to say
before, I was nonetheless happy to be there as well.




Goodman is what a journalist is supposed to be, and most aren't. She
asks tough questions. She is not content to take what government and
other officials say at face value. She talks to people that other media
don't talk to and thereby gives voice to the silenced. She is quickly
becoming a force to be reckoned with as other news media end up
following her lead, because she is getting the news that they missed or
thought no one would care about.



If just 10 percent of today's journalists working for big corporate
media had followed Goodman's model, the Bush Administration would never
have been able to sell its lies about the so-called "Weapons of Mass
Destruction." Thousands of people who died in the war and who now are
dying in the "occupation" would still be alive. Thousands more who are
now maimed for life would still be whole. This country would have more
than 200 billion dollars more to spend on what it really needs --
education, health care, job development -- and/or to eliminate the
burgeoning federal deficit.




Right now, Metro Justice in
Rochester is working on a href="http://www.metrojustice.org/democracy%20now%21.htm=">campaign to
bring Democracy Now! to WXXI radio. You can listen to Goodman every day
on her free radio webcasts from the href="http://www.democracynow.org">Democracy Now! website. You can
also see Democracy Now! on Free Speech TV if you are a Dish Network
subscriber. But people who do not have access to the web or to the Dish
Network -- especially people who cannot afford either -- need to be
able to hear Goodman, too.



This week, WXXI is running its membership drive. Metro Justice office
is mobilizing its members to call WXXI during their membership drive,
asking them to try Democracy Now! on 1370am for a year. The program is
available to XXI at no cost for the first year.



In addition to calling WXXI during its membership drive ( 585-258-0200)
, you can also send Jeanne Fisher, Vice president of WXXI radio, an
email asking WXXI to try Democracy Now! To do this easily, go href="http://www.metrojustice.org/dn_wxxi.htm">here.



Here are some samples of what other press are saying about Amy
Goodman, culled from the last few months: style="font-weight: bold;">





March 10, 2003: Washington Post

Peace Correspondent 'Democracy Now!' Host Amy Goodman Is Making Her
Voice Heard on Iraq

By Michael Powell



And now for the news: "President Bush last night claimed a war in Iraq
would set the stage for peace in the Middle East, but he did not set
any deadline or detail any specific steps." . . . "The Financial Times
describes the Bush administration's financial
analysis as 'a piece of fiction.' " . . .



"In Australia, 43 legal experts warn that an attack on Iraq is a
violation of international law." . . .



"And the United States asks aid groups in Baghdad for civilian
satellite coordinates in Iraq" -- pregnant pause here -- "Is it to bomb
them or save them?"



"This is 'Democracy Now!' " says the anchor. "The war and peace
report." Cue the lilting Bob Marley reggae guitar licks.



This is not the news as Brit Hume construes it or Dan Rather intones
it. In a "Showdown: Iraq," Blix-is-nixed, pack-my-trench-coat-honey
testosterone media age, Amy Goodman and her radio show, "Democracy
Now!," beam in as if from some alternative left galaxy.



Broadcasting on the Pacifica Radio network from a book-strewn loft in
an old firehouse a half-dozen blocks from Ground Zero, Goodman is a
daily polestar for those who crave the antiwar perspective that
mainstream networks and newspapers often consign to the margins.



"War coverage should be more than a parade of retired generals and
retired government flacks posing as reporters," Goodman says after the
show. "Why not invite on some voices that are not Pentagon-approved?"




More href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A2307-2003Mar9&notFound=true">
here.




April 21, 2004: Los Angeles Times


She has opinions, will travel Left-wing radio's Amy Goodman takes her
views on the road.

By Greg Braxton



FRESNO -- "Democracy Now!" radio host Amy Goodman flashed an
appreciative smile from her podium last week as the overflow crowd
inside the Satellite Student Center at Cal State Fresno spilled onto
the large bare stage behind her and into the aisles of the 650-seat
auditorium.



Surveying the scene from the back were frowning fire marshals who
moments earlier had threatened to shut down Goodman's lecture, as well
as event organizers who had not expected the massive turnout. Finally,
to appease the authorities, dozens of latecomers reluctantly departed,
resigned to listening to the talk on speakers outside along with more
than a hundred others who could not get in.



"So many people have turned out that I've decided to cut short my
five-hour speech," began Goodman. The roar of laughter and applause
from her faithful following suggested that, even though they got her
joke, they would have welcomed an all-night session with Goodman, the
most high-profile personality on the left-leaning Pacifica radio
network.



More here.




April 26, 2004: Newsweek


Updated: 6:01 p.m. ET May 17, 2004



Access of Evil
A controversial liberal radio reporter argues that the mainstream U.S.
media are becoming corrupted because journalists are too close to those
in power

By Brian Braiker



April 26 - Depending on your own brand of politics, you either view Amy
Goodman as a crusader, a kook, a nuisance, a threat, or a hero. But one
thing is almost irrefutable: she has courage. In nearly 10 years as the
controversial host of the liberal Pacifica Radio network’s “Democracy
Now!” program, Goodman has witnessed (and narrowly escaped) a massacre
in East Timor, been threatened by Nigeria’s “kill ’n’ go” military
police while trespassing on Chevron’s oil fields and reported for
several straight days from ground zero after the September 11 attacks.



Now, with her new book “Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily
Politicians, War Profiteers and the Media that Love Them” (Hyperion),
she is going toe-to-toe with the Bush administration and mainstream
media. She has written the book, she tells NEWSWEEK, because, “the
media has reached an all-time low. The lies take lives. ‘Exception to
the rulers’ should be the motto of every news organization.” She
describes what she calls the “disinformation two-step,” in which an
administration “leaks” information to reporters, after which those
officials refer to the published accounts to bolster their assertions.
Sound dubious? If the reaction she and her co-author—her brother, David
Goodman—have gotten on their 70-city book tour is any indication,
they’re not the only ones who feel this way: More than 1,000 people
came out to hear her speak in New York City and in California at
Fresno, Berkeley, Santa Barbara and Santa Cruz. More than 2,000 people
came out to her book signing in Los Angeles, which doubled as
Pacifica’s 55th birthday party and fundraiser.



More here.




April 26, 2004: style="font-weight: bold;">NPR Radio interview with Goodman by
Tavis Smiley


To listen to this interview, go href="http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1851548">here.




May 3, 2004: Houston Chronicle


Critics can't keep an Amy Goodman down

By BARBARA KARKABI



The Amy Goodman book and 70-city tour roared into town Sunday to
standing ovations and a crowd of adoring fans.



Goodman is the sometimes controversial award-winning radio host of
Pacifica Network's Democracy Now! , which airs Mondays-Fridays at 9
a.m. on Pacifica's KPFT 90.1 FM.



Her visit was a benefit for KPFT, a celebration of the 55th anniversary
of the founding of Pacifica Radio in Berkeley, Calif., and a tour to
promote her book The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily
Politicians, War Profiteers and the Media That Love Them (Hyperion
Books, $24.95).



More href="http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/features/2547264">here.




May 5, 2004: The Daily Camera
(Boulder, Co.)


NYC's 'Democracy Now!' in Boulder Host interviews CU professors, Rocky
Flats juror

By Mary Butler, Camera Staff Writer



The Flatirons were a focal point both on air and behind the scenes of
"Democracy Now!" on Tuesday, as the New York City-based independent
national news program broadcast from the Boulder studios of Free Speech
TV.



Host Amy Goodman is using Boulder as a home base for the cable
television and radio show this week as she promotes the book she
co-wrote with her brother, "Independent Media in a Time of War," on a
70-plus city tour.



Goodman also is dedicating the admission price at two local events to
Boulder's KGNU 88.5 FM, which is in the midst of raising $3 million to
buy an AM signal to expand into the Denver market.



Goodman packed Boulder's Flatirons Theater on Monday, speaking to a
sell-out crowd of 900, and was expected to draw a similar audience
Tuesday night at Denver's Central Presbyterian Church.




More href="http://www2.dailycamera.com/bdc/city_news/article/0,1713,BDC_2422_2861253,00.html">here.




May 13, 2004: Grand Rapids (MI) Press


Media war coverage one-sided, critic says

By Steven Harmon



The corporate media have reached an all-time low in their coverage of
the Iraq war -- with their sanitized images and "embedded" mentality --
and must be countered by an alternative media.



That's the message liberal talk show host Amy Goodman is bringing to 70
cities around the nation, including Grand Rapids. She will appear at
Fountain Street Church at 6:30 p.m. Friday. Tickets are $5.



The Harvard alumnus is touting her new book, "The Exception to the
Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media that
Love Them," currently No. 25 on the New York Times bestseller list.



"When you see war from the trigger end of the gun, that is one limited
perspective," Goodman said. "What about what it feels like to be a
target? If we were seeing babies dead on the ground, peoples' legs
shorn off, if we'd seen these images, I do think there would be a
collective 'no' that people would say. But the media has sanitized the
war."



More href="http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-14/1084459653129330.xml">here.