WXXI Ignores Community Support for Democracy Now!
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Two weeks ago hundreds of Rochester residents emailed and called WXXI, asking them to try the award winning independent radio program, Democracy Now, for a year (for free).
Last week a group of Metro Justice members met with WXXI Vice President Jeanne Fisher and WXXI AM radio news director Peter Iglinsky to talk about the prospect of bringing Democracy Now to Rochester.
We reminded them that at Louise Slaughter’s Town Meeting on the Media WXXI President Norm Silverstein had invited the community to give WXXI input on Democracy Now.
They disavowed Silverstein’s invitation, saying that "he didn’t know about the program."
We told them that Democracy Now was free for a year and that it was incredibly popular at whatever NPR affiliate it was broadcast on, raising more money per hour than All Things Considered or Morning Edition. They told us their programming was not for sale. We listed all the national and international stories that Amy Goodman had broken on Democracy Now. We listed the awards that Democracy Now host Amy Goodman has been given by her fellow journalists for her professionalism. They told us that they disagreed with us that Amy Goodman followed the journalist code of ethics. Peter Iglinsky accused Amy Goodman of being a practitioner of "advocacy journalism" and that she has been arrested and has taken a role in the stories that she is covering. Iglinsky did not elaborate on this serious charge. Yes, Goodman was arrested. While covering the Code Pink demonstration on International Women’s Day last year Goodman was caught up in a sweep of the street. And hauled down to jail. We left the meeting with the agreement that WXXI would share with Metro Justice its written standards of journalism and that we would share those standards with Democracy Now. We agreed that we would meet again. Meanwhile, we will continue to mobilize support in the Rochester community for Democracy Now. The next meeting of the Rochester Democracy Now Committee is Monday, June 14th 7pm at the Metro Justice office 167 Flanders Street -Jon Greenbaum
