Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman on the Importance of Independent Journalism in Fighting for Peace and Democracy

Amy Goodman, host and executive producer of “Democracy Now!” told me she considers New Mexico the show’s second home. When I welcomed her to the state in a small public broadcasting studio in the Roundhouse last Friday, she’d just signed off from a live global broadcast. She lovingly referred to the state — home to NMPBS, KUNM and KSFR — as “a sanctuary of dissent.”  

Goodman was in town for the screening of a new documentary about her career, “Steal This Story, Please!” at the Santa Fe International Film Festival. Having admired her gutsy, accountability journalism long before I entered the news game myself, and later taking over the airwaves from her each evening on KUNM as the local host of “All Things Considered,” I was giddy to get the chance to interview the iconic muckraker and champion of independent media.   

While they say, “never meet your heroes,” Goodman didn’t disappoint. She was down to Earth and generous with her stories of getting arrested outside the 2008 Republican National Convention for standing up for her colleagues; getting charged with a felony for capturing and sharing images of the 2016 Standing Rock protest; and getting called “hostile and combative” by former President Bill Clinton on Election Day 2000.  

And, of course, she made the case for independent journalism. Its importance, she argued, may be especially clear today as more Americans become acquainted with the perils of corporate ownership of media, which she’s warned of for decades.  

“I don’t think you ever achieve democracy. You have to fight for it every single day. And I think that’s certainly what we’ve learned now,” Goodman said. “Look at the title, ‘Democracy Now!’ Not whenever, not at some point, but absolutely now. And I think most people in this country, across the political spectrum, feel the same way.” 

I asked her about her approach to journalism. I’ve recognized and admired from afar how she prioritizes being among the people, hearing their stories, and persistently asking tough questions of those in power. She characterized it as “just the tenants of good journalism.”
  
“Not just going to the pundits, who know so little about so much, explaining the world to us and getting it so wrong,” she said. “But talking to people closest to the story.” 

She argued that when Democracy Now! is out at a protest, or otherwise on the front lines of a social or political movement, the show isn’t simply covering the progressive fringes of society.
  
“People who care about war and peace, who care about the environment, who care about racial, economic, social justice, who care about LGBTQ issues, Native issues — these people are not a fringe minority, not even a silent majority, but the silenced majority,” she said. “Silenced by the corporate media.” 

Amid polarization and political turmoil, she said media is capable of being “the greatest force for peace on Earth,” if wielded responsibly.  

“Whether it’s a Palestinian child or an Israeli grandmother, an uncle in Iraq or an aunt in Afghanistan, when you hear someone speaking from their own experience, it breaks down bigotry,” she said. “It breaks down the stereotypes and caricatures that fuel the hate groups.”
 
While Goodman told me she’s “not for all that reality TV,” each day the team at Democracy Now! seeks to show the world the reality of what people are going through, interrogate the systems at play and hold power to account.  

“This is the reality TV that will save us all,” she said.  

Hear more from Goodman in a two-part interview on New Mexico in Focus Friday night at 7 p.m. on NMPBS and the PBS app.    

-Nash Jones, Host