{"id":48083,"date":"2025-10-24T08:27:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T15:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newmexicopbs.org\/productions\/newmexicoinfocus\/?p=48083"},"modified":"2025-10-27T14:48:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T21:48:15","slug":"democracy-nows-amy-goodman-on-the-importance-of-independent-journalism-in-fighting-for-peace-and-democracy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newmexicopbs.org\/productions\/newmexicoinfocus\/democracy-nows-amy-goodman-on-the-importance-of-independent-journalism-in-fighting-for-peace-and-democracy\/","title":{"rendered":"Democracy Now\u2019s Amy Goodman on the Importance of Independent Journalism in Fighting for Peace and Democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Amy Goodman, host and executive producer of \u201cDemocracy Now!\u201d told me she considers New Mexico the show\u2019s second home. When I welcomed her to the state in a small public broadcasting studio in the Roundhouse last Friday, she\u2019d just signed off from a live global broadcast. She lovingly referred to the state \u2014 home to NMPBS, KUNM and KSFR \u2014 as \u201ca sanctuary of dissent.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0

Goodman was in town for the screening of a new documentary about her career, \u201cSteal This Story, Please!<\/a>\u201d 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.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0

While they say, \u201cnever meet your heroes,” Goodman didn\u2019t 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 \u201chostile and combative\u201d by former President Bill Clinton on Election Day 2000.\u00a0\u00a0

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\u2019s warned of for decades.\u00a0\u00a0

\u201cI don\u2019t think you ever achieve democracy. You have to fight for it every single day. And I think that\u2019s certainly what we\u2019ve learned now,\u201d Goodman said. \u201cLook at the title, \u2018Democracy Now!\u2019 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.\u201d\u00a0

I asked her about her approach to journalism. I\u2019ve 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 \u201cjust the tenants of good journalism.\u201d
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\u201cNot just going to the pundits, who know so little about so much, explaining the world to us and getting it so wrong,\u201d she said. \u201cBut talking to people closest to the story.\u201d\u00a0

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\u2019t simply covering the progressive fringes of society.
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\u201cPeople 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 \u2014 these people are not a fringe minority, not even a silent majority, but the silenced majority,\u201d she said. \u201cSilenced by the corporate media.\u201d\u00a0

Amid polarization and political turmoil, she said media is capable of being \u201cthe greatest force for peace on Earth,\u201d if wielded responsibly.\u00a0\u00a0

\u201cWhether it\u2019s 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,\u201d she said. \u201cIt breaks down the stereotypes and caricatures that fuel the hate groups.\u201d
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While Goodman told me she\u2019s \u201cnot for all that reality TV,\u201d 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.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is the reality TV that will save us all,\u201d she said.\u00a0\u00a0

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.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0

-Nash Jones, Host<\/p>\n\n\n

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