Amy Goodman born April 13, 1957 in Washington, D.C. is an American broadcast journalist, syndicated columnist and author.
A 1984 graduate of Harvard University, Goodman is best known as the principal host of Pacifica Radio's Democracy Now! program, where she has been described by the Los Angeles Times as "radio's voice of the disenfranchised left". Coverage of the peace and human rights movements — and support of the independent media — are the hallmarks of her work. As an investigative journalist, she has received acclaim for exposés of human rights violations in East Timor and Nigeria. Her brother is investigative journalist David Goodman.
Goodman had been news director of Pacifica Radio station WBAI-FM in New York City for over a decade when she co-founded Democracy Now! The War and Peace Report in 1996. Since then, Democracy Now! has been called "probably the most significant liberal news institution that has come around in some time" by professor and media critic Robert McChesney.
In 2001, the show was temporarily pulled off the air, as a result of a conflict with a group of Pacifica Radio board members and Pacifica staff members and listeners. The self-appointed board members had pushed for the sale of either KPFA-FM in Berkeley or WBAI-FM in New York, but dedicated listeners eventually regained democratic control of Pacifica. While Democracy Now! was off the air at WBAI for 20 days, it moved to a converted firehouse where it continues to broadcast today.
Goodman credits the program's success to the mainstream news makers who leave "a huge niche" for Democracy Now! "It's just the basic tenets of good journalism that instead of this small circle of pundits, you talk to people who live at the target end of the policy," she said. When the Bush Administration didn't find weapons of mass destruction, it "laid bare more than the Bush Administration, it laid bare media that act as a conveyor belt for the lies of the Administration. You know governments are going to lie, but not the media. So I think people started to seek out other forms of information."
When President Bill Clinton called WBAI on Election Day, 2000, for a quick get-out-the-vote message, Goodman and Gonzalo Aburto challenged him for 28 minutes with questions about Leonard Peltier, racial profiling, the Iraq sanctions, Ralph Nader, the death penalty, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Clinton defended Democratic policies against criticism, but charged Goodman with being "hostile, combative, and even disrespectful".
(read less)Amy Goodman born April 13, 1957 in Washington, D.C. is an American broadcast journalist, syndicated columnist and author.
A 1984 graduate of Harvard University, Goodman is best known as the principal host of Pacifica Radio's Democracy Now! program, where she has been described by the Los Angeles Times as "radio's voice of the disenfranchised left". Coverage of the peace and human rights movements — and support of the independent media — are the hallmarks of her work. As an investigative...
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