She gets up every morning of every day — long before the rest of us! — to be the only daily voice of truth on the radio in the United States of America. How sad that I even have to write those words! A nation of 300 million, a written guarantee of a free press, and no one will do the job that Amy Goodman does so simply, so profoundly.-
Michael Moore
New York-based
journalist and democratic
activist Amy Goodman hosts
Democracy Now!, a
independant news show broadcast on
Pacifica radio and also carried on public access
television in
America.
Her work in radio journalism has received much
critical acclaim, but has been criticized a great deal as well. Some of her foes include
Bill Clinton, who referred to her interviewing style as "
hostile,
combative, and even
disrespectful"; an executive at Pacifica radio that reportedly tried to stop Goodman from producing new shows in 2001; the Indonesian miliary, who called her a "threat to
Indonesia's national security" in 1991 when she covered the country's invasion of
East Timor; and most any person or organization that she views as having trampled on democracy or interfered with the
freedom of the press.
Goodman's journalistic mission is to "free the media" and provide alternative viewpoints to those found in
corporate news outlets. She's taken a bold, and arguably necessary stance, which centers around the idea that the media should not function solely as a tool for the powerful. Instead, she advocates for a kind of "
Don't hate the media, become the media" answer to the corporate control of journalism: a trickle-up media that reflects the struggles of individual people in their communities.
In April 2004 she released a book called "The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them" which made bestseller lists across the country, including in the
New York Times, the
Los Angeles Times, and on
Amazon.com