Conversation with Amy Goodman

Journalist Amy Goodman has been called everything from a hero to a threat to national security. The founder and host of Democracy Now!, she has won numerous awards for her courage and perseverance. From getting exclusive interviews with figures like Jean-Bertrand Aristide and Hugo Chavez to relentlessly reporting on Hurricane Katrina and 9/11, Amy Goodman is respected worldwide for her journalism and activism. Her fierce commitment to investigative journalism has put her life at risk on a number of occasions. In 1991, Amy and fellow journalist and activist Allan Nairn were shooting a documentary depicting the genocide in East Timor, then occupied by the Indonesian military. In the midst of a massacre of a huge group of Timorese, she and Allan were brutally beaten and almost killed by Indonesian soldiers.

With her book, The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media that Love Them, she challenges the policies of the Bush Administration, holding the corporate media accountable for reproducing the lies of those in power. WireTap Magazine spoke with Amy Goodman about her career, her thoughts on U.S. foreign policy, and what we can do to support free and independent media.

WireTap: What inspired you to pursue a career in journalism?

Amy Goodman: In high school I saw it as a way of documenting what was around me and holding those in power accountable -- at the time it was my school principal. And so, it was just something I always did. I was editor of my high school newspaper and it was a way to try to improve the situation; it was my way of dealing with issues by exposing injustice, and trying to improve things.

WT: Who were your sources of inspiration in your twenties?

AG: My parents, who were peace activists. My grandparents, who were immigrants to this country, fleeing persecution.

WT: What did you do before your work with Pacifica Radio?

AG: I was lucky enough to find what most journalists look for their whole lives at the beginning of my career at Pacifica (then WBAI), and that is independence. I was always involved with newspapers from when I was a kid. But on WBAI I heard all of the rawness and realness of New York by just tuning in. It was all the various accents and experiences of New York and hearing all of that in people's voices and it just amazed me and mesmerized me.

WT: In The Exception to the Rulers you talk about the responsibility that journalists have to "go where the silence is." Why is it more difficult for the mainstream reporters to carry out this responsibility?

AG: It's not more difficult to do it, they just don't do it. I think the obstacle is media consolidation. The fewer the owners, the more similar the points of views expressed. And I think the media was at an all-time low when leading up to the invasion [of Iraq]. All the cheerleading for war and singing the praises of those in power -- it was a tremendous disservice to the people of this country.

I definitely don't have unlimited access, but if you can't get information one way, you pursue it another way. But I think it's very important that we not partake in the "access of evil" -- we talk about it in the book -- the trading of truths for access. It happens when journalists go to press conferences and ask soft questions just to get access, just to get a quote. But we can't trade truth for access. Because politicians need journalists more than journalists need politicians.

WT: You talk about mainstream journalists contributing to the "access of evil." But what about reports that came out about the Abu Graib scandal or Hurricane Katrina where it would seem the mainstream media has been somewhat critical of the government?

AG: I say that journalists indulge in the "access of evil" in that they trade truth for access to these politicians so that they can get a direct quote. I think what counts is the repetition -- how often the story is told. It's very important that the Abu Graib prison story was broken -- it was broken by CBS and by Seymour Hersh at The New Yorker. At CBS, they held on to it for a few weeks, but they did break it.