Ducks @ Oregon - University of Oregon

Amy Goodman and Democracy Now!

Katie D.

November 23, 2009 - 8:59 PM

"We need a media that covers power, not that covers for power. We need a media that is the fourth estate, not a media that is for the state."

-Amy Goodman

Where you get your news matters. I belong to a generation infamous for its lack of information about the happenings of the world. Statistically, we're not paying attention. And, until the mid-term elections of 2006, we didn't vote.

Things are changing. You've got to believe it.

I've seen studies bemoaning our fascination with shows like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and the Colbert Report. The older generations look at these newscasts with their fart jokes and blatant disrespect of authority and wonder what's becoming of the world. But here's the catch: Stewart and Colbert mock everyone equally. They're out to see some kind of truth come from their newscasts, and they aren't presenting each report as gospel. We know they're biased.

I am coming to believe that independent media is the most important tool in the world.

I don't remember exactly how I discovered Amy Goodman and Democracy Now! It was sometime sophomore year, and it honestly might have been an accident: I went through an excited discovery period with podcasts on itunes, and it is very possible that I stumbled on this newscast completely by accident. Now it's a part of my daily life.

Democracy Now! is a daily hour-long news broadcast available on independent TV and radio stations across the country. They are broadcasting on over 800 radio stations and are even available in several countries abroad, and provide the headlines in Spanish for any station to use. Every news report is an hour long, with about ten minutes of headlines, then 45 minutes of speeches, interviews, and explorations of the complicated topics and debates of the day. Through Democracy Now! I have arrived at an understanding of the healthcare debate. I have heard multiple sides of the economic crisis, of the environmental crisis to be discussed at Copenhagen, and a continued and dedicated coverage of such obscure and essential news as the coup in Honduras. These aren't soundbites. These are true explorations of the issues.

Imagine my excitement when I saw the front page of the Eugene Weekly, announcing that Amy Goodman would be visiting Eugene for a speaking event.

Yesterday I raced from one thing to another, running through downtown Eugene to the Wow Hall to see Amy Goodman speak.

It was a fabulous event. It was a little disorienting at first: this is someone's voice I hear for an hour five days a week. Even when I'm at my busiest, I listen to all of their headline segments, and catch up on the interviews as I'm walking from class to class. To actually be present as she ran through the information on Democracy Now! as she does every day was amazing. Plus, she's a great speaker: that's what she does for a living. She spoke for more than an hour, telling stories, speaking to the importance of independent media, and addressing some of the important issues of the day: health care, media integrity, military suicides, environmentalism, and the freedom of the press. She talked about being arrested while reporting on the Republican National Convention and about her experience with the health care system as her mother was dying just over a month ago. She told stories about the families of soldiers who have taken their own lives and the needs of our military personnel for adequate mental health services. She talked about a visit to Frederick Douglas's grave and his importance in American history and the depth of irony that the estate where he was sent to a slave breaker, Mount Misery, is now the vacation home of Donald Rumsfeld.

She asked us how Americans were supposed to understand complicated issues if the corporate media was unwilling to discuss most things for more than the 8-9 second sound bites. She told us that when she first started broadcasting, she was told that broadcasting whole speeches would be disastrous for her popularity because "young people don't have the attention span." The crowd yesterday was full of young people. We want to hear all of it, not just the most controversial three sentences. Even so, she found a way to explain a single payer health care system in less than five seconds: "Lower the age of eligibility for Medicare to the day a person is born." Here is a woman who is thinking through the issues: who sees what needs to be said and who is broadcasting it to the world.

Access to information is essential. It is the root of the power to affect change in the world. A democracy without a free press is unthinkable. But a democracy where the media is owned by a few corporate entities, and therefore acts as a mouthpiece for the interests of the few and powerful is a modern reality that is incredibly dangerous. I am so grateful to Amy Goodman and the whole array of people who work for Democracy Now!. I so appreciate NPR and Pacifica Radio. I love that I can access mainstream news and see the balance of information available through independent news as a measure for quality reporting. If you have never listened to Democracy Now!, I highly recommend it: it is available for download or for free on itunes podcasts. It is more than worth your time.

A parting thought: while information is power, it is also dangerous. To a certain extent, inaction is permissible if you can somehow claim ignorance. If you actually have access to the truth of the need for action in the world, you might be trapped into doing something about the injustices around you. Amy Goodman told us that "Obama's election opened a door in the wall of division in this country. Whether that door opens further or is slammed shut is up to us: up to the activist and the organizers." In my experience, to know the facts is to care about the outcomes. And that necessitates action. So listen, friends, and organize! Maybe this is our time.