Amy Goodman is an American broadcast journalist, syndicated columnist,
investigative reporter and author. Goodman's investigative journalism
career includes coverage of the East Timor independence movement and Chevron
Corporation's role in Nigeria. Since 1996, Goodman has hosted Democracy Now!,
an independent global news program broadcast daily on radio, television and
the Internet. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Thomas
Merton Award in 2004, a Right Livelihood Award in 2008, and an Izzy Award in 2009
for "special achievement in independent media". In 2012, Goodman received the
Gandhi Peace Award for a "significant contribution to the promotion of an
enduring international peace". Goodman is the author of five books, including
the 2012 The Silenced Majority: Stories of Uprisings, Occupations, Resistance,
and Hope. Early life
Amy Goodman was born on April 13, 1957, in Washington, D.C. Her father, George
Goodman, was an ophthalmologist and her mother, Dorothy, a literature teacher,
then social worker. Goodman is of Orthodox Jewish heritage; her maternal
grandfather was an Orthodox Rabbi. Raised in Bay Shore, New York, she
graduated from Bay Shore High School in 1975, and from Radcliffe College in
1984, with a degree in anthropology. Goodman spent a year studying at the
College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine.
Investigative journalism career In 1991, covering the East Timor
independence movement, Goodman and fellow journalist Allan Nairn reported
that they were badly beaten by Indonesian soldiers after witnessing a
mass killing of Timorese demonstrators in what became known as the Santa Cruz
Massacre. In 1998, Goodman and journalist Jeremy
Scahill documented Chevron Corporation's role in a confrontation between the
Nigerian Army and villagers who had seized oil rigs and other equipment
belonging to oil corporations. Two villagers were shot and killed during
the standoff. On May 28, 1998, the company provided helicopter transport to
the Nigerian Navy and Mobile Police to their Parabe oil platform, which had
been occupied by villagers who accused the company of contaminating their land.
Soon after landing, the Nigerian military shot and killed two of the
protesters, Jola Ogungbeje and Aroleka Irowaninu, and wounded 11 others.
Chevron spokesperson Sola Omole acknowledged that the company
transported the troops, and that use of troops was at the request of Chevron's
management. The documentary, Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil
Dictatorship, won the George Polk Award in 1998.
Michael Delli Carpini, dean of the Annenberg School for Communication,
said, "She's not an editorialist. She sticks to the facts... She provides
points of view that make you think, and she comes at it by saying: 'Who are we
not hearing from in the traditional media?'"
= Democracy Now!= Goodman had been news director of
Pacifica Radio station WBAI 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 progressive 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. During that time, it moved to
a converted firehouse from which it broadcast until November 13, 2009.
Democracy Now! subsequently moved to a studio located in the Chelsea
neighborhood of Manhattan. Goodman credits the program's success to
the mainstream media organizations who leave "a huge niche" for Democracy Now!
When President Bill Clinton called WBAI on Election Day 2000 for a quick
get-out-the-vote message, Goodman and WBAI's Gonzalo Aburto challenged him for
28 minutes with human rights questions about Leonard Peltier, racial profiling,
the Iraq sanctions, Ralph Nader, the death penalty, the North American Free
Trade Agreement, the normalization of relations with Cuba, and the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Clinton defended his administration's policies
and charged Goodman with being "hostile and combative".
= Arrest at 2008 Republican Convention= During the 2008 Republican National
Convention, several of Goodman's colleagues from Democracy Now! were
arrested and detained by police while reporting on an anti-war protest outside
the RNC. While trying to ascertain the status of her colleagues, Goodman
herself was arrested and held, accused of obstructing a legal process and
interfering with a police officer, while fellow Democracy Now! producers
including reporter Sharif Abdel Kouddous were held on charges of probable cause
for riot. The arrests of the producers were videotaped. Goodman and her
colleagues were later released, and City Attorney John Choi indicated that the
charges would be dropped. Goodman's civil lawsuit against the St. Paul and
Minneapolis police departments and the Secret Service resulted in a $100,000
settlement, as well as an agreement to educate officers in First Amendment
rights of members of the press and public.
= Douglas border crossing incident= On November 25, 2009, Goodman was
detained for approximately 90 minutes at the Douglas border crossing into Canada
while en route to a scheduled meeting at the Vancouver Public Library. During an
interview of her and her colleagues, Immigration officials asked questions
pertaining to their intended topics of discussion at the meeting. They wanted
to know whether she would be speaking about the 2010 Olympic Games to be held
in Canada. "I was completely surprised by what he
was asking and did not know what he was getting at. I'm an anti-sports fan," she
told a CBC Radio interviewer. "At Democracy Now!, we don't cover sports
much." Goodman was eventually permitted to
enter Canada after the customs authorities took four photographs of her
and stapled a "control document" into her passport demanding that she leave
Canada within 48 hours. MSNBC's Keith Olbermann commented: "If you‘re that
desperate to prevent criticism of some Olympic games, you shouldn‘t detain a
noted commentator and write her scripts for her."
Dave Zirin of the Huffington Post quotes Derrick O'Keefe, co-chair of the
Canadian Peace Alliance, as saying: "It's pretty unlikely that the
harassment of a well-known and respected journalist like Amy Goodman about
whether she might be speaking about the Olympics was the initiative of one
over-zealous, bad-apple Canadian border guard. This looks like a clear sign of
the chill that the IOC and the Games' local corporate boosters want to put out
against any potential dissent." Recognition
Goodman has received dozens of awards for her work, including the Robert F.
Kennedy Prize for International Reporting and the George Polk Award. In
1999, she declined to accept the Overseas Press Club Award, in protest of
the group's pledge not to ask questions of keynote speaker Ambassador Richard
Holbrooke and because the OPC was honoring Indonesia for their improved
treatment of journalists despite the fact that its forces had recently beaten
and killed reporters in occupied East Timor.
On October 2, 2004, Goodman was presented the Islamic Community Award
for Journalism by the Council on American-Islamic Relations. On November
18, 2004, she was presented the Thomas Merton Award. In 2006 she received the
Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship.
Goodman was a recipient of the 2008 Right Livelihood Award. The Right
Livelihood Award Foundation cited her work in "developing an innovative model
of truly independent grassroots political journalism that brings to
millions of people the alternative voices that are often excluded by the
mainstream media". On March 31, 2009, Goodman was the
recipient, along with Glenn Greenwald, of the first Izzy Award for "special
achievement in independent media". The award is presented by Ithaca College's
Park Center for Independent Media. In May 2012, Goodman received an
honorary Doctor of Letters degree from DePauw University in recognition of her
journalistic work. She also received the Gandhi Peace Award from Promoting
Enduring Peace, for a "significant contribution to the promotion of an
enduring international peace". On May 16, 2014, Goodman received an
honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Purchase College, SUNY in recognition of
her progressive journalism. In February 2015, Goodman received the
2014 I.F. Stone Lifetime Achievement Award from the Nieman Foundation for
Journalism at Harvard. Bibliography
2004 – The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War
Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them co-written with her brother, Mother
Jones reporter David Goodman. ISBN 1-4013-0799-X
2006 – Static: Government Liars, Media Cheerleaders, and the People who Fight
Back. She appeared on the Colbert Report on October 5, 2006, to promote the book.
ISBN 1-4013-0293-9 2008 – Standing up to the Madness:
Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times details the capabilities of ordinary
citizens to enact change. Was on the New York Times bestseller list. ISBN
1-4013-2288-3 2009 – Breaking the Sound Barrier, an
anthology of columns written for King Features Syndicate. In her first piece
she wrote: "My column will include voices so often excluded, people whose
views the media mostly ignore, issues they distort and even ridicule." ISBN
1-931859-99-X 2012 – The Silenced Majority: Stories of
Uprisings, Occupations, Resistance, and Hope ISBN 1-6084-6231-5
Filmography In 2006, Goodman narrated the film One
Bright Shining Moment: The Forgotten Summer of George McGovern. Directed by
Stephen Vittoria, the documentary chronicles the life and times of George
McGovern, focusing on his failed 1972 bid for the presidency. The film
features McGovern, Gloria Steinem, Gore Vidal, Warren Beatty, Howard Zinn, Ron
Kovic, and Dick Gregory. The film won the Sarasota Film Festival's award for
"Best Documentary Feature." See also
List of peace activists References
External links Official website
Amy's Column on Truthdig Amy Goodman at AlterNet.
VIDEO: PBS/AOL Feature Amy Goodman as Part of "Makers: Women Who Make America
Series", January 28, 2013 Appearances on C-SPAN
In Depth interview with Goodman, April 7, 2013