The Journalist Who TERRIFIES Corporate America | Ash Sarkar Meets Amy Goodman from @DemocracyNow

We understood then, um, as the soldiers marched up, was there any hope here? And we always hid our equipment because if anyone was caught talking to us, they could be killed, disappeared. I slung the tape recorder over my shoulder that I had hidden in my bag. I held up my microphone like a flag. Alan put the camera above his head. We walked to the front of the crowd. The soldiers marched up 10 to 12 abreast. Without any warning, without any hesitation, without any provocation, they swept past us, and they just opened fire on the crowd, gunning people down from right to left. We could not succeed in stopping the massacre. >> [music] >> We're in an era where absolutely nobody trusts the mainstream media anymore. Audiences are fragmenting and seeking out truths which align with their worldview online. The result has been political volatility, but it's not a political volatility that the left has necessarily benefited from, at least not as much as the political right. But some of us are trying. You don't have to tell me how difficult it is to build truly independent media. It's expensive, it's laborious, and trying to get a story into mainstream circulation can sometimes feel like pushing a boulder uphill. For 30 years, Democracy Now has been doing just that. Covering global politics for an American audience, holding corporations and politicians to account with impressive tenacity. I'm really excited to be able to speak to Amy Goodman, co-founder and co-presenter of Democracy Now. She truly has been one of those journalists who has dedicated themselves to the first draft of history, witnessing massacres up close, uncovering the truth behind American corporate involvement with death squads overseas. She's been at the center of political stories in Washington, and she's even faced arrest for her journalistic work. Amy's extraordinary career is the subject of a new documentary, "Steal This Story, Please", covering her work from East Timor to the Niger Delta to Palestine to Washington. And I am just really excited to be able to pick her brains and understand what it is that drives her as a campaigning journalist. I hope you enjoy this episode. Amy Goodman, thank you so much for joining us on Downstream. >> Let me just take that gulp of coffee. I can't tell you, Ash, how honored I am to be directly sitting across a table from you. It really is a pleasure and an honor. >> The privilege is is definitely all mine. Um you have no idea how often we say Democracy Now when we're thinking about what is it we want to do next? Well, like, what does what Democracy Now do? Um so, I suppose that the the first thing that I wanted to ask you about is that on the Democracy Now YouTube channel, your most viewed video is an interview with the economist uh Richard Wolff about the decline of American Empire. Now, once upon a time, you'd say, "All right, that belongs to some dusty corner of the academy. You might have a bit of a a lefty conference and people show up with their tweed and their elbow patches." And if you're lucky, you get 80 people in a room discussing it. >> You found an audience of millions of people who are engaging with that kind of material. >> by the way, Ash? >> 5 million people wanted to watch that interview. Um why do you think that is? Why do you think that that is the kind of content that is resonating with people at this moment in time? >> I mean, I think it's happening all over the world, and I'm coming to you from the United States, where there is a explosion of interest and support for uh new wave for example of people I don't even want to say politicians of people representing the public in Congress and mayor being mayor and governor and there [clears throat] are a lot of issues that they care about and some people call it sewer socialism some people call it pothole politics deep concerns I was summarizing it the other day saying it's gas it's groceries and interestingly it's Gaza and each represent something much bigger than that but it's a new way of how do we take care of this planet beginning with individuals their families the communities and communities all over the world >> I mean so that's an interesting thing is that you've got these two very different kinds of scale so on the one hand you've got sewer socialism right build the infrastructure you've got the price of gas you've got potholes I mean Zoran Mandani is he's a great communicator and if he's fixing something he's going to let you know I saw him fixing a water leak today you know this idea of you've got to deal with these little problems that people live with every day and then you've got something on the scale of the genocide um you know are there tensions between those two things right how do you decide particularly as you know someone involved in media where your attention goes do you go big but kind of far away or do you go micro but very close >> and also you have Andy Burnham who's talking about nationalizing the water supply right because as we came into London we flew in from Edinburgh the international festival there that's what I learned was happening possibly in London and in the UK what exactly does that mean? But I think it's everything. It's why local newspapers matter so much. We're losing hyper-local news sites. But that's where we all begin. That's where we live. Um if we deal with those issues, it's not just and then you'll care about bigger issues. Those often represent the biggest issues right in your own community. I mean, when an ICE agent comes into town and rips away an immigrant family, um ICE of course is uh the acronym for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the United States. I I think it's pretty appropriate icing people out. Absolutely terrifying. >> force. >> Oh, completely. In fact, they're talking about investing in millions of dollars um in these gloves that have been developed. We've heard individuals talking about the policeman's glove shock them as opposed to a taser, but it's gloves that shock. Um and but it starts locally and people care locally perhaps more than when you hear it on a national level. It's too abstract. And hearing people speak in their community, um uh I think about what's happened in Minneapolis, for example, and I know I'm sure your viewers and listeners have heard what um happened there with the ICE surge, with the killing of Alex Pret and May Good, uh and the ripping away of children from their families, and um other people being taken out of their cars. I think about one woman named Ilhan Omar. >> Mhm. Um she's in her early 40s, extremely eloquent. Um she is autistic. She was headed to the doctor. And uh I smashed her car window. They put their hand into the car. She's the driver. And you know how you have your seatbelt across from your shoulder to your waist. And they had either I don't know if it was scissors or a blade and they were taking it across or her neck and she thought, "Oh my god, these guys have died. I'm next." Uh but what they did is they cut her seatbelt at her shoulder. Ripped her out. She's hanging from her shoulders. They're holding her arms behind her back. She's saying, "Please stop. I was headed to the doctor. I am trying to process this, understand what you are all saying." >> Cuz everyone's shouting all at the same time. >> is screaming and she's arrested, brought to the um Whipple Detention Center, the ICE jail. >> [clears throat] >> When she gets out, of course, we want to talk to her. I don't want to talk to other people about her situation. I want to talk to Ilhan. And she came on and she talked about what happened. Um And uh then Ilhan Omar, the congresswoman from Minneapolis. You know, she's the Somali refugee congresswoman. The congresswoman >> symmetrical face I've ever seen. Like she she really does. >> Um well, you I don't know if that's why uh the president [clears throat] calls her garbage, but he does. It is hard to believe. I'm talking about the president of the United States, most powerful country on Earth, or at least it was. Um And well, he calls the whole Somali community of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul garbage. And she invited Ilhan to be her guest at the State of the Union. Uh where President Trump would speak. And he she was so injured. She was so hurt. But she was so honored. And she went. And so >> [clears throat] >> we talked her about that experience. We said, "Wait a second. Now you're going to be in the Congress to hear this address. Could we have you on again?" After. She said, "Absolutely." We We're going to have her on the next morning. So she goes to the State of the Union. You might have heard about this. President Trump I think it was the longest State of the Union address in history. Uh the Republicans were standing up applauding sitting down standing up applauding I mean sitting down. And it would have been the same if it was the other way with the Democrats. But to say the least raucous. And the guests are up in the gallery where Aaliyah was. She was between a police chief of one town and a mayor of another who were also guests like her invited. And he starts to denigrate the uh Minneapolis community. And she stands up in silent protest. Just stands at her seat. I mean I don't know if you could even see her as people were standing up sitting down standing up. But the security saw her. And they dragged her out. They dragged her out. She stood up silently. So this is now happening to her a second time. We didn't know this. We were just wanted to have her experience of being Congress. She's arrested. Um >> [clears throat] >> she's let out at like 4:00 in the morning. She did have a date with us at 8:00 Eastern Standard Time when we do Democracy Now. She heads into the studio. We didn't know all this had happened to her. And she was wearing I said to her, "What can you What are you talking about?" And she said, "I'm wearing the same clothes I wore last night because I came to you from the State of the Union after my arrest. But I made a commitment that I would be on your show." And then she tells this gruesome story again. And you know this documentary about Democracy Now Steal This Story Please. The title of it is because as Aaliyah told her story all the networks picked it up. Here was a woman telling her own story, and that is why I think Democracy Now and Independent Media is so important. We don't have the pundits on who know so little about so much explaining the world to us and getting it so wrong. But the person herself. And as she told her story, the New York Times reported, the Washington Post, she's picked up on the networks. I consider an exclusive a failure. >> Well, so this is one of the really provocative things in the documentary. So you say an exclusive is a failure because what you want is your colleagues across the industry picking up the story, taking it up almost like a battle standard for themselves and and really running with it. And that I I wonder if there's a a sort of um political provocation in there, which is an exclusive is very individualistic, and it's about me and my status as a journalist, and look, I got the scoop. And this is a way of I guess seeing journalism a little bit more as a collective enterprise across Oh, different outlets. >> Completely. And I want people to steal the model of Democracy Now. Um independent, uh listener, viewer, reader supported around the planet, and that's how you can get by. I mean, we just celebrated our 30th anniversary, and >> Masha Allah. >> Uh thank you. Thank you. At Riverside Church, where Martin Luther King spoke a year to the day before he was assassinated, he gave his speech against the Vietnam War, April 4th, 1967. Um and he said, "My country, the United States, is the greatest purveyor of violence on Earth." Um he was castigated by the corporate media, right? Life magazine, I have a copy of the Life magazine. I think they said something like um he had done a disservice to his cause, his country, his people. Um but he just doubled down and he said, you know, we have to take on the three pillars of materialism, militarism, and racism. Um that is a true sanctuary of dissent, that place. And that's what I think of public media as, radio and television. It's what I think of Novara media as. Um it's what I think of independent cinemas, art houses as, public libraries as, sanctuaries of dissent. We have to make dissent commonplace because dissent is what will save us. >> Well, let's talk about the model. And I really want to know what the editorial process is like inside Democracy Now because at the end of the documentary that we're talking about, steal the story, please. Um we we're taken to October 7th, 2023. What was that editorial meeting like when the news is coming through about the Hamas attacks? Um what are you thinking in terms of how do we cover this story? How do we anticipate what's coming next in terms of the Israeli military response? How do we frame this for our audience? What were those conversations like? >> based on what's happening that day, it was actually a Saturday. And I was spending the morning at a hundredth anniversary of a Jewish socialist camp where people like Marisa Tomei went um and many others. Uh and they were having a big celebration at a community college in New York. I remember it was pouring rain. Um and then I was headed to the local mosque um at New York University where a friend's son was getting married. Um and all of this was happening as this was taking place from this huge Jewish gathering to a Muslim gathering. Um that was Saturday. That was just a day in the life. And then of course we do the show Monday through Friday and it's just as it's happening, we're learning, we're trying to get the voices on. Who would have thought it would be a revolutionary act to speak to a Palestinian journalist? I mean, that's where it's happening. >> Mhm. >> But according to the rest of the media it is. It is astounding when you [snorts] see what's ensued over the next two years. The lack of voices of just Palestinians, whatever their view. I'm not talking about sound bites of a official. I'm talking about people describing their lives. That's also why I think hyperlocal media is so important and that's where you start in this. Because that's when people identify when, you know, you've got your arm around your baby and you're trying to ensure that your baby survives that night. That's what it's not about Republican, Democrat, it's not about a political position. You just identify. And it's hard work and I want to say at Democracy Now, I am part of a brain trust of love. I mean, people deeply committed to independent media. Videographers, journalists, producers, graphic designers, uh directors, uh camera people, all committed to the same thing to ensure that we get as close to the story as we can. And the only time we tell someone else's story instead of them telling it themselves is when they're afraid, when their livelihood is threatened, when their own life is threatened, when um you know, there is a reason that they can't speak. Then we get people closer to them who can tell the story until they can tell their own, if they can. Um and that's the power I called Democracy Now news with a heart. And it's news with a heart because it's people describing their own experience and there's nothing more powerful. I think it's also why there's such a large youth audience cuz young people, you know, connect with authenticity. Um and it's not one political line. It's understanding when someone is pulling the wool over your eyes, when someone is just um repeating something that they have heard, but that's not actually what's happening. And that's what we try to do every single day. >> Interrupting this episode of Downstream to let you know that tickets have just gone live for our next Downstream IRL. We are super excited that mega big deal cultural theorist Katherine Liu is making her way across the pond. She will be in the UK with us for an event on trauma farming, all about the commodification of suffering in the attention economy. And if that's not enough for you, we will also be joined by Darren McGarvey, aka Loki. Basically, we're going to be talking about how pain became a leading personal brand. Join us at Earth Hackney on Monday, 21st of September. Doors open at 6:30, so come along. Look your friends in the eye. Get a drink at the bar. Just get off your screens for one evening. Looking forward to see you there. >> What do you make of this emerging cohort of right-wing journalists who have actually begun questioning and calling out the American government's backing of Israel. I mean, do you think someone like Tucker Carlson really cares about Palestinians? >> You mean the America First party that Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson, um uh Congressman Massie uh from Kentucky uh who was very vocal with Ro Khanna from California, Massie and Khanna in demanding transparency around the Epstein files. Uh >> [clears throat] >> I It is in its infancy and uh I mean, well probably a lot uh you can learn a lot from just their name, America First. >> [snorts] >> I think we are so far beyond that um unless they mean by it that the only way we can protect our country is by protecting everyone, but I don't exactly think that's what they mean. >> I mean, let let's talk about that that sort of relationship between the only way we can protect us is by protecting everyone because when I was watching steal this story, please, I was thinking what would a a right-wing critic say? And so, somebody like David Goodhart who's, you know, a sort of right-wing communitarian, he's got this theory of somewheres and anywheres. So, he says that somewheres are connected to a real sense of place, tend to be more socially conservative, they care about themselves, their families, the people in their immediate communities, um tend to have uh lower educational qualifications, so didn't necessarily go to university and all that, don't tend to move very far from where they live. And he'd say that anywheres are people like me and you, all right? So, um live in big cosmopolitan cities, have big cosmopolitan values, often went to university, very um, comfortable with social change, and quite fast-moving social change. And his accusation would be we're more interested in other places than we are the nation, our home, our immediate communities. And he would say that organizations like Novara or indeed Democracy Now, we're media for anywheres. We're not media for somewheres. And I was wondering what you would say back to that critique. >> Well, this is the first time I have heard that, and you know, one of the things that the documentary [clears throat] Still the Story plays explores is where I come from. Um, is [clears throat] my Jewish background, and I think that has informed so much of how I view the world, and I don't I'm not really speaking from um, a religious place, a secular place, but the fact uh, that my family, you know, came out of the Holocaust, and some survived, and some didn't. Um, that people came ultimately to the United States. My grandfather, my mom's father, was an Orthodox rabbi who ran a yeshiva in Brooklyn. Um, my father's grandfather was the Henry Street rabbi, uh, on the Lower East Side. He was a Hasidic rabbi, and that went back to my great great great great grandfather, who is the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism. Um, but, uh, I was imbued with a sense growing up through my education. I went to the both schools, you know, I went to Hebrew school, I went to regular school. Um my mother went to Yeshiva. She went to uh religious college and to Hunter College, the public school. Um everything was just sort of done uh parallel until in her last semester, senior year at Hunter and at I think it was Jewish Theological College. Um she said, "I'm going to follow the secular route. Why am I trying She would do her homework on the subways between the schools and she was coming home and she came out of the subway and my grandfather who would, you know, be with a top hat or a yarmulke waiting for her and then walking home. She said, "You know, Dad, I think I am not going to finish with the other school." He said, "Fine." And she said, "Fine." After all of these years, you don't care? I did this for you." And so he said, "Whatever you want, Dorothy." What uh her name was Dorothy, Dorie. "Whatever you want." I mean, and that I had these long conversations with my grandfather walking through the streets of Brooklyn, him with his hands behind him back his back at his waist and we would walk Many people as we passed, they would say, "Good day, Father. Hello, Father." Although he was a rabbi. He could have been a priest, he could have been a rabbi. He could have been an imam. >> [laughter] >> Um and we debated everything. And that's what was encouraged. Um >> And so you were possibly I'm actually such a somewhere. This is so rooted in the sort of experience of the Jewish diaspora in New York. Nowhere else could have made me. >> Well, it's it really was about seeing what could have happened and I was always stunned when I was growing up um that when I learned about the Holocaust that non-Jews helped Jews. That a Christian family would help a child and hide him in the barn when they're jeopardizing themselves. Um you know, the story of Anne Frank, of course. I mean, hidden in an attic, a whole family. And why would non-Jews do this? Why would someone who's Christian who's only everything to lose? Um I you know, they're called the righteous, and that is absolutely true. And I think I was imbued with the sense from very early on, never again for anyone anywhere. So, maybe with the somewhere the anywheres, I mean, and especially in the world we live in with uh internet connecting us all, um we are so connected everywhere. And that that is what I deeply believe that um we cannot get by unless we all get by. And so, we have to care everywhere, in each of our communities, and we have to ensure we all move forward. >> One of the things which I like the most about the documentary is when you talked about your family newspaper. So, you weren't the first uh journalist in your family. It was your little brother. >> brother David. I have three brothers. My younger brother David, when he was 8 years old, he started Dave's Press. Um and I'm very proud uh that we just did a swing through Vermont. He's a Vermont journalist. Um and >> [clears throat] >> I was with the editor-in-chief of Dave's Press. He's my brother. [laughter] Yes, at 8 years old we put he put out I'm not going to say we put out the family newspaper. I just dunned everyone for money. My grandfather, my great aunts and uncles, my cousins, you've got to pay your one penny subscription per year, or you're You're getting this paper. And then I would put the newspaper under my parents' pillows and my brother's pillows. I would slip it under people's doors. >> And there was some exclusive stories including the day where you got hiding from your mom. A spanking? >> That we call it a spanking. Yes. And my mother was absolutely furious and she sat David down, the editor-in-chief of Dave's Press. And she said, "David, you are not to air anything personal in this newspaper. You're not to cover that." And he said, "Well, Mom, this is the news of our family, [laughter] like right now." And she said, "Nothing personal, David." And he cried censorship. And he really cried because he was 8 years old. >> Oh, that's so sweet. >> But this is where we debated the Vietnam War in the letters to the editor page. My grandfather would write, "Dear David, um I so admire you and your newspaper, um but I have to say I disagree with your views on war." And David write back, "Dear Grandpa, um I love you so much. Thank you for being the first uh subscriber to my newspaper, but your views on war are stupid." >> [laughter] >> And that's And then my uncle would weigh in and he would say, "Shlomo, um uh [ __ ] was his name, uh Solomon. Uh how could you criticize your beautiful grandson David like that?" And that's how [laughter] it would go. >> I mean, do you think I I feel a little bit that we're in an age where you can't have love and disagreement at the same time. >> That's exactly what we learned we could do. I mean, our My friends when they would come either for Shabbos dinner, Friday night, or any dinner, they'd say, "My God, you guys talk to each other at dinner. We just eat." And I'd say, "We try to remember to eat." Um uh and we don't really have food fights, but we have roaring battles. >> Yeah. But still I love my family. And that's what I learned from an early point on that the two um go together. It's not just they don't take away from each other, that it's an expression of love to debate and discuss the critical issues of the day. >> I think people see things really differently now. So like in one of my, you know, little side jobs, I moonlight as an advice uh not really cuz it's on a podcast, but an advice columnist. Oh my god. And and you so often get these dilemmas. >> advice on what? >> So, everything cuz I'm very nosy. I'm very nosy. I just want to know whatever's going on, right? I don't have to know the people. I just need to know. And very often I'll get dilemmas written in from, you know, younger people, often, you know, young people of color who themselves have radical politics saying um you know, I've got this friendship with someone whose views are really opposed to mine and I just can't feel friendly towards them anymore. Or a big one is of course people feeling very divided over the genocide and it's it's such a morally stark issue to go I just feel that if you're on the wrong side of this one, how am I supposed to preserve any kind of um respect of relationship for you? And you know, I think the Vietnam War is obviously a hugely polarizing moral issue as well, but you guys were able to hold it together. Whereas I sort of think in this day and age, if you were to say, "Well, actually you you'd still need to love each other across these differences and hash it out." Some people might look at you and go, "Well, you're not you're not politically committed enough." It would become a test of your political commitment. >> mean that you're changing your views, although it is very helpful to hear people express different views, but that you can go back and forth, that you're confident about how you feel, and you appreciate um uh I mean, I learned so much from people in all different ways, and uh I'm less likely to cut someone off um than I mean, maybe the next argument they'll change. >> Do you think that you you're one of life's optimists? >> Yes. I think there's no question. Um You know, on the big issues like democracy, I don't ever think you achieve it. I think you have to fight for it every single day. Um but I think that fight, the process matters. We have to treat people with respect um with love, with care, um but we also have to move forward uh to make things more just. >> When >> And I think there is a value in that, and yes, we're experiencing some very deep valleys right now, where people are stopped from moving forward, and we just have to keep going. >> When you first um started with community radio, so WBAI, I think. I'm really bad at that. >> Ask my colleague Bernard White, who you see in Still the Story, please, who my beloved colleague, we did Wake Up Call so many years together. As he would say, we be all in this together. WBAI, we be all in this together. >> I mean, it's just it I I loved the footage from that time, and it was it was just so it was so beautiful, and there was such warmth that was in it. It's that it also sort of made me think, you know, what was it like at that point thinking about American race relations, right? Like, there's you, East Coast white Jewish woman, there's Bernard White, only thing white about him is his name. Um >> [laughter] >> You know, what was that editorial relationship like when you're you're telling the story of a of a moment um where you've got a black power movement, you're following after the assassination of Martin Luther King, you've got the rise of the Black Panthers and the Puerto Rican Young Lords. What was it like for the two of you to work together at that time? >> We navigated our way through it all. We came from very different worlds. We came to know each other's worlds. Um he also was a stained glass artist and every time I go to the home of the editor in chief of Dave's Press in Vermont, I gave him this beautiful stained glass that Bernard had made and to this day it hangs in their living room window. But I love Bernard White and um we covered so many different issues together. And when Dave Ice Say came, as you saw in Still the Story, and I want to say the directors of the film, Carl Deal and Tia Lessin, are a big deal and they teach us many great lessons. Um Oscar nominated work for Michael Moore for years as producers, did amazing film about a Hurricane Katrina called um uh Trouble the Water. Um they found that footage, like you're talking about me and Bernard in a radio station in 1996 at WBAI. Um it was actually Martin Luther King Day, 1996. We weren't doing TV, but they said, "Wow, when Maurice Bishop came into your studio, you know, when they interviewed me, I talked about these great moments." They said, "Were there any video footage?" I said, "It's a radio station." And so they said, "I know, but did anyone I said, "Oh, wait a second." One of the local stations wanted to film this and then someone else, I don't know if anyone else had a camera. It was such a big deal. And what touches me most is when Maurice Spickam, I mean, dare I say, in the United States, he started StoryCorps, which is people talking to each other. It's like, um, peer interviewing. There's peer counseling, this is peer interviewing. So, you bring your grandma into a van down the street or he builds a uh, a little booth for people um, and you bring in your coworker and you interview each other for half an hour. This has become enormous, thousands of interviews and hours now being archived by the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. And Dave was the had gone to Angola Plantation Prison, um, which was this prison of thousands of mainly African-American men. >> And it was called Angola cuz it used to be a slave plantation and that's where >> the slaves came to and the slave people were from. And Maurice was there from 1958 to >> Maurice Spickam? >> Maurice Spickam was just a guy, a young man, two white sheriff's deputies came to his home. They often, they also happened to be members of the clan and they shot at him and he picked up his rifle and he shot back. He killed them and there was like a one-day trial and he was found guilty and he was given, um, he was sentenced to death and he was put in Angola Prison and he stayed there year after year, decade after decade. And Dave was doing a story, um, he had come to, he had called WBAI for to for us to do a story on something entirely different, two heroin addicts were trying to make a museum on the Lower East Side and each day he would call me after, I didn't know who this guy was. Each day he would call me after the news show we did and I would say, "How come you haven't covered this museum that I said, "What museum are you talking about, sir?" And so he said, "What do you mean? Well, it's not been made yet, but two people have a dream of a museum." I said, "I don't I don't even know about it. Sorry, we're covering wars, we're covering" And so, okay, next day, after headlines, "How come you didn't cover this dream of these two people who have" I said, "Sir, after the fifth day." I didn't know if this was a crank or what. I said, "You seem to find it so interesting. It doesn't even exist yet." It was a museum he said they wanted to build of drug paraphernalia. I said, "Why don't you go do it?" And he came in with tape recording of this couple and I listened to it. In the morning I was sweeping up, put it on, whatever. And I said, "Whoa. Oh my god, who are you? This is the way he could listen and draw them out without speaking much." And I asked the other news editor of the WBI evening news, that's what I did at the time, take over the news of the day? I want to make sure this happens." And we played it and that night, um, uh, I gave it to a reporter at NPR, National Public Radio, and said, "This is an amazing piece." And it played on Morning Edition around the country that weekend. Um, and Dave, uh, was going to be a doctor and that's what his parents wanted, but he loved doing this. So, he heals the world in another way and he came to me and said, "I want to go down to Angola. I want to interview him." It's complete almost completely black population. He discovered Maurice Beckham. Maurice spelled m o r e e s e, Maurice Beckham. And he got a lawyer, that was Dave did, to try to get him out. I said, "This guy doesn't believe go, you know, shouldn't be in prison." Couldn't get him out and so he came to me and Bernard and he said, "I don't know what to do." And this is the role of journalism. >> I mean, so let's let's sort of like meet you at that point, all right? Someone comes to you and says I've got this story, I've got this case. So, it's not just a story to tell, it's kind of a campaign to run. What's your strategy for it? >> Just to keep covering the story Well, look, I you talked about being an advice columnist. I grew up on soap operas. And every day I'd run home and I would see, you know, in the United States it was called General Hospital, One Life to Live. I didn't identify with any of the people. I mean, they wore evening gowns in the middle of the day. >> the slaps that I remember. I just love a soap opera slap, just a real like >> [laughter] >> Perfect. >> Oh my god. >> I don't know if I was into into as much violence as you [laughter] are, but I just every day I What I In fact, that's very interesting you say that because it was precisely that it wasn't violent. You know, all the other TV shows that my brothers watched and everything. I grew up with three brothers. This wasn't violence. It was just, you know, who is with who and then who broke up with who and then who went off with who and I And every day you wanted to find out what happened. Yeah, it was meaningless, but um it was exploring relationships. And I was very taken and I would run home to find out each day. And in a funny way, I that really is a model for me with the news. I don't just do a news story. And, you know, okay, we did it, whatever. I wonder if he'll ever get out of jail. Let's go look at something else or another country. Um anywhere. Nope. Um what happened to him? We covered that guy. Is he still in prison? And to follow, I mean, the texture of a life, why should people care unless we call them on the phone? And then we call Maurice, and we call his grandchild, who he's never gotten to see, and they talk on the phone to each other. And then, there's so many ways to cover story. You know, when in the US, the corporate media is very good when soldiers are going off to war, they go to the base, they interview the family, what's it going to be like for their family member to leave, they follow them to the bus, and each day it's in a funny way like a soap opera. And I want to do the same thing with a activist who's leaving their home, and they're going to go to a protest. It's pouring rain, or it's snowing, or it's 100° outside. It's not easy to do this stuff. When you could just be playing with your friends, or hanging with your friends, to go out and to do this. And what is it about them? And I want to give value to what people do, whether they're staying home, or whether they're going off to. And also, by the way, on those soldiers going to war, the media stops at a certain point. If they come back, and suddenly, and I think they're probably I don't know if you can say there isn't a larger population those who are against war than those who come back from war, but there are a lot of anti-war soldiers, because they've experienced it. They want to know why they were in Afghanistan. They want to know how they were told to go to Iraq. I mean, they cared about what happened on 9/11, and they want to protect their country, and they're sent then to where? Iraq? To save the people there? I mean, to bomb the people there? I mean, what is it? And what did they have to do with 9/11? Were there any hijackers from Iraq? And so, when those people came home, they had a lot to say. The media isn't covering them anymore when had a very different message. Deeply concerned about what our country was doing. And I like to you know, we have to follow through on stories. And so with Maurice, um no, he wasn't getting out. And then well, what's the obstacle? Oh, well, the governor decides. In fact, just this last week >> [clears throat] >> we broadcast for 2 days from Edinburgh. >> Mhm. >> Uh at the we covered the Edinburgh International Festival. And Fringe is absolutely amazing there. >> Um but uh while we were there over the weekend into Monday, um a case we've been covering, Keith Lamar, a man on death row in Ohio. The Republican Governor, Mike DeWine, gave him a 3-year reprieve on execution. I don't you don't have this, but it's absolutely unbelievable. In fact, as I speak to you, three people scheduled to die on Thursday in the United States. Can you imagine? Scheduled to die. Um the state will kill them on Thursday, unless some other power intervenes. So, with Keith, he's scheduled to die January of next year. And the governor said, "We're going to give him and a few other men three more years, until 2030 they have to live." Why? Because the pharmaceutical companies don't want their drugs injected into them to kill them. They have a bind here. You've got these large drug companies, and they don't you know, harkens back to the Nazis, right? Injecting people with drugs that stop their heart. But interestingly, it's not only that, but the Republican Governor of Ohio, um has turned against the death penalty. He hasn't yet said no, vacated the death sentence. But he has put it off for a few years and we'll see what happens. Um, and so Keith called in, Keith Lamar, and everyone should check out his story. He was nominated for a Grammy for his music. I went to Joe's Pub, which is part of the Public Theater in New York City, where a band played and Keith Lamar joined them from Ohio Death Row. And he's a musician. And I'm nominated for a Grammy. And [snorts] uh he called in from Death Row. And he talked about what it meant both what it meant to have this incredible reprieve. I didn't know whether to say congratulations or what it means to say you will have death hanging over you for another few years. You've got another few years to live. Um, but to continue to tell these stories so people say, "Hey, what's Keith doing today?" >> I'm going to be devil's advocate again. I'm going to pretend to be a BBC senior editor. And what someone at the BBC would say is this is all well and good. But activists have just as much an interest in cherry-picking facts, creating a certain narrative because there's a political end that they want to see in the world. So just like a politician or a lobbyist will come along selling you horse [ __ ] because there are things that they want to see in the world, an activist is just as likely to do that. What do you make of of the role of a campaigning journalist vis-a-vis activists? Is it your job to be skeptical, to apply pressure? If not, why not? If so, how do you do it whilst at the same time holding your own values and sense of mission? How How do you approach that? >> I mean, you call it a campaigning journalist, I call it uh just being thorough. We start to investigate a story. Um, >> [clears throat] >> we start to to talk to people around that story and we continue to follow it. We are a daily grassroots global unembedded, non-embedded in the state, independent international investigative news hour. So, we continue to cover every aspect of the story. Um, >> even the bits which might make activists look bad. >> Um, even the bits that make activists or non-activists. It's it's a forum for people to discuss and debate the critical issues of the day. Um, and you [clears throat] know, the media often will have a debate between the far right and the mid right. So, you know, when it came to, for example, Iraq, uh, do we invade? Uh, do we just bomb or do we put boots on the ground? And that's the debate. Um, well, what about those who don't think you should be involved in a war at all? And so, we widen the debate and we widen the number of people who participate in that debate. So, you know, my colleague Nermeen Shaikh, who's co-host on Democracy Now, uh, talked about the frame of the media. We expand the frame and take people who are outside that frame, not only bring them into the frame, but center them. And who are these people? Um, I mean, I really do think people who care about war and peace, who care about the climate, who care about racial and economic justice, who care about the immigrant crackdown, who care about um, inequality, who care about LGBTQ issues are not a fringe minority. I'm not talking about Edinburgh here in the Fringe Festival. Are not a fringe minority, not even a silent majority, but the silenced majority, silenced by the corporate media. And so, we have to build a media that brings in all these voices, that continues to cover these issues, not as some abstract thing and then you move on to something else. I mean, actually the people you're talking about, the people in and I don't call them mainstream. I call them the corporate media because I really do think that those who care about all those issues, they represent the mainstream. That's what I think. I when I walk down the street and talk to people, I think the vast majority of people care about all of these issues and you can have really important discussions and they will talk about people they know that deal with that are involved [clears throat] with these different issues or the victims of the target of some kind of policy. And that's what we try to get at, get away from the rhetoric and go to the real fact of people's lives. I don't think we're that far apart. >> I mean there's an example that's in my head of a time when our audience got very angry with an interview that we did with a politician who they saw as being on the left. So, the the sort of details aren't important, but sort of what happened was is that there's a a politician called George Galloway interviewed by my colleague Aaron Bastani, who's very pro-Palestine, who's very against the war in Iraq, also quite a socially conservative guy. And so, my colleague sort of pressed him, you know, what do you mean by by family values? Like what do you mean? And he said, well, you know, I don't like my children being taught that gay relationships are normal." And so Aaron pressed him further and he was like, "Well, do you mean typical?" And he was like, "No, I mean normal." And so we published it and it became hugely controversial. But there was a really big part of our audience who felt that we [ __ ] him over. And who thought >> Are you allowed to use that word in our media? >> I do all the time. >> Oh, I see. I see. You know, in the United States you can be taken off the air if it's a broadcast. >> So, because this is YouTube >> [laughter] >> you can even use the C-word if you like. It's less offensive here in the UK. Um but they really felt that we stitched him up. And the some of the feedback that we were getting back was, "Well, you behave just like the corporate media." And so >> They might not have cared as much about the issue of LGBTQ equality. So, they might not have pushed that. >> I I suppose that the the thing which I'm kind of wondering about because it's very rare for me to talk to someone whose funding model is so similar to ours, right? That's so reliant on audience donations is are there times where you have felt the temptation to self-censor because of how your audience, on whom you are financially dependent, might receive something? >> I mean, I think we have such a wide-ranging audience. I I couldn't characterize what they feel. I should say, you know, I I started telling it in somewhere in some stream of consciousness I never finished, but 30 years ago when we started uh we went online right away. We were among the first news organizations, but we did that cuz necessity's the mother of invention and the networks could afford to send This is before the word podcast, okay? We had an MP3, the radio show, before it was a TV show. 59 minutes, how do we get it to stations? They could afford to pay satellites, we couldn't, so we put it online. And so the radio stations could take it, but then people would take each segment and transcribe it. So someone in London would take the first segment, someone in Texas would volunteer to take the second segment, someone in Mexico would take the third segment. They would transcribe it, or there would be a bunch of people on each segment. They would send it to We hired a transcription coordinator. We post the whole thing online right away. Most networks even to this day don't put full transcripts, but we felt Well, steal the story, please. Then network reporters would take our stories and because they're transcribed and not your typical pundits, they would take them to the State Department press briefing, White House press briefing, Pentagon press briefing. They would base questions on them. Um But um my point here is we posted it all online, which built this global audience. I remember one of the networks did do transcripts, but they didn't show them because the problem was how would they come up in searches if they didn't put the words there, but they didn't want to post them. So it somehow at the back end they would put them, so they would come up higher in a Google search. We just put it all out there. And that built this global audience from early on. We asked some tech consultant to look at our website at some point, and I think he worked at Fox on the tech end, and he said, "Are you kidding? All the networks are looking at you." I remember when Time magazine first started and I think they spent $20 million building their website and they put up a paywall. First mistake. And um it failed. And we just kept saying, "Steal these stories, please." And the more we did that, the more um we reached out. There was a global audience. I remember once having Arundhati Roy, the great Indian writer and activist on the show. Some guy calls up from California said, "It was like 3:00 in the morning." He left a message. He said, "I heard this Arundhati lady and uh wow." And he certainly wasn't a progressive guy. Um I don't categorize people as easily as others do. I do think liberal and conservative lines are breaking down. They're not as meaningful. And um we just take on issues and we just keep going with them. >> I I I take that point that your your audience is very diverse geographically, ethnically, age, gender, all of this. I I I take that point. But I still I'm interested in has there been a time where perhaps a section of your audience has said we I don't like how you've covered this story. You know, I feel um disappointed, betrayed, or you should have done it like this or >> think our audience learns I think we learn from our audience and our audience learns from us. And certainly if someone says you've left out this aspect, so we're interested and we always say, you know, write to I mean, this is conventional email, uh stories@democracynow.org, or respond on Instagram, YouTube, however you want to respond. But if you have a suggestion of someone to talk to and how they can be contacted and what their story is, let us know. This is a dynamic process all the time. It's not It's not we're putting out a point of view on one day and that's it, take it or leave it. Um Uh love it or leave it at all. It's a process, right? The same thing. We never achieve democracy. We have to fight for it every day. And as I said, those debates on the right, you know, do you bomb by air or do you move in the troops? We've got it not only to expand that debate to why war at all, but also there are progressive debates on every issue. I know that from my family. And um and teasing out those, having a forum where people can say, "That's not really a debate at all." Oh, we know it's a deep debate. And really going for it. And we're not perfect and on every issue we can do a lot more. >> I suppose my my feeling is that I think that people increasingly see their media diet as an expression of their politics. And that's coming from a real critique. People can see that corporate media has served political purposes, that it's served the interests of, you know, oligarchs and, you know, the capitalist classes is how I would put it. People can see that. And they want to support media that they feel um represents a different set of values. So, it's not just I'm here because I want the truth, it's I'm here because I want truths that I can't get elsewhere. That's an important thing. >> And there's no the truth. I mean, yes, uh when it comes to President Trump, um he lies continually. It's just astonishing to see and the fact that you can prove it really makes no difference to him, right? There is something called video and audio recordings and he says, "I never said that." Or he just said something opposite from the truth. Or with the bombing of Manab, he says, "Oh, it's fake news what they put out about the US doing this." When obviously it just flies in the face of the truth. Um but on that point of truth, just going back to it, um there I want to bring out the voices of people who express also different truths, the truths about their lives that make people say, "Oh, that's why they think the way they do." You don't have to agree, but you can come to understand. I mean, the media is so important because unless you personally know someone and know their views, the way we learn about other countries, about other populations is through the media, and it's got to be through something other than a corporate lens. >> I mean, I I I suppose coming back to that thing of of people see it as an expression of their their politics, right? And I think that many of your viewers will look at you not just as a reporter, but sort of as a as an embodiment of a set of values that they align with. And if you were to say, for the sake of argument, give Jeremy Corbyn a really hard time, put him under a lot of pressure politically, there are some people would go, "I don't like that you did that cuz I see him being put under pressure by Sky News and the BBC and, you know, the Guardian and The Times, and I'm looking to you to be supportive of left-wing things." You know, how how do you guys navigate that part of the media? >> left-right thing, and I want to ensure that we get out views that are so often not heard in the corporate media, and you just keep going, and you raise these issues. It may not be in one interview, but at different times, and um there is so much that is left out of the corporate media, so many people that are left out, the vast majority of people, and so many different views that, yeah, we have a lot of work to do. >> Um in the documentary, the part which was about the work that you guys did in the Niger Delta, so uh this was during a time when Chevron was operating in the Niger Delta, and what you guys were able to find out, and most importantly find proof for, was that Chevron was involved in uh these death squads, right? The The kill and go team, right? These These soldiers who who came in and shot people. >> soldiers or police, and the way Chevron was dealing with them was flying them in on Chevron helicopters. And into the Niger Delta, and you know, the people would protest the pollution of their mangrove forests. And um in the case that we found, and I did this with Jeremy Scahill when he started at Democracy Now. >> He was a baby. He was in his early 20s. He was like 22, 23, or something. >> you see Jeremy there when he started Democracy Now. You see Sharif Abdallah Kadu. Um Jeremy would go on to co-found The Intercept and now Dropsite News. But yes, Jeremy and I um went to Nigeria, um Africa's most populous country, and >> a dangerous time to do so. Like it was a very dangerous time to do so. Um and >> And let me say that uh the reason I went is because of Ken Saro-Wiwa. Now, I hadn't actually, I'm embarrassed to say, heard of Ken Saro-Wiwa, um who is this remarkable writer. He wrote soap operas in Nigeria, very popular, but he threw in his lot with his own people, with the Ogoni people. And he saw what was happening as as in that case, it was Shell Corporation was crisscrossing his community in Ogoniland. Um and they were flaring off gas. The kids didn't know a dark night. Um and he took it because he was a very prominent person in Nigeria, he could go out globally, and he took the um He took the protest against Shell globally, and he came to our studio. A Nigerian activist brought him in, and I said, "I'm sorry. We have a book show today." They came in like that day. He said, "Well, we're here." And I said, "Who?" And they said, "Ken Saro-Wiwa." "Ken Saro-Wiwa what?" And they said he only can come today at 2 minutes. I mean, we'd have to bump someone else for him. And he talked about what he was doing. And I was just looking at this man. He just exuded an aura. And as he spoke, we dumped or bumped the next guest and next guest and next guest. And I said, "Well, are you going back to Nigeria?" And he said, "Oh, yes." Um I said, "What's going to happen?" And he said, "Well, I am a marked man." And he went home and he was executed by the Nigerian regime. Um uh his brother, a doctor, told us that Shell had approached him and said if he would call off the international protest, uh he didn't have to die. Um and I knew then uh that we had to go to Nigeria. Uh and we discovered uh this other oil company, Chevron, in the Niger Delta was um bringing in the military, the kill and go, the kill and go. And they were uh killing or arresting journalists. And uh you know, Chevron is based in California, in San Rafael, California. And we felt it was absolutely critical that we tell the story. >> Um tell me about your time in East Timor. Um because you were there and you were present a first-hand witness to a massacre that was carried out by the Indonesian army. And I was wondering about the line, if there is a line, between being a Western journalist who's present somewhere is powerful by virtue of being from the West. Um seeing things, witnessing things, and experiencing things as well. You were you were very brutally beaten from from what I understand. And not making yourself the story. You know, how do you sort of deal with like I guess the subject position in a in a context like that? >> East Timor was, you know, just very briefly cuz most people don't know about what happened was one of the great genocides of the late 20th century. December 7th, 1975, the Indonesian military armed, trained, and financed by the United States. Uh Britain did its part. Um 90% of its weapons were from the United States, invaded East Timor by land, by air, and by sea. This was 75. Uh it was President Ford, Secretary of State Kissinger. They met with Suharto, the long-reigning dictator there. And as they flew out to meet with another dictator, Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines, uh Indonesia basically, Suharto felt he'd gotten the go-ahead that he could invade without the US cutting off the weapons supply. And he attacked East Timor. And for the next quarter of a century, they killed off a third of the population. So, the story is the people of East Timor. And I didn't know about this in 1975. I mean, I um uh but I was going to Guam to cover fascinatingly an abortion story. It's territory of the United States. And they were introducing an anti-abortion bill. And if Guam [clears throat and snorts] approved this, and uh a lawyer there, uh who is Guamanian, um uh sued to get the law overturned, it this case could go to the Supreme Court, and it could overturn Roe v. Wade in the United States, which ultimately was overturned, but not because of Guam. So, I went to Guam to check that out. And I was near East Timor. And I went with my colleague, Allan Nairn, an investigative reporter who had done so much on Latin America, particularly places like El Salvador and Guatemala, and the US role there in supporting and um coups and military regimes. And after I went to Guam, I went on to East Timor, and it was a hell on Earth. I went in 1990, and then again in 1991, and it was November 12th, 1991. At the beginning of our trip, we were going there then because we'd learned the UN was going to send a delegation for the first time to investigate the human rights situation, so we wanted to be there. And it was horrifying still. People were taking refuge in the Catholic churches. It had been occupied by Portugal for hundreds of years, but Portugal had pulled out in '74. Um and the question was, was Indonesia going to invade? And >> [snorts] >> people were taking refuge in the churches, in the Catholic churches, the only place they could gather. Um we went to the Catholic church. The women were wailing, crying in the church, and we learned the Indonesian military had killed a young man the night before. We saw the his blood on the steps of the church. And we went around the country, and we learned that at the behest of the United States, the UN delegation was not going to come. And on November 12th, the people just went to communion in the morning, and thousands then marched to the cemetery where so many people were buried um to protest the occupation. They said, "Free um long live Viva East Timor, Viva Sebastião, Viva um independence." And uh when they got to the cemetery, and yes, we were there, Western journalists in the middle of a crowd saying, "Why are you risking your life? They've killed so many Timorese, 200,000 Timorese." And they say, "For my mother, for my father, for my village, it was wiped out." And yes, we understood then, um, as the soldiers marched up, was there any hope here? And we always hid our equipment because if anyone was caught talking to us, they could be killed, disappeared. I slung the tape recorder over my shoulder that I had hidden in my bag. I held up my microphone like a flag. Alan put the camera above his head. We walked to the front of the crowd. The soldiers marched up, 10 to 12 abreast. Without any warning, without any hesitation, without any provocation, they swept past us, and they just opened fire on the crowd, gunning people down from right to left. Um, we, uh, a group of soldiers came at us. Um, uh, they beat me to the ground. Alan threw himself on top of me to protect me from further injury, and they took their US M-16s like baseball bats, and they slammed them against his skull until they fractured it. As we lay on the ground, they were shouting, "Australia, Australia, are you from Australia?" But we knew exactly what they meant because in October of 1975, right before Indonesia invaded, there were five Australian journalists in a place called Balibo. There's very good movie called Balibo to see what happened to them. Um, they were from ABC, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and other news networks. And the Indonesian military lined them up against a house and executed them. The Australian government hardly protested the killing of their journalists, we believe because years later Australia and Indonesia would divide up the oil spoils in the Timor Gap. Oil is a source of so much pain in the world. Um and so we knew we had to be very clear where we were from. No, not Australia. America. America. We were from the same country their weapons were from. They would have to pay a price for killing us they'd never had to pay for killing the Timorese. And they moved on. A Red Cross Jeep pulled up to help the Timorese. We were able to get into this Jeep. We got to the hospital. The Indonesian military killed more than 270 Timorese on that day. Um we knew the only way we could not succeed in stopping the massacre at the cemetery where they had all gathered was to get word to the outside world. And so we raced to the airport. We First I we had to clean up Allen he was covered in blood. Um Oh, I went to the bishop's house who'd later win the Nobel Peace Prize, Bishop Belo. I asked him to help me and we cleaned up Allen. He gave him a shirt and we raced to the airport. Only one plane was out that day. Um somehow we were able to get onto the plane. We didn't know if they'd consciously decided not to kill us or there was a gap in communication but we said we had to leave. Um we have to use our Western privilege um because what was happening was because the West was allowing this to happen was providing the weapons and the support for this to happen. And we got on that plane. We flew to West Timor. We flew to Bali. Um we had made a call to the West. We said the Indonesian military has uh committed a massacre. At first Indonesia denied it. Then what happened to us? Just the two of us what happened. I had taken Allen's shirt and I wrapped it under the bishop's towel that he'd given me around my waist cuz I wanted to have the evidence and someone we gave them our camera someone Oh, no, they had taken our camera but someone took 20 pictures of us and gave me the film I had secreted away. And uh um they developed it on Guam, and we showed what happened to us then if you're not going to uh if you're going to deny that what happened to the Indone- to the Timorese people. Um when we got back to Washington after Allan got out of the hospital, he held a news conference at the National Press Club, and we said this was done with US weapons. And a nationwide movement grew up. There was a movement all over the world, but the US was the main supplier of the weapons. Uh and for 8 years people really rallied as they did in all over. I mean, the Timorese were so unbelievably brave. And in 1999 I remember being at the UN on this day, and it's such a lesson overall. We heard that the UN was going to sponsor a referendum for the people of East Timor to get to vote either for their freedom or to be part of Indonesia. You never know when that magic moment will come, but if you're involved with social change um in building a foundation um you will make history or you can determine the future. And they said, you know, who knows how it'll turn out. I tried to get back into East Timor for this vote. The Indonesian military caught me twice as I tried to go in through Bali as I tried to go in through um Jakarta. They caught me coming into the country, and they deported me twice. But Allan did get in. And as Indonesia burned much of East Timor to the ground the on the days of the vote the people of East Timor voted for their freedom. For the next 3 years, they were run by the United Nations. Sergio de Mello, who would die in Iraq in a bombing. Um, he was the point person for the UN. And I was able to get into Timor the day of their independence and in a place called uh Tasi Tolo right outside Dili, the capital. 100,000 people gathered. Xanana Gusmão rose to the podium. He'd been long imprisoned by Indonesia, the first president of an independent East Timor. Um the Democratic Republic of Timor Leste of Timor of East Timor. He spoke in four languages putting everyone to shame. And there was this fireworks display and you could see the light reflected in the tear-stained faces of the people of East Timor. They had resisted and they had won. At an unbelievably, unacceptably high price, but they had won. And they had something to teach every one of us, whether we're journalists, artists, doctors, nurses, educators, employed or unemployed. We have a decision to make every day. Whether we want to represent the sword or the shield. >> Amy Goodman, thank you so much for joining us on Down Stream. >> Oh my gosh, thank you for all that you do.