"Going to where the silence is. That is the responsibility of a journalist: giving a voice to those who have been forgotten, forsaken, and beaten down by the powerful. It is the best reason I know to carry out pens, camers, and microphones into our own communities and out to the wider world."Back in April I had the opportunity to hear Amy Goodman near the start of her tour promoting her new book, The Exception to the Rulers. As I'm sure virtually every one of my readers knows, Goodman is the host of the Pacifica radio (and TV) show Democracy Now!, the single best progressive news show on the air today.
"If you are opposed to war, you are not a fringe minority. You are not a silent majority. You are part of a silenced majority. Silenced by the mainstream media."Goodman's book, written with her brother David, covers the full gamut of issues from her perspective as reporter and news anchor. Some of the chapters cover familiar territory - the media coverage of the invasion of Iraq, attacks on civil liberties with the PATRIOT act, the consolidation of the media. Other chapters cover events more associated with Goodman in particular, some about well-known events, like her coverage of the Nigerian dictatorship and the genocide in East Timor, and some about more uniquely personal events, like Goodman's appearance on the Sally Jessy Raphael show or her lengthy on-air interview of Bill Clinton ("hostile, combative, and even disrespectful" according to Clinton). Others deal with historical issues, like the coverup of the radiation deaths in Hiroshima by the New York Times.
"You have to ask the question: If we had state media in the United States, how would it be any different?" [A particularly appropriate question during this week of Reagan hagiography, I might add]Whether you're reading about things you know, or things you don't, this book will add something to your understanding of those events. It's well-written, easy to read, and, as the pulled quotes sprinkled through this review hopefully show, filled with memorable phrases. It is also a wonderful gift book for your friends or relatives who maybe aren't so political, or aren't political at all, or are political but are more "centrist" and lacking a real understanding of how this country and its power structure operates. Because, although the book pulls absolutely no punches, it's still written in Goodman's generally mild-mannered tone in a way that inspires absolute confidence in what she writes (not to mention well-documented for the skeptics). And as an added bonus, as Goodman explained in her recent interview on C-SPAN's Booknotes, all profits from the book are going to Pacifica and local radio stations. What a deal! Read a good book, buy some presents that will influence your friends, and support a good cause at the same time.
You can watch or read the transcript of the Booknotes interview on the Democracy Now! website (upper right hand corner), read excerpts of the book, and get details of her book tour (see her if you have the chance).
Read this book! And if Democracy Now! isn't part of your daily listening habits - what's wrong with you? ;-)
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