Democracy Now!
Radical journalist Amy Goodman, the co-creator and host of Democracy Now!, was born on this date in 1957. Democracy Now! has been broadcasting on Pacifica radio and other networks since 1996, giving in-depth coverage to peace and human rights struggles, corporate malfeasance, and numerous other pressing international issues of our time. Goodman was the first journalist to win the Right Livelihood Award of the Swedish Parliament (2008), an “alternative” Nobel Prize, and was also the first recipient of Ithaca College’s Izzy Awards (2009), named for I.F. Stone. A graduate of Harvard, a granddaughter of an Orthodox rabbi, Goodman identifies as a secular Jew and keynoted the 2008 Jews Organizing Against the Iraq War conference in New York, cosponsored by The Shalom Center, the Workmen’s Circle and Jewish Currentsmagazine. Her books include Breaking the Sound Barrier, an anthology of her syndicated columns (2009), and Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times (2008), written with her brother, David Goodman.
“Journalism is the only profession explicitly protected by the U.S. Constitution, because journalists are supposed to be the check and balance on government. We’re supposed to be holding those in power accountable. We’re not supposed to be their megaphone.” — Amy Goodman
Watch Amy Goodman deliver a 2013 commencement address at Hampshire College here.
Lawrence Bush edited Jewish Currents from 2003 until 2018. He is the author of Bessie: A Novel of Love and Revolution and Waiting for God: The Spiritual Explorations of a Reluctant Atheist, among other books. His new volume of illustrated Torah commentaries, American Torah Toons 2, is scheduled for publication this year.
