{"id":322,"date":"2026-06-15T09:07:29","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T09:07:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=322"},"modified":"2026-06-15T09:07:29","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T09:07:29","slug":"amy-goodman-on-the-job-of-journalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=322","title":{"rendered":"Amy Goodman on the Job of Journalism"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

No American journalist has spoken more truth to power in recent decades than Amy Goodman, whose work as an independent journalist and the host of Democracy Now!<\/em> is explored in the new documentary Steal This Story, Please!<\/em> To get a read on press freedom as the US marks its 250th anniversary, John Nichols spoke with Goodman. Their conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.<\/p>\n

Read more Hate To Say We Told You So: NATO Expansion Edition<\/a><\/p>\n

JN: <\/em><\/span> How vital is press freedom to the promise of American democracy?<\/strong><\/p>\n

AG: <\/em><\/span><\/strong> Journalism is essential to the functioning of a democratic society. It\u2019s holding those in power to account, and it\u2019s also our job to go to where the silence is, right?<\/p>\n

Actually, it\u2019s often not silent there\u2014it\u2019s raucous, it\u2019s rowdy, people are organizing. But it doesn\u2019t hit the corporate-media radar screen.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s our job to bring out the voices of the people closest to the story\u2014people who are deeply involved in their communities. That\u2019s what makes a functioning democracy.<\/p>\n

JN: <\/em><\/span> Yet journalism is now threatened.<\/strong><\/p>\n

AG: <\/em><\/span><\/strong> We are in an extremely dangerous moment. We have a president who calls the press the \u201cenemy of the people.\u201d Nothing could be further from the truth\u2014and, of course, so much of what he says couldn\u2019t be further from the truth. The free press is absolutely not the enemy of the people. There\u2019s a reason why freedom of the press is enshrined in the US Constitution, in the First Amendment. And included in freedom of the press is the public\u2019s right to know. Without this, people can\u2019t make informed decisions. You can\u2019t have a meaningful democracy without people being fully informed, and then they can make their decisions about war and peace, life and death.<\/p>\n

Read more Open Letter to the Born Again<\/a><\/p>\n

The president\u2019s rhetoric is extremely dangerous. He has even encouraged physical violence against journalists and media workers. He\u2019s also appointed people to key roles in the government who are totally hostile to a free press. Take Brendan Carr, the chair of the Federal Communications Commission. He\u2019s the one who threatened ABC television stations that carry Jimmy Kimmel<\/em> Live!<\/em>, after Kimmel said something President Trump didn\u2019t like. What did Carr say? I remember when we played it on Democracy Now!<\/em>: \u201cWe can do this the easy way or the hard way,\u201d implying that stations could lose their broadcast licenses if they didn\u2019t take Kimmel off the air. That\u2019s just one example. Of course, with CBS, you have another example, and now Stephen Colbert\u2019s gone. These are examples of Trump wielding the power of the federal government to threaten and attack a free press. And you have, more importantly and more insidiously, the Trump administration exerting pressure on corporate conglomerates to rein in their media properties in order to advance the interests of the corporations\u2019 bottom lines (including moves that, critics argue, are designed to secure federal approval for mergers and acquisitions).<\/p>\n

JN: <\/em><\/span> How can Americans address this threat and create media systems that serve democracy?<\/strong><\/p>\n

AG: <\/em><\/span><\/strong> Support independent media, where you have a different model of media that is not funded by corporations. Look at Pacifica Radio, for example, founded in 1949 by a war resister, Lewis Hill. He came out of the detention camps and said there\u2019s got to be a media outlet not run by corporations that profit from war, but run by journalists and artists. Independent media allows people to speak for themselves. And when you hear a Palestinian child or an Israeli grandmother or an uncle in Afghanistan or an aunt in Iran, it challenges the stereotypes and the caricatures that fuel the hate groups. You may hear an uncle in Afghanistan who reminds you of your uncle and makes it much less likely that you\u2019ll want to destroy him. I think the media can be the greatest force for peace on earth. Instead, all too often, it is wielded as a weapon of war, which is why we have to take the media back. And we have to support it.<\/p>\n

When we cover war and peace, we shouldn\u2019t be brought to you by the weapons manufacturers. When we cover the climate catastrophe\u2014the fate of the planet\u2014we shouldn\u2019t be brought to you by the oil, gas, and coal companies. When we cover inequality, we shouldn\u2019t be brought to you by the banks. Independent media is brought to you by the listeners, the viewers, the readers who want to know the truth, who want to hear authentic voices. And that\u2019s a media serving a democratic society.<\/p>\n

Read more 10 \u2018Nation\u2019 Articles on the Roosevelts, From TR\u2019s Early Days to Eleanor\u2019s Death<\/a><\/p>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Nation Magazine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":321,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-qa"],"yoast_head":"\nAmy Goodman on the Job of Journalism - Atlas Living Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=322\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Amy Goodman on the Job of Journalism - Atlas Living Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Nation Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=322\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Atlas Living Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-15T09:07:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=322#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=322\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/f6233854b1f92a6d21147fe5d5e58abc\"},\"headline\":\"Amy Goodman on the Job of Journalism\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-15T09:07:29+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=322\"},\"wordCount\":810,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=322#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/098d1b3cf08710db2b6079337c996723.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Q&A\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=322#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=322\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=322\",\"name\":\"Amy Goodman on the Job of Journalism - 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