Democracy Now encyclopedia topics

Background

Democracy Now! was founded in 1996 at WBAI-FM in New York City by journalists Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzalez, Larry Bensky, Salim Muwakkil, and Julie Drizin. Goodman is the program's principal host, with Juan Gonzalez as frequent co-host. Jeremy Scahill is a frequent contributor.

The program focuses, from a decidedly left-of-center perspective, on issues its producers consider underreported or ignored by mainstream news coverage, including global news and reporting on antiwar activism.

Democracy Now!'s War and Peace Report provides our audience with access to people and perspectives rarely heard in the U.S.corporate-sponsored media, including independent and international journalists, ordinary people from around the world who are directly affected by U.S. foreign policy, grassroots leaders and peace activists, artists, academics and independent analysts.

Goodman's tagline for the program is, "The Exception to the Rulers".

Facilities

Democracy Now! is headquartered in a converted firehouse building in New York City's Chinatown owned by the Downtown Community Television Center (DCTV).

The show was previously broadcast from Pacifica Radio's WBAI radio station in New York, and was relocated to the DCTV firehouse during a management conflict at the station, during 2000–2001. Since then, the show has added staff and television capability. With a television signal, the show was able to expand its reach to cable and satellite viewers.

Funding

Democracy Now! receives no corporate, government or Corporation for Public Broadcasting grants or funding, stating that the independence of their programming would be undermined or otherwise compromised.

Funding for Democracy Now! is primarily derived from listeners, viewers, and foundations. In 2004, Ford Foundation awarded a grant of US$150,000 "to produce, broadcast and distribute a series of radio, television and Internet reports on the media reform movement in the United States." From 2001, approximately US$350,000 in grant money was awarded by the Lannan Foundation of the family of former ITT board member J. Peter Lannan.

Syndication

Democracy Now! is the flagship national program of the Pacifica Radio network on which it airs. It also airs on NPR and community radio stations; public access cable television stations; and both Free Speech TV (channel 9415 on DISH Network) and Link TV (channel 375 on the DirecTV and channel 9410 on DISH Network). Democracy Now! is available over the Internet, as both streaming audio and video, and as a podcast and torrent

Awards

Democracy Now! and its staff have received dozens of journalism awards, including the Pinnacle Award for American Women in Radio & Television; the George Polk Award for its 1998 radio documentary Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship, on the Chevron Corporation and the deaths of two Nigerian villagers protesting an oil spill; and Goodman with Allan Nairn won Robert F. Kennedy Memorial's First Prize in International Radio for their 1993 report, Massacre: The Story of East Timor which involved first-hand coverage of genocide in East Timor.

Notable guests, interviews, and on-air debates

Tariq Ali and Christopher Hitchens — took opposing sides in two debates over the Iraq War, in December 4, 2003 and October 12, 2004.
Jean-Bertrand Aristide - Interviewed on March 16, 2004, The recently ousted Haitian President accused the United States of kidnapping him and overthrowing the government of Haiti.
Lori Berenson — Interviewed in 1999 in Peru by Amy Goodman; political activist arrested in 1995 on suspicion of collaborating with the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, a Peruvian leftist guerrilla organization. It was the first time a journalist was able to interview Berenson inside the prison where she was incarcerated.
Jimmy Carter — Interviewed by Amy Goodman on 10 September 2007; former US President: author of Palestine Peace Not Apartheid.
Hugo Chávez, President of Venezuela — Interviewed by Amy Goodman in September 2005.
Noam Chomsky — A regularly interviewed guest; MIT linguistics professor, political analyst, and author.
Bill Clinton, 42nd President of the United States — Interviewed by Amy Goodman on November 7, 2000. The White House press office had lined up a series of short, routine, election-day interviews with local news outlets. But in this interview, which extended to nearly 30 minutes, Clinton was confronted with a series of pointed questions that compelled him to defend his record on a wide array of issues, with Clinton at one point complaining that Goodman had been "hostile and combative.
Alan Dershowitz and Norman G. Finkelstein — Finkelstein is a frequent guest. This was a much publicised debate about whether the Dershowitz book, The Case for Israel was plagiarised and inaccurate. Dershowitz has written that he agreed to appear on the show after being told he would debate Noam Chomsky, not Finkelstein.
Michael Eric Dyson — Regular guest; Georgetown professor, writer & radio host.
Robert Fisk — Frequent guest; prominent and controversial British journalist who currently serves as a Middle East correspondent for The Independent.
Danny Glover — Regular guest; American actor, film director, and political activist.
Dennis Kucinich, Democratic Presidential candidate — Interviewed by Goodman and Gonzalez on November 9th, 2007.
Evo Morales - Interviewed on September 22nd, 2006; the president of Bolivia talked about his recent speech at the United Nations in New York where he held up a coca leaf and argued for international drug law reform as well as talked about the nationalization of Bolivia's energy reserves among other topics.
Bill Moyers — Interviewed by Amy Goodman; former host of the PBS show NOW with Bill Moyers and currently the host of the PBS show Bill Moyers' Journal.
Yoko Ono — Musician, peace activist and widow of John Lennon. Interviewed by Amy Goodman on October 16, 2007.
Greg Palast — Frequent guest; US-born writer and investigative journalist for the BBC and The Observer.
Scott Ritter — Interviewed by Amy Goodman; former UN weapons inspector who disputed the Bush administration's claims about weapons programs in Iraq.
Arundhati Roy — Recurring guest; Indian writer, anti-war activist, and leading figure in the alter-globalization movement
Edward Said — was a regular guest; Columbia University professor, literary critic and Palestinian activist and intellectual.
Howard Zinn — Interviewed by Amy Goodman; historian and activist; author of several books, including A People's History of the United States.