AMY GOODMAN and DAVID GOODMAN discuss their new book DEMOCRACY NOW!: TWENTY YEARS COVERING THE MOVEMENTS CHANGING AMERICA

Democracy Now!: Twenty Years Covering the Movements Changing America (Simon & Schuster)

In 1996 Amy Goodman started a radio show called "Democracy Now!" to focus on the issues that are underreported or ignored by mainstream news coverage. Shortly after September 11, 2001, they were broadcasting on television every weekday. Today it is the only public media in the US that airs simultaneously on satellite and cable television, radio, and the Internet. Now Amy and her journalist brother, David, share stories of the progressive heroes, the whistleblowers, the organizers, the protestors who have brought about remarkable, often invisible change over the last two decades in seismic ways. 

This book looks back over the past twenty years of "Democracy Now!" and considers that as the courts and government abdicate their responsibilities, it has fallen to ordinary people to hold the powerful to account. Amy gives voice to these leaderful, not leaderless, movements: the countless charismatic leaders who are taking to the streets in Ferguson, Staten Island, Wall Street, and other places where people are rising up to demand justice. 

Amy Goodman is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on over 1,300 public television and radio stations worldwide. Time Magazine named Democracy Now! its “Pick of the Podcasts,” along with NBC’s Meet the Press. Goodman has co-authored five New York Times bestsellers. Her latest two, The Silenced Majority: Stories of Uprisings, Occupations, Resistance, and Hope, and Breaking the Sound Barrier, both written with Denis Moynihan, give voice to the many ordinary people standing up to corporate and government power. She co-authored her first three bestsellers with her brother, journalist David Goodman: Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times (2008), Static: Government Liars, Media Cheerleaders, and the People Who Fight Back (2006) and The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them(2004). Goodman has received the American Women in Radio and Television Gracie Award; the Paley Center for Media’s She’s Made It Award; and the Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship. Her reporting on East Timor and Nigeria has won numerous awards, including the George Polk Award, Robert F. Kennedy Prize for International Reporting, and the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award. She has also received awards from the Associated Press, United Press International, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and Project Censored. Goodman received the first ever Communication for Peace Award from the World Association for Christian Communication. She was also honored by the National Council of Teachers of English with the George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language.

David Goodman is an independent journalist, contributing writer for Mother Jones, and the bestselling author of ten books, including four books with his sister, Amy Goodman. His books include the critically acclaimed Fault Lines: Journeys Into theNew South Africa; When the River Rose, a collection of flood stories that raised money for disaster relief his hometown in Vermont; and a series of award-winning historical guidebooks to backcountry skiing in the Northeast. He hosts a popular radio show, The Vermont Conversation. His work has also appeared in the Washington Post, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Outside, The Christian Science Monitor, The Boston Globe, The Nation, and numerous other publications. He lives in Vermont. Visit him on the web at: www.dgoodman.net