PAC 8 Executive Director Jean Gindreau, left, with ‘Democracy Now!’ co-host and author Amy Goodman. Goodman and co-author Denis Moynihan signed copies of their new book April 26 during a PAC 8 fundraiser. Photo by Jim O’Donnell

Amy Goodman speaks to a capacity crowd April 26 at UNM-LA. Photo by Jim O’Donnell

In 1996 Amy Goodman began hosting a show on Pacifica Radio called Democracy Now! to focus on the issues and movements that are too often ignored by the corporate media. Today Democracy Now! is the largest public media collaboration in the US, broadcasting on more than  1,400 public television and radio stations around the world, with millions accessing it online at democracynow.org. Goodman is executive producer and co-host of the show.

As part of a 100 cities tour, Goodman and co-author writer and journalist Denis Moynihan were in Los Alamos last week to talk about their new book, written with Goodman’s journalist brother David Goodman. Democracy Now!: Twenty Years Covering the Movements Changing America looks at the powerful movements shaping the future, but often shrouded in silence. The book is the sixth co-authored by Amy Goodman to reach the New York Times Best Seller List.

The journalists are also taking the pulse of the country, Goodman said.

Goodman and Moynihan spoke at a fundraising event for the station April 26 at UNM-Los Alamos.

“At 40, PAC 8 is one of the longest running media outlets in the U.S.,” Executive Director Jean Gindreau said. Gindreau has been with the station for 20 of those years.

“Public access TV has been a great asset to Democracy Now!” Goodman said.

Goodman began with a story. In 2000, the station got a phone call from the President? “President of what?” Goodman wondered. She was about to go on the air and had written the call off as a prank when a production tech caught her in the parking lot. “The President of the United States is on the phone!” he exclaimed.  The radio staff proceeded to grill President Clinton on a wide variety of subjects. The President thought he was going to give a “get out the vote” message.

The next day, Goodman received a call from the White House Press Office. It seems she was now banned from the White House.

“You broke all the rules,” they told her. None of the other 40 stations the President spoke to asked him any questions. “You mean no one asked the President of the United States any questions when they had the chance?” Goodman inquired.

It is into this kind of silence and good behavior that Democracy Now! jumps into the middle of with both feet.

“Journalists are the check and balance for government. That’s their job,” Goodman concluded

The Ku Klux Klan knows how important media is, Goodman said. They blew up Public Radio Station KPFT in Houston twice in the 1970s. “David Duke understood that alternative media is powerful because it allows people to speak for themselves,” Goodman said.

“Media can be the greatest for peace on earth, but it is too often used as a weapon of war,” she said.

Goodman went on to charge the corporate media with bias during the presidential campaign. They have Trump 23 times the coverage they gave Bernie Sanders in 2015, Goodman said. “There’s something worse about covering someone not at all than in covering them negatively,” she said.

“Sanders has raised $6 million in small donations,” Goodman said. “This has never happened before. Meanwhile Hillary Clinton charges $300,00 to sit at the head table at a fundraiser. Sanders is building movements in this country. This is very significant.”

From Death Row to the picket line, from demonstrations to the UNM Climate Summit, Democracy Now!” is there, Goodman said. “The most important job the media has is to cover war,” she said.

“Our part is to go where the silence is,” Goodman said.

Goodman said Hans and Sophie Scholl, German students and anti-Nazi political activists, active within the White Rose non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany should be our role models.

“Their motto was ‘we will not be silent.’ This should be our motto,” Goodman said.

‘Democracy Now!’ co-host and author Amy Goodman April 26 during a PAC 8 fundraiser. Photo by Jim O’Donnell