Amy Goodman joins the Washington Journal to discuss her documentary "Steal This Story, Please," tracing Democracy Now's 1996 grassroots origins and its expansion to over 1,500 stations after broadcasting from Ground Zero. She critiques Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's anti-press remarks and the Pentagon's unconstitutional demands for journalist oaths, citing Vietnam and My Lai as proof that such restrictions hide atrocities. The conversation also covers the delayed release of 3 million Epstein files following Attorney General Pam Bondi's firing and condemns the misuse of religion to justify war, arguing independent media remains essential for democracy against corporate and military suppression. [Automatically generated summary]
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Pacifica Radio Origins00:08:39
Can you tell us what you think about President Trump saying climate change is a Chinese hope?
I'm sorry, I'm running late for a meeting.
Right, but you weren't running late when you're just standing there.
So, my first impressions of Tame Youth.
What did you say to those who say that you're a war criminal?
Man, she doesn't show what anybody thinks.
So, don't push me.
I'm a journalist there.
Independent media is the oxygen of a democracy.
What do you mean by independent?
Not being sponsored by corporations.
Amy's chaotically brilliant at the spy game.
We began on nine radio stations.
If she believes something, she's going to fight for it and get it out to the world.
Straight up, Journal.
That was a clip of a trailer for a newly released documentary called Steal This Story, Please.
It focuses on the career of journalist Amy Goodman, who joins us now.
She is the co-founder and host for Democracy Now.
And that documentary highlights her 40-year career in journalism, where she's here to talk with us about that as well as News of the Week.
Good morning, Amy.
Thanks for being with us.
It's great to be with you, Taylor.
I know you're on tour right now promoting this documentary.
Let's do a little backstory about how did this documentary come about for people who are familiar with your work.
Well, to start, it's such an honor to be back on C-SPAN.
I used to come on with Brian Lam and other folks on Washington Journal because Democracy Now started 30 years ago on nine radio stations, and we started on the Pacifica radio station in Washington, D.C.
So I would just come over to C-SPAN.
It was just, it was the only daily election show in public broadcasting at the time.
That was the year that President Clinton was re-elected.
And it was just a project.
It was going to wrap up right after that election.
But there was such a demand for the show.
We used the primary system in the country to look at state by state what people were doing.
At the time, most people didn't vote in the United States.
When I got the call from Pacifica Radio to host this show, I was at an underground house in Haiti covering elections.
When people would go to the polls, they'd be gunned down.
When people would announce for office, they could be killed.
And yet, most people voted.
So why in the United States, in the most powerful country on earth, did most people not vote?
I didn't think it was apathy.
I really wanted to know how people were involved, what they were doing in their communities.
And so it was those authentic voices at the grassroots that is what Democracy Now became known for.
You know, movements make history.
Yes, the President of the United States occupies the most powerful position on earth, but there is a force more powerful, and it is everyone, everywhere.
And I wanted to know what people thought, what people were doing.
And so the show just started to increase just on radio, on public radio, Pacifica Radio.
And let me say a little about Pacifica Radio, where we got started.
Well, I mean, then it went the week of the 9-11 attacks.
We're broadcasting from New York from an old hundred-year-old firehouse in downtown Manhattan that had become our new home.
It was three weeks before the 9-11 attacks.
Our show at the time, it's every morning at 8.
People can check it out at democracynow.org or on local TV and radio.
But at the time, it was 9 every morning.
So the first plane hit the first tower of the World Trade Center at 8:47.
We heard a kind of sonic boom-like crash outside the firehouse.
But the show must go on at 9 o'clock.
We went on in 9:03.
The next plane hit the next tower of the World Trade Center.
And then, well, as we all know, events started to unfold.
People were running by the firehouse, covered in ash, and we just kept broadcasting hour after hour.
We were inside the evacuation zone, the closest national broadcast to ground zero.
That's when a local public access TV station in New York, Manhattan Neighborhood Network, said, Can we just flip the switch?
They were connected to this community television training center and put you on.
And so, once we went on one TV show, it took off.
And stations around the country started to say, Can we run you as emergency broadcasting?
Then, in PR stations and PBS stations, community and college stations.
And now we're on 1,500 public television and radio stations around the United States and around the world.
And that's how Democracy Now has grown.
But we started on Pacifica Radio, which is the oldest independent network in the United States.
It began in 1949 in the Bay Area.
I am headed there today for this new film out about Democracy Now, and it'll be in theaters in Berkeley and Sebastopol and at the Roxy and San Francisco and San Rafael and then Seattle and then Portland, Oregon.
But it began in 1949.
A man named Lou Hill was a war resistor.
He came out of the detention camps and he said, There has to be a media outlet that is not run by corporations that profit from war, or as George Gerbner, the late dean of the Annenberg School of Communications would say, not run by corporations that have nothing to tell and everything to sell, that are raising our children today.
And so Pacifica was born, 49 KPFA in Berkeley, 1959 KPFK in Los Angeles, where I am right now.
We had a big fundraiser for KPFK, listener-supported radio here when the film came out.
The film is in a lot of the Lemley theaters here in Los Angeles.
My station in New York, WBAI, went on the air in 1960.
And you'd hear debates like between Malcolm X and the great writer James Baldwin on the effectiveness of nonviolent civil disobedience.
WPFW and Washington, Jazz and Justice Radio, and in Houston, and this is the interesting story: went on the air, KPFT in the Petro Metro in 1970.
It was on the air for a few weeks, and then the Ku Klux Klan strapped dynamite to the base of the transmitter and blew it up.
KPFT got back on their feet, they rebuilt the transmitter.
In a few weeks, they went back on the air, and then the Klan strapped 15 times the dynamite to the base of the transmitter and blew it to smithereens right in the middle of Arlo Guthrie singing Alice's Restaurant.
Now, I happen to think that's a good song, but anyway, it now took months for them to rebuild.
And in January of 1971, Arlo Guthrie came back to Houston to finish his song on the air.
The networks were there covering this station, Rising from the Ashes, and KPFT has been broadcasting ever since.
I don't remember if it was the Grand Dragon or the Exalted Cyclops, because I often confuse their titles, these leaders of the Klan.
But he said it was his proudest act because he understood how dangerous independent media is.
Dangerous because it allows people to speak for themselves.
And if you hear someone speaking from their own experience, whether it's a Palestinian child or an Israeli grandmother, whether it's a kid from South Texas or an uncle in Iran, it makes it, it breaks down the caricatures and the stereotypes that fuel hate groups like the KKK.
Safeguarding Independent Press00:11:00
You know, I'm not saying you'll agree with what you hear.
You know, the uncle from Iran might remind you of an uncle you don't like, but it makes you much, it makes it much less likely that you'll want to destroy someone.
That's why I think the media can be the greatest force for peace on earth.
Instead, all too often, it's wielded as a weapon of war.
And that's why it's so important to take the media back.
You obviously have so much you can provide wisdom on over your decades in journalism and in independent media.
And I think this era is really striking.
You've been on the air for so long, but especially over the last couple of years, there's been almost a mainstreaming of independent media.
We even see the Trump White House talking about and embracing what they call new media on a daily basis.
I wanted to get your thoughts also because you cover foreign policy so closely.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a former Fox News personality, has been very public and very critical of news media coverage, specifically of the war in Iran.
I want to play for you a portion from his press conference earlier this week at the Pentagon.
And then on the back end of it, I'll just ask you about what you make of it and what impact you think it is having more broadly.
But here's what Hegseth said.
This past Sunday, I was sitting in church with my family, and our minister preached from the book of Mark, the third chapter.
And in the passage, Jesus entered a synagogue and healed a man with a withered hand.
The Pharisees came to watch.
And as the scripture reads, they came to see whether he, Jesus, would heal him or he would heal him on the Sabbath so that they might accuse him.
You see, the Pharisees, the so-called and self-appointed elites of their time, they were there to witness, to write everything down, to report.
But their hearts were hardened.
Even though they witnessed a literal miracle, it didn't matter.
They were only there to explain away the goodness in pursuit of their agenda.
As the passage ends, the Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel against him, how to destroy him.
I sat there in church and I thought, our press are just like these Pharisees.
Not all of you.
Not all of you.
But the legacy Trump-hating press.
Your politically motivated animus for President Trump nearly completely blinds you from the brilliance of our American warriors.
The Pharisees scrutinized every good act in order to find a violation, only looking for the negative.
The hardened hearts of our press are calibrated only to impugn.
I would ask you to open your eyes.
So, Amy, that was Secretary Hegseth on Thursday.
He at one point called it the legacy Trump-hating press.
What did you think about his remarks, especially to intertwine the religious aspect of it?
And how do you think it factors into this current media environment as a pioneer of independent media yourself?
Well, there's a reason why independent media is essential to the functioning of a democratic party.
Rather, essential to the functioning of a democratic society.
I meant to say, we are not supposed to be a party to either party, either parties.
We are there to hold those in power to account.
That is extremely important.
You know, in the film that's out about Democracy Now called Steal the Story, Please, there is a section on my interview and President Clinton who said, I find you hostile, combative, at times, disrespectful, because I was asking critical questions.
In that case, they said, you know, Clinton called in on Election Day and 2000.
That was Bush v. Gore, and he wanted to get out the vote.
And this was a tremendous opportunity to, you know, interview the leader of the free world.
And I asked a whole series of questions.
After the interview, you know, they had said he was calling radio stations, had a few minutes to speak.
They called me up and they were considering banning me from the White House.
And I said, what are you talking about?
He called me.
I didn't call him.
And they said, we told you he had a few minutes and you kept him on for more than half an hour.
And I said, he's the leader of the free world.
He could hang up if he wants to, right?
It's my job to ask questions.
And it's the president's job or whoever it is that a journalist is interviewing to decide whether they want to answer or whether they want to hang up.
But what Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is saying is extremely important to understand because we have a very sharp division between church and state.
I thought it's very interesting to see how the Pope has been responding, Pope Leo.
He has, to say the least, been going back and forth, responding to what Hegset has been saying, what President Trump has been saying.
He's criticized leaders who spend billions on wars and said the world is, quote, being ravaged by a handful of tyrants.
And he was responding to, among other things, the Pope, President Trump, threatening that a whole civilization will die if Iran does not agree to the demands of the United States, that a whole civilization will die.
That's threatening a war crime when you threaten civilian infrastructure.
And you see what happened the first day of the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran.
It looks like it was a U.S. tomahawk missile that hit a primary girls' school in Manab in southern Iran.
Over 175 people were killed, a handful of teachers, but overwhelmingly primary school girls.
This is an enormous catastrophe.
And this is what happens in a situation like this.
And I think it's also important to look at what has happened with the press in this time.
Here you have Secretary Hagseth threatening the press, talking about the Trump-hating press.
The role of the press, especially in a time of war, is not to circle the wagons around the White House.
There's no more critical time to ask serious questions.
I see the media as a huge kitchen table that stretches across the globe, that we all sit around and debate and discuss the most important issues of the day, life and death, war and peace.
And anything less than that is a disservice to the service men and women of this country.
You know, they can't publicly debate whether they are sent to kill or be killed.
Anything less than that is a disservice to a democratic society.
One more question for you before we let some callers chime in and speak with you.
We recently had on a guest from Freedom House, and she shared their annual report that tracks freedom around the world.
It's gone down for 20 consecutive years.
And here in the U.S., freedom in the media in particular is ranked at the topmost under threat, especially in the context of these foreign conflicts that are being covered, the U.S. on the world stage.
What's your reaction to those rankings and how it ties into press freedom and also the ability for people to get accurate information, especially in wartime?
I mean, in this country, we so deeply value freedom of the press.
It's why it's enshrined in the First Amendment.
And, you know, the reason freedom of the press is so important is that it's about the public's right to know.
And in a democracy, an informed democracy makes the best decisions.
We can debate all different issues.
People can have different points of view, but we need accurate information.
And then people make up their minds.
I think about the crackdown on the press in the United States.
You have the Pentagon demanding that journalists sign oaths that they're not going to release classified information that isn't approved by the Pentagon.
I mean, it's really laudable, important that news organizations across the political spectrum and journalists, Pentagon journalists, said no.
And then this was taken to court, and a judge ruled twice that this was unconstitutional.
Go back to, for example, Vietnam.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hirsch.
We would never have known about Milai, the massacre of Vietnamese civilians, men, women, and children, if he had been asking the Pentagon if this was okay.
There is, we have an awesome responsibility in this country.
We are the most powerful country on earth.
And what we do in the world matters.
And we need a press that is there as an absolute safeguard, researching, investigating.
I think that's why democracy now, for 30 years, as we celebrate 30 years, daily grassroots global, independent, international, investigative, and I always say unembedded news.
We're not embedded in any political institution.
We're there to hold those institutions to account.
Thirty Years of Unembedded News00:03:39
For those just tuning in, we're speaking with Amy Goodman, the co-founder and host of Democracy Now.
There's a new documentary out about Democracy Now being on the air over the last 30 years, and we're talking about her 40-year journalism career.
If you'd like to call in and speak with her and ask her about this documentary, Steal the Story, please, you could do that now.
Let's go to some callers who have patiently been waiting to speak with you, Amy.
We'll start with Thomas calling in from Derwood, Maryland on the Democratic line.
Good morning, Thomas.
You're on with our guest.
Thank you.
Good morning, Ms. Goodman.
How are you?
You know, it's such a pleasure to see you and to hear you because I started listening to you from WPFW in Washington, D.C.
And, you know, you and Ambrose Lane, I don't know if you know, you might know the names, but you were such an inspiration and you always gave the truth.
And, you know, it didn't matter what side it was-Democrat or Republican.
You came on strong and you came on truthfully.
And I was a younger person then, but I listened to you and you were like so profound.
I was like, wow, who is this woman?
You know, how can she be so deep?
You know, and it's just like, like I said, it's a pleasure to talk to you.
Now, I want to ask you a question about today's current events.
Like, how do you feel that, I mean, you don't talk too much about the Epstein files, but you know, that is global, whether anybody wants to admit it or not.
How do you feel about the way that the investigation is going and how the Attorney General and different people of power are not investigating it?
You know, I feel that you have more insight into it than I will ever have.
And, you know, and that's a pleasure to know that someone is really on top of things in this world because it's just like, you know, like we're talking about Iran.
And it bothers me that they let Israel destroy Gaza.
I mean, actually destroy it.
They don't even show any pictures of it now because it's just all rubble.
It's like you went to the dump and there's nothing there.
You know, it's terrible.
So I'd just like to know your perspective on what's going on with the world today as far as like weaponsry and armed conflicts and things like that.
And like again, have a blessed day and it's a pleasure speaking with you.
Well, thank you so much.
It's a pleasure to speak to you.
You know, steal the story, please.
The documentary is going to be at the AFI Silver Theater in Silver Spring on May 1st.
So maybe I'll get to see you there.
I do QAs after all these films on May 1st and May 2nd.
And it's also going to be in Baltimore.
But yes, we got our start at WPFW Pacifica Radio in Washington in 1996.
And you're raising so many important issues.
There are those, it's hard to joke about war, but there are those who say, you know, the war on Iran, the Pentagon called Operation Epic Fury, many have quipped Epic Fury.
Epstein Files and Congress00:06:39
What about Epstein Fury?
It is a really serious question about whether President Trump engages in these different actions to distract from the Epstein files.
Do we remember who Pam Bondi was?
Well, she's been fired as Attorney General on April 14th.
When she was attorney general just weeks ago, she was set to testify.
She was subpoenaed by the House Oversight Committee.
And one wonders if President Trump didn't fire her, because then she could say, this is what they've argued, that she's no longer Attorney General.
So there's no reason to put her under oath.
But she was the one who said she had the Epstein files before her.
President Trump campaigned on releasing the Epstein files.
His name is mentioned more than a thousand times in the Epstein files.
But the Justice Department has yet to release 3 million pages.
And it is extremely serious.
The charges against Epstein, the charges against his accomplice, Elaine Maxwell, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
The Trump administration moved her from a maximum security prison to a minimum security prison in Texas.
We have so many questions that are so important that have to do with a demand by Congress passing a law that the Epstein Files Transparency Act, that these files would be released.
And if it doesn't implicate people, or if it does, what matters is that the law is filed.
We're talking about the rape and assault of children, of girls, and what happened with the release of some of those files and the questions that Congress members had, by the way, Republican and Democrat.
Why is it that the perpetrators' names were blacked out, but often the survivors' names were not?
And their identities and addresses and social security numbers were revealed.
Yes, you know, you go back to December.
President Trump could not wipe the headlines around Epstein files off the front pages.
So what happens?
In early January, the U.S. attacks Venezuela, kidnaps the president, President Maduro, and his wife, brings them to the United States and jails them.
Now, what do the Epstein files have to do with that?
Well, it certainly wiped the Epstein files off the front pages.
And then you have the attack on Iran.
You know, you said, I don't know if these things are connected, and you're asking a fair and profound question.
We don't know, but what we should know is what's in the Epstein files.
Congress is demanding that.
And now that Bondi is out, we don't have the Attorney General under oath responding.
And this is a story that continues and that you should have a focus on.
Amy, to build on what you were talking about, something that raised a lot of eyebrows last week was when First Lady Melania Trump came out and delivered a straight-to-camera statement saying she was never aware of Jeffrey Epstein's crimes and didn't have that much of a relationship with him.
I was at the White House that day and it was very, everybody was caught off guard about that.
And President Trump later said he thought that his wife decided to come out and say that because there was reporting in the works trying to link her to it.
So it's just another example of how this story continues to latch on to everything else going on.
Let's hear from another caller.
John is calling in from Princeton, New Jersey on the Independent line.
Good morning, John.
You're on with Amy.
What do you want to say to her?
You've hit on some important topics for me.
One of them being, this is a change in subject before I get back to Epstein files.
The use of religion, religious faith, to motivate acts of war.
It's been done by Islam.
It's been done by the Catholic religion over centuries.
And people are, you know, they can be convinced that if you do these things, no matter how many sins you've committed, you're going to go straight to heaven for attacking another religion.
So one has to be careful, I think, about politicians' misuse of religious teaching.
And voters have to be careful about that too.
It's easier for a politician to make you suspect that his opponent is a horrible person than it is for that candidate to convince you that what he or she is doing is going to help you.
It's easier to get a voter suspicious about the other guy than it is to convince a voter that you got the right idea with no downsides, which of course is impossible.
Okay, switch topic to Epstein.
I haven't heard...
Epstein was, nobody's accused him of being stupid.
Okay, he seemed to have an agenda of getting the goods for statutory rape on large numbers of politicians.
And I've never heard of, I haven't heard anything really about how that information might have been used.
But it seems to me pretty obvious that he wanted to trap politicians into breaking the law and in a way that would end their political career outright to do something really that everybody considers is immoral.
I just don't know how that information might have been used.