 "Photo: Lara Haase/Daily Texan")
Amy Goodman, the award-winning journalist and host of the news show “Democracy Now!,” criticized the major news networks’ coverage of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, asking a crowd of several hundred people: “Where’s the debate?”
Goodman spoke Wednesday night about issues of democracy in America, grassroots organizations and stories untold by the mainstream media to a packed auditorium in the University Teaching Center.
“Celebrating community media … is absolutely critical,” Goodman said. “It begins to build a common ground. You start to understand someone else’s experience, and that’s what breaks down the stereotypes that fuels the hate.”
Goodman said of 400 war-related interviews conducted by the four major network television shows, only three of them were anti-war leaders.
“There has to be a media outlet not sponsored by those who benefit by war,” she said. “To discuss the most important issues of war and peace, life and death is critical. Anything less than that is a disservice to a democratic society. It’s not just an academic discussion. It’s a decision that must be made with everyone involved.”
Sharing examples from her experience as a journalist and from her book, “Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times,” Goodman told the stories of those who she said stood up for justice.
Goodman told the story of a group of high school students in Connecticut who were told they could not perform a play based on letters of Iraqi soldiers because it was too controversial, but who went on to perform it in front of hundreds on a New York City stage.
“Democracy is a messy thing, and it is our job to capture it all,” Goodman said. “This is the moment. It has come. It has arrived, and it’s not going to be because of one person in the White House. It’s going to be because of all of you.”
Concluding her lecture to a standing ovation, Goodman asked the audience what might happen if the media could show the photographs of the brutality of war.
“They would say no, war is not the answer to conflict in the 21st century,” she said.
Hani Mirza, president of the Muslim Students Association, which sponsored the event, said although the organization had previously remained distant from political associations, it can no longer avoid issues that have become part of daily life.
“Politics is in everything,” he said. “A lot of our members attend mosques that were being spied on by the FBI.”
Mirza said he “pounced” on the chance to have Goodman speak at UT.
“She doesn’t just fight for Muslims but for truth and justice,” he said.
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