Democracy Now! is an daily independent award-winning news program hosted by journalists Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez. The program airs on over 1200 public television and radio stations worldwide. Time Magazine named Democracy Now! its “Pick of the Podcasts,” along with NBC’s Meet the Press.
Democracy Now!’s “War and Peace Report” provides the 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. In addition, Democracy Now! hosts real debates – debates between people who substantially disagree, such as official spokespeople on one hand, and grassroots activists on the other.
Pioneering the largest public media collaboration in the U.S., Democracy Now! is broadcast on Pacifica, NPR, community, and college radio stations; on public access, PBS, satellite television (DISH network: Free Speech TV ch. 9415 and Link TV ch. 9410; DIRECTV: Free Speech TV ch. 348 and Link TV ch. 375); and on the internet. DN!’s podcast is one of the most popular on the web.
Amy Goodman / Host and Executive Producer
Amy Goodman is the first journalist to receive the Right Livelihood Award, widely known as the ‘Alternative Nobel Prize’ for “developing an innovative model of truly independent grassroots political journalism that brings to millions of people the alternative voices that are often excluded by the mainstream media.” She is the first co-recipient of the Park Center for Independent Media’s Izzy Award, named for the great muckraking journalist I.F. Stone. The Independent of London called Amy Goodman and Democracy Now! “an inspiration.” PULSE named her one of the 20 Top Global Media Figures of 2009.
Goodman’s fifth book, The Silenced Majority: Stories of Uprisings, Occupations, Resistance, and Hope, written with Denis Moynihan, rose to #11 on The New York Times bestseller list. This timely follow-up to her fourth New York Times bestseller, Breaking the Sound Barrier, gives 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). She writes a weekly column (also produced as an audio podcast) syndicated by King Features, for which she was recognized in 2007 with the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Reporting.
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.
Juan González / Co-Host
Juan González has been a professional journalist for more than 30 years and a staff columnist at the New York Daily News since 1987. He is a two-time recipient of the George Polk Award for commentary (1998 and 2010), and the first reporter in New York City to consistently expose the health effects arising from the September 11, 2001 attacks and the cover-up of these hazards by government officials.
He is a founder and past president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, and a member of NAHJ’s Hall of Fame. During his term as NAHJ president, González created the Parity Project, an innovative program that creates partnerships between local communities and media organizations to improve coverage of the Latino community and recruit and retain more Hispanic journalists. He also spearheaded a movement among U.S. journalists to join other citizen groups in opposing the Federal Communications Commission’s deregulation of media ownership restrictions.
A founding member of the Young Lords Party in the 1970s and of the National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights in 1980s, González has twice been named by Hispanic Business Magazine as one of the country’s most influential Hispanics and has received Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Hispanic Heritage Foundation, the National Council of La Raza, and the National Puerto Rican Coalition.
González has written four books: Fallout: The Environmental Consequences of the World Trade Center Collapse documents cover-ups by the Environmental Protection Agency and government officials with regard to health hazards at Ground Zero in New York; Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America; and Roll Down Your Window: Stories of a Forgotten America. His latest book, News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media, co-authored with Joseph Torres, is a landmark narrative history of American media that puts race at the center of the story.