Goodman on Goodman

BLANKIn a rare turnabout of camera and subject, “Democracy Now!” host Amy Goodman talks with Truthdig’s Robert Scheer about the major inspirations and role models of her life, her life’s work, and how the ongoing crisis in journalism is really a crisis of truth.

Update: Transcript added below.

ROBERT SCHEER: Hi, it’s Robert Scheer; I’m the editor of Truthdig magazine, and, as you can tell from the background, I’m here at the studio – the roving studio – of Democracy Now! I just was interviewed by Amy Goodman, and I thought, well, why not take advantage of this, turn the tables, and … Amy has got a new book out now, called “Breaking the Sound Barrier”, and I’m proud of our connection, because we’ve run all of these columns …

AMY GOODMAN: You have …

SCHEER: … on Truthdig, and we have a whole … for those of you watching it, you can go check out the archive. But don’t do that – buy the book, and it would be a good contribution.

GOODMAN: Do both.

SCHEER: Yes, do both. And I just am really impressed with all – you know, I teach at the University of Southern California’s [Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism] – everybody’s bemoaning the loss of media, and you know, there’s a loss, and you know, of the good old days. But they’re not coming back. But I think we’re into good old days now – or the beginning — what people will remember as good old days. And it has occurred to me: You are mass media. As someone who writes books and tries to get ‘em sold, I’d rather be on your show than I think anybody else[‘s]. I seem to get a bigger blip in sales when I do your show – is that correct?

GOODMAN: Well, yeah, it’s interesting. Crane’s magazine – Crane’s newspaper in New York wrote that Democracy Now! launches books. And I think it’s because people who watch and listen to and read Democracy Now! – ‘cause it’s online, it’s on radio, it’s on TV – care about the world. And it’s not exactly a particular political persuasion. Could be conservative, progressive, liberal … it’s people [who] are concerned about the fate of the earth and are motivated to do something about it. Or at least start to gather information.

You know, you’ve talked about this too, but the whole issue of the demise of the media – it’s terrible to see people put out of work — thousands of journalists have lost their jobs. But when you look at the media, um, it’s not just about the Internet. I really think that the wars, for example, and the Bush administration lying about weapons of mass destruction, exposed more than them. It exposed the entire U.S. media, because they act as a conveyor belt for the lies. And when it turned out weapons of mass destruction were not there, people started, well, trying to look for places they – what they were reading got it wrong. Where do they go to get it right?

And that’s turning to the universe of independent media. That’s not brought to us by the weapons manufacturers. Or when we’re talking about the issue of insurance and health care, that’s not brought to us by the insurance industry, not brought to us by Big Pharma, uh, the drug companies. Not brought to us, when we’re talking about global warming, by Exxon Mobil, Chevron, the coal companies, but brought to you by listeners, by viewers. It’s putting the me back in media. And there is an authenticity and a truth – or many truths – that I think have really captured the attention of so many. It goes beyond the Internet. It’s a crisis in journalism because there was a crisis in journalism.

SCHEER: Yeah.

GOODMAN: A crisis of truth.

SCHEER: You know, I think it’s a good point you’re making. First of all, the old model, which is broken, was a flawed model to begin with, because it was advertising-based. It was based on either a rich family owning a newspaper and willing to do something a little better, or a big corporation thinking you could make money by doing something a little better, and now people are talking about … So that model was always flawed. … There are lots of things you didn’t cover because the advertisers didn’t want you to, and then you had to target readers the advertisers wanted, the more affluent. The Los Angeles Times, for example, was famous for Otis Chandler, who was a very good publisher, saying basically he didn’t care if poor people read the paper, because the advertisers didn’t care.

But the new model scares me a little bit, because a lot of what is called independent journalism is dependent upon foundations, on rich people, you know, people who have an axe to grind, and there’s something … How do you do Democracy Now! — ?

GOODMAN: Well, Democracy Now! — we just hit some landmarks, we just passed 800 stations on public radio and television stations and now globally. And that’s something the U.S. media didn’t really do much before. But we’re broadcasting every day in Sweden, once a week in Japan, just started in Cape Town, South Africa, in Austria. I’m talking television. Radio – all over the world. Television was always harder. And this is why the networks spent so much money. They spend millions to transmit video, you know, to transmit the visual image. And we have perfected a way on the Internet to actually transmit a broadcast-quality image through the Internet. So that makes it very cheap.

Still, of course, it costs, but to be able … Folks in Japan, volunteers, every week started downloading Democracy Now! and they translate it all into Japanese – it’s absolutely amazing – and Asahi Shimbun, one of the leading newspapers in Japan, also has a cable channel, the number two cable channel in the country, and they run Democracy Now! They sort of see it as the other America, and they have Japanese reporters commenting on it. And it’s listeners and viewers who support Democracy Now! Also foundations. Also just people going to DemocracyNow.org and buying books, DVDs, T-shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies – believe it or not, that’s a lot of money. And it’s the commitment of people that, in order to have honest, authentic journalism, people are gonna have to support it.

And I think that – well, like Pacifica has trained us for 60 years that you … No one ever thought that would start – that could continue. They thought it would start but not continue. Lou Hill comes out of the detention camps, says there’s gotta be a media outlet not run by corporations of profit from war but run by journalists and artists. Who would have thought that would continue? That you could tune in. You had to actually give them a radio — it’s called “The Subscriber” — even to get the station – FM, it was in its infancy. You turned it on and someone’s begging for money. And yet it did. …

SCHEER: You know, by the way, you are too young to actually remember them, right?

GOODMAN: No, I didn’t know it; I read about it.

SCHEER: Yes, I bought one of them.

GOODMAN: You did?

SCHEER: Yes, they cost 29 dollars – they were a little box like this. People don’t realize. FM was – no one listened to FM; everything was AM. You had to go out and buy this little box, and then most of what you got was KPFA in Berkeley, and you listened to it. And we would listen on – we listened to Lawrence Ferlinghetti, we listened to Kenneth Rexroth …

GOODMAN: Wow …

SCHEER: You know, these people, and they would tell us all these things. Lawrence Ferlinghetti, actually – he had come out of the military, been in World War II, and he recalls – he was radicalized by listening to Pacifica in Berkeley, and then he started participating. But I never – I was a graduate student – I landed there in 1959 in Berkeley, and Pacifica was the center of the whole world.

On the other hand, these days, Pacifica’s torn apart – I don’t wanna discuss it – been torn apart by internal arguments and are you left enough and so on, but I try to get involved with the fundraising and so forth. But Democracy Now! has an integrity. And I wonder whether you can get that integrity with collective leadership. I was once the editor of Ramparts magazine, and I was in – I know about sectarian disputes, arguments. You – I’m not trying to flatter you, but you have brought an integrity to Democracy Now! with your own personality.

GOODMAN: Well, I work with a great brain trust …

SCHEER: I understand …

GOODMAN: … of people who I cannot minimize.

SCHEER: And they’re all around here now, and they’re gonna be angry with me, and I know, they work like dogs. They’re terrific. They’re smart and everything. The fact is: Amy Goodman doesn’t put up with bullshit. You don’t – you, you have …

GOODMAN: You can say that online? SCHEER: I can? You – you have – c’mon – you have a standard. You know what you want, OK? And that’s given the show it’s integrity.

GOODMAN: Well, I mean, we care about … getting at the truth, giving people a chance to speak for themselves. You know, they don’t have to agree with each other. If you come away from Democracy Now! feeling like you got a chance to express your point of view … You know, I was thinking about — we did a column on this about “The Dubious Mr. Dobbs” – you know, Lou Dobbs leaves CNN. Juan Gonzales and I had an hour with Lou Dobbs in our studio, not us in his. And I recognized, from seeing other interviews with him, how he controls the set where he is, but that he could say something isn’t true just because he could say it’s not true. Or he could say something is true that absolutely wasn’t. That was repeated over and over on his show. And the only way to challenge it was to go back to the videotape, ‘cause if I said, “You said that it’s illegal immigrants who have brought us more leprosy in the last three years than ever in the history … completely fabricated! Now, if we presented the information, he would probably say, “I’ve never said that.” So, we had to have it on videotape. But it was a fascinating discussion. And then have him respond, and he can take as long as he wants to respond.

SCHEER: Right, it’s interesting. A little footnote on that: I – when I was working at the L.A. Times once, we had a headline about leprosy coming in with illegal immigrants. Illegal aliens – they still call them at the L.A. Times.

GOODMAN: Right.

SCHEER: And I went to our editors and I said, “What is the factual basis of this story?” It was one of those things, just whipped out in the good old days of journalism. And I called – I forget her name – Shirley something – was the chief health officer here in Los Angeles, and I said, “Was there any basis to this?” And she said, “No. There is no basis. Leprosy is not spread this way, it’s not coming in with these immigrants. It’s a total farce.” I don’t think the paper ever ran a correction on that story. So just a little footnote on the good old days.

But I wanna get back to the Amy Goodman issue – not to make you a personality – but I think the thing that characterizes, whether it’s done collectively or with your personality, you have an integrity in this show. You don’t give into the whims. You’re doing journalism. You are really doing journalism. And you’re showing that you can do journalism and have passion, care about the oppressed, care about social justice, but you’re committed to fact, you’re committed to logic.

GOODMAN: You’ve got to be fair and accurate.

SCHEER: Yes, yes.

GOODMAN: And that’s the – I mean, everyone has a point of view. It’s the mainstream journalists, if you can call them that — actually you can’t – that teach us that every single day. We know all of their opinions on every issue. It’s when you have opinion that’s slightly different from theirs and the status quo – they call that opinionated, and they are simply being objective. But let’s be real. The only thing that matters – yes, we all have opinions – is to be fair and accurate.

SCHEER: Right. So let me ask you: Where do you get the original – I noticed you dedicated the book to your mother who recently died. And is that where you got – where did you come from? Who — ?

GOODMAN: Well, my parents were wonderful – it’s hard even to think I’m referring to them in the plural and saying were – ‘cause I lost my mom to cancer just a few weeks ago, and she was a remarkable woman, as I dedicated to her, the most remarkable woman I’ve ever known. My parents were deeply involved with the community. I don’t even think at the time we said activist – just totally committed to making the world a better place in every which way. My father sat on the library board for 25 years.

SCHEER: Where is this — ?

GOODMAN: In Bayshore, Long Island. I was born in Washington, D.C., but I grew up outside of New York where you take the ferries to Fire Island. And my mother established a peace chapter in our town. She taught women’s history and literature at local community colleges. And, you know, this would be for the cops, the firefighters who, if they get a few more credits, they could get a higher salary. They come to the class, think, “aww, Chick Lit,” you know, “this’ll be the easiest class I could take.” And my mother’s introducing them to Virginia Woolf and Toni Morrison, and it’s the ‘70s, it’s women’s liberation. And suddenly the firefighter’s bringing his wife, and the cop is bringing his daughter – “Oh, this is what they’re talking about, why they’re so restless, why they’re talking back to me!” And soon the class would be packed with whole families! And then my mother decided to go back to school and get a degree in social work. And she was – her curiosity is what drove her. Same with my dad. The intensity – I mean, when we would bring friends home, my parents would so question them. We’d say, “Please, don’t give them the third degree!” But my friends would leave and say, “My God! Your parents care so much! They’re actually interested!” And that’s true. There was nothing fake about it. And that is, I think, where my brothers and I – all of us — this intense curiosity.

My mother met at a Hebrew-speaking camp where they weren’t allowed to speak English. Noam Chomsky also went there. My father would say, “How’s Noam Homsky?” I would say, “Dad, he’s a linguist – it’s Noam Chomsky.” They were bunkmates. SCHEER: How did – where did this camp come from?

GOODMAN: This is a Hebrew-speaking camp; you’ll have to ask Noam more about it. But they went there for years. And to show the complexity of my mother, one year she was voted Funniest Camper, and the next year, Most Serious Camper. But they learned a kind of classical Hebrew. And which they didn’t really realize was so classical until she went to Israel and people would laugh and say it’s like it’s listening to someone speak Shakespearean English. SCHEER: What years were these? Was this before the establishment of the state [of Israel]?

GOODMAN: This was in – right around that time. Noam’s father and my mother would describe coming over the hill to visit, also the linguist, you know, from Philadelphia.

SCHEER: Did this come out of a Zionist … ?

GOODMAN: No. No. My parents were very religious, though. My grandfather was an Orthodox rabbi. And it was a place where they could go in the summer and be away from the city. But, so – when my mother more recently visited Palestine with a delegation – she was taken around by a Palestinian tour guide. You know, they took very seriously – my mother described to me, when she was a kid in the Catskills in the summer, the wail going up in this little colony of bungalows where my grandmother got the note of members of my family dying in the Holocaust, and we take very seriously: Never again. Never again – for anyone. Anywhere.

And so, when my mother went to Palestine, and she’s going around with a Palestinian tour guide, and they had worked out at a checkpoint that the tour could go through, but then the soldier said no to the Palestinian guide, so my mother walks over – they could be her grandchildren – and she says, in her classical, Shakespearean Hebrew: “Part the waves.” And these soldiers parted. And the tour guide went through, and the Palestinian tour guide put his arm around my mother and said, “I’m sticking with you.”

And that is [what] my philosophy was my whole life. I stuck with her. And what they taught us about curiosity, about respect for other people, about learning from other cultures, the love of books, of film, of documentary – my mother was an avid reader. She loved culture; not only here in this country, but all over the world. She traveled to Iran, to Turkey, to Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, sometimes by herself, sometimes with other people. It’s that kind of intense curiosity and concern, commitment – who is doing what to make the world better? – that has driven me as well. My dad’s commitment to, in our early years, integrating our schools; he led a task force to integrate the schools so we weren’t separated by where we lived. And I watched as a thousand people would scream – he was hit with death threats, because he simply cared about our community being more just. And that’s what I was inspired by.

SCHEER: Where did they get it from?

GOODMAN: I think their parents. Coming out of persecution, being driven out of their countries – in Russia, in Poland – it’s just this sense of, “This should happen to no one.” And so continuing, you know, knowing we’re here for reasons other than just existing that – it’s not enough to survive. We have to contribute in some way.

SCHEER: You know, during this difficult time, when your mother was dying, I hate to be political about it, but you did have some experiences with the medical system.

GOODMAN: Oh, it was terrible. Five weeks, my brothers and I surrounded her, were basically sentries at her door with the guns drawn, with signs that said, “Do no harm.” And that harm happened every day. It’s not only the issue of insurance. I mean, my mother did have Medicare. And when she’d hear a nurse say, “We’re gonna move her into a private room” because of the catastrophe of the care we got, she’d yell, “Not if it’s not covered by Medicare!” And my mother coming out of surgery, laying in the recovery room, I don’t know, I don’t think she ever went unconscious, it was just unbelievable – everyone else around her unconscious, and she is whispering to the doctor and to us, “Three thousand. Three thousand.” “Three thousand what, Mom?” The doctor [was asking], “Three thousand what, Mrs. Goodman?” She said, “The Chinese figured out pain management three thousand years ago – why haven’t you figured it out yet?”

And it has to do with listening to patients. It has to do with doctors communicating. Systems that work. You know, doctors not just going into the profession because that’s the profession that’ll bring you money. Imagine if it didn’t – the kind of doctors that we would get. Probably better. But you have places like the Mayo Clinic, that’s not where she was, where the doctors are on salary. Very different place. And teamwork. And we don’t have that in this – the kind of competitive medicine that is practiced here. Sure, some of the best crisis hero medicine going. But when it comes to dealing with patients on a regular basis, these docs are moonwalking out of the room before they even hear what the patient has to say.

We discovered, in the midst of this five weeks of agony, though five weeks that we were able to show our devotion to our mother — though we ultimately couldn’t protect her the way she’s protected us our whole lives — we were able to meet a woman named Dr. Diane Meyer, who’s a leader in the palliative care movement in this country, that every hospital should have. And it’s a person who listens, who coordinates, actually, care. And when you’re coming to the end of your life, how is pain dealt with? How are patients’ concerns and families’ – how are they respected? She said five things, when someone’s coming to the end of [their] life, you wanna say: “Thank you.” “Forgive me.” “I forgive you.” “I love you.” And “goodbye.”

SCHEER: I don’t have to follow those five, do I? Can I just have a good meal or something? But you know, it’s interesting, because this question of how you deal with the end of life came up in the health care proposals, and the Democrats were attacked for it, because they said you were trying to – this was going to be …

GOODMAN: The death panels.

SCHEER: Death panels. It really was one of the most vicious distortions.

GOODMAN: I mean, you know, families deal with this every day – the end of life – what decisions do you make? And we should have a serious discussion about that instead of this parody. And also, I mean, you look at the health care discussion – it is so limited. These corporate networks who. … FAIR did a study (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) of the week leading up to Obama’s White House health care summit on March 5th — 120 people, you said, representing every option. Of course, you didn’t have single payer represented. John Conyers had to push to be included. He saw President Obama at a Congressional Black Caucus meeting – he asked to be included, the White House said no, but they said they were gonna protest, and so they let him, and then Physicians for National Health Programs said they were gonna protest, so they let in their leader. That was it: two of 120.

So that’s the administration. What about the media? And that week leading up to the White House health care summit, hundreds of articles and newspaper – TV shows – FAIR found that not one of the networks actually had on a single-payer advocate to fiercely advocate their point of view. When people understand what it is, most people in this country are actually for it. Sure, the AMA – the American Medical Association – is against it, but most doctors are for it. And it’s so simple to talk about. You know, OK, so you have the eight-second sound bite – can it be expressed in that amount of time? What about just saying, why don’t we just take Medicare and lower the age of eligibility to zero, to when you’re born? Everyone understands that! There are problems with Medicare, but basically, that everyone has a right to that kind – at least – of coverage. And you never hear that.

SCHEER: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. You know, I actually am 73.

GOODMAN: That’s amazing. SCHEER: And I can’t use my Medicare because I’m still working. I teach at the University of Southern California, and I have medical coverage. And I’m paying for Medicare. And I’m still paying into Social Security. Older people are demonized in that way. We’re supposed to be this great burden. The fact is, more older people are working longer, and if you’re working, you’re still paying in for Social Security, ‘cause you can’t live on your Social Security, so if you can get a job, you’re gonna want to work at it. And we can’t use our Medicare if we’re already covered. Every doctor I go to wants me to have Medicare. They say, “Get rid of your other insurance.” And I had two of them; I had one left over from the L.A. Times, and that was Aetna, and then I have Blue Cross now, and they say, “No, we prefer Medicare.” You don’t hear that in the debate. You know, you never hear that. I hear it every time I go to a doctor’s office: “Why can’t we use your Medicare?” Because Medicare won’t cover you if you have existing insurance. So, the doctors aren’t saying that. And so what you have here, as with the banking meltdown, as with war — basically truth doesn’t get out. Lobbyists, the special interests – they dominate.

GOODMAN: I mean, $300,000 a day are being spent in the Senate by the oil, coal and gas industry around issues of global warming as we lead into the Copenhagen summit. At every level. Insurance – I mean, the health care lobby – a million dollars a day they’re pouring into Congress.

SCHEER: Right. And the banking industry spent $300 million to get the reversal of Glass-Steagall in one short period. So, no, it’s absolutely outrageous – which brings me to the Obama administration. Because we’re happy that he’s done some things – I don’t know, I can’t speak for you – I certainly supported the guy, I voted for him, and I even gave a campaign contribution. And my wife – I couldn’t stop her from maxing out all the time. I’m disappointed; I don’t know about you. I’m disappointed on health care. I think it was the wrong time to do this sweeping thing unless you really were gonna deliver on it.

GOODMAN: Well, on that, I just wanna say, I am shocked that President Obama took single payer off the table at the beginning. First of all, he was an advocate of it when he was state senator and senator – we have the videotape that shows him talking about that. But even strategically – so he wants public option, although there’s even a question of that now – you put single payer out there so it looks like the public option is right in the middle, but instead they got rid of single payer right away, and so strategically, everything they offer sounds like it is the most extreme change. And I didn’t get it.

SCHEER: Well, I can get it. I have a theory about it, and I think it goes to … do you mind?

GOODMAN: I’d like to hear it.

SCHEER: I think it has to do with the meritocracy. I really do. I think this guy … I went to, in Hawaii – I spend quite a bit of time in Hawaii – I went to see the schools he was raised in, and what happens is this guy, from a family that struggled with real issues, and even as multiracial as Hawaii is, the recognition of racial differences, there’s poverty, and so forth … He had a real life, he lived in a rented apartment, you know, and [he was from] a broken home, basically, a strong, single mother, and then he went to an elite school – I’m not saying that ruined him, I think he got a good education …

GOODMAN: I think some people who live in families with two parents maybe have the broken home, and maybe he had a home of love.

SCHEER: I’m not denying that love. He had a great deal of love from his grandparents, and they had great friends, and by the way, they never bring it up, but [they were] connected with the Longshoreman Union, which is a very progressive union in Hawaii, and a lot of support. … His own father spoke at a peace rally in the early ‘60s, when he was a student, about why shouldn’t money that’s being spent to war go to help poor people around the world and so forth …

GOODMAN: And who makes those equations today as we spend the trillions we do on war, and the students at UC Berkeley and Cal State …

SCHEER: I think he had a great upbringing. But something happens along the way where you get this idea that somehow appealing to the elite is critical. And I see it. And the banking thing, where you go to a Lawrence Summers, who was the head of Harvard – they must know what they’re doing. They don’t know what they’re doing, the best and the brightest who screwed up.

GOODMAN: Maybe they do, and they’re concentrating wealth in the way that protects them.

SCHEER: Right, and the same thing happened with the health care, you know, let’s get something that the health insurance companies will sign off on, big pharmaceutical will sign off on. And it has been a disaster, I think, a disaster. And the question is whether we should go along with it now. Is this – you know, I’m not asking you to take an editorial position – but what I like about Democracy Now! and what we’re trying to do at Truthdig is, okay, yes, you can only take the lesser evil so far. Or you can only take hope so far. But what’s happening now? And my fear is that maybe this health care plan is not good. You know? And maybe the reorganization of the economy is not good. Maybe there needs to be a strong opposition. And I wonder whether at Democracy Now! you’re not finding resistance from your viewers, your listeners, that you should go easier on the man, give him a break, give him more room — ?

GOODMAN: I mean, we’re journalists, and it doesn’t matter who is in office, you know. It’s holding those in power accountable. And you’ve written about him – President Obama – as a community organizer in chief. The good thing is now parents all over the country are saying to their kids, “Maybe you can be a community organizer, too.” But, you know, the mantle has shifted, he’s commander in chief, and the community organizing that has to happen – he respects it more than anyone. But he’s not getting much push-back. You know, when those in power are whispering in his ear in the Oval Office, “You gotta do this thing and make a demand,” he’s gotta be able to point out the window and say, “But if I do that, they’ll storm the Bastille.” But if there’s no one out there, he’s in trouble. And that’s when people are gonna support what he does. And what about when people are absolutely opposed to what he’s doing? They’ve gotta figure out how to do this. ‘Cause there is a moment now. I think the brick wall has become a door. The door is open a crack. And the question is, will it be kicked open or slammed shut? And that takes organizing now. And otherwise you’re gonna see this massive shift in what we are still, of the resources, of the money, from the bottom to the top. Under this administration.

SCHEER: Yeah. We have to end this because you have about 10 things to do today. You are like a – you are a community organizer! You’re gonna run to some KPFK benefit, and then you’re gonna run to some Brave New World benefit, then you’re gonna run to Bakersfield. Nobody goes to Bakersfield! Why are you going there? Well, I won’t ask you. But I do notice in the book, which we’re pushing here, and we’re gonna advertise and sell and everything – “Breaking the Sound Barrier” – you get these nice things said by people like Bill Moyers, Noam Chomsky, so forth. And there’s a reference to you as, well, I.F. Stone did this … Where do we get alternative journalism? And I just wanna say, ‘cause people are – I think being bummed out is a copout. Then you don’t do anything. People say, “Oh, it’s rigged. The game is rigged. We can’t do anything,” and so forth. And I was thinking about it, sitting back in the room, leafing through the book. You know, I knew I.F. Stone, I admired him, I read him when I was a kid, I knew him when he was older. I knew a lot of these people – Murray Kempton – I mean, I can go through the whole list. And with all due respect to them, and to their memory, none of them had the impact that you have. Now, that is not just a tribute to you. It’s a tribute to the Internet, it’s a tribute to video, it’s a tribute to audio, to radio. And it’s also – because they opened certain doors. But I find it very – a source of great optimism – that you exist. And that’s not just you personally – this collective that I’m ignoring – all these people around …

GOODMAN: We’re all a part of – all of us working on ensuring that channels open up.

SCHEER: Right. But the message that I personally would like to get across, because I encounter it with students, I encounter it all the time – the game is rigged, you can’t do anything, the big guys are out there. The fact is, you know, you kick ass. And you do it as a good journalist. You know, not as a proselytizer, not shouting, but you get the facts, you get the logic. And I think it’s a great model for people who worry about, you know – I know we have our students: Can I be a journalist? Can I do something? What you’ve shown is, yes – if you’ve got the parents that inspired you, if you’ve got the sense of social justice, if you have the mission – you can make it happen. And what did you say – 800 stations?

GOODMAN: We just passed over 800 public radio and television stations, and of course, millions of hits at DemocracyNow.org.

SCHEER: Congratulations. And this is the book!

GOODMAN: Thank you very much, Robert, and thank you for all your work.