Amy Goodman, reporter for independent grassroots news program, Democracy Now! spoke Saturday to promote her book and encourage the audience to participate in its government.
Approximately 150 gathered in Ohio University’s Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium as part of Goodman’s 14th stop on the one hundred city tour to promote her new book, The Silenced Majority: Stories of Uprisings, Occupations, Resistance, and Hope.
Goodman returned to OU after a 2009 visit to argue the need for independent journalists that focus on the citizens’ interests, not the corporations and politics that control corporate news stations, Goodman said.
“I think there’s a hunger for independent voices, for people speaking for themselves,” Goodman said in her speech.
Although Goodman and co-author Denis Moynihan began 35 minutes later than expected, the crowd was soon drawn by Goodman’s personal stories including politicians’ reactions when she asked businessman David Koch a question at the 2012 Republican National Convention and her experience of being beaten by the Indonesian military with co-reporter Allan Nairn in the East Timor massacre of 1991 before its independence.
Goodman highlighted these examples to encourage the audience to look toward media, especially independent media networks, to educate themselves about the events that they would otherwise miss in a basic broadcast.
"We all have to be more informed and really commit ourselves to that because we live in the most powerful country on earth and what we do matters,” Goodman said. “It affects not only our country and our own lives, but people all over the world.”
Goodman visited OU’s campus, as well as other campuses across the nation, to plead her point to students. Goodman said she tries to appeal to many audiences, especially students, by including authentic sources and referencing popular social events, such as the Occupy movement, that she believes youth can relate to.
“I think young people care about authenticity,” Goodman said. “People respond to people they know, or kinds of people they’re familiar with. It’s [Democracy Now!’s] job to bring out a great diversity of voices.”
Seaira Christian-Daniels, an OU junior studying journalism and Spanish, plans to take Goodman’s speech into account as she catches up on the news. Christian-Daniels said that Goodman’s speech put a new perspective on how she sees news.
“I think that that just drives home the point of as Americans we have this responsibility whether we like it or not, to represent those people in other countries,” Christian-Daniels said. “We don’t have to be journalists, we don’t have to be missionaries, but our responsibility is to represent those people that don’t have voices.”
dk123111@ohiou.edu
