Amy Goodman: Breaking the Sound Barrier

[babsbunny]

http://www.truthout.org/1027098

Tuesday 27 October 2009

by: Bill Moyers, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

Bill Moyers writes this introduction to Amy Goodman's latest book, "Breaking the Sound Barrier," published by Haymarket Books.

Introduction

You can learn more of the truth about Washington and the world from one week of Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now!" than from a month of Sunday morning talk shows.

Make that a year of Sunday morning talk shows.

That's because Amy, as you will discover on every page of her new book, "Breaking the Sound Barrier", knows the critical question for journalists is how close they are to the truth, not how close they are to power. Like I. F. Stone, she values the facts on the ground; unlike the Sunday beltway anchors, she refuses to take the official version of reality as the definition of news, or to engage in Washington's "wink-wink" game, by which both parties to an interview tacitly understand that the questions and answers will be framed to appear adversarial when in fact their purpose is to avoid revealing how power really works. Quick: recall the last time you heard a celebrity journalist on any of the Sunday talk shows grill a politician on what campaign contributors get for their generosity. Try again: name any of those elite interrogators who skewered any politician for saying that "single-payer" wasn't on the table in the debate over health care reform because "there's no support for it." OK, one last chance: recall how often you have heard any of the network stars insist that Newt Gingrich reveal just who is funding his base as the omnipresent expert on everything.

See?

[rurallib]

1. Free Speech TV now carries Amy Goodman, Laura Flanders and Thom Hartmann

every day. Folks, that is a great line up for those who want to know what is really going on.
My favorite show of all time was Amy Goodman interviewing Lou Dobbs. Dobbs was screaming at the end.