Amy Goodman is one of the few people in the radio business who will say that static can be a good thing.

‘In this high-tech digital age with high-definition television and digital radio, still all we ever get is static, that veil of distortion and lies and misrepresentations and half-truths when what we need the media to give us is the dictionary definition of static: criticism, opposition, unwanted interference,’ Goodman said Thursday night to an enthusiastic audience at Hendricks Chapel.

Goodman’s discussion centered on the arrest of Democracy Now! reporters at the 2008 Republican National Convention, the Troy Davis case and the legacy of the civil rights movement.

Goodman is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, an independent TV, radio and Internet news program that airs on more than 900 stations across the nation and is known for giving unique perspectives that are not presented in corporate-sponsored media.

The event was co-sponsored by the Syracuse Peace Council and Syracuse University’s Tully Center for Free Speech.

Goodman began by discussing the arrest of herself and two other reporters at the 2008 Republican National Convention and the settlement with the Secret Service and the Twin Cities Police Department.

Goodman described how she learned about the arrest of the two reporters, who were reporting on the protests going on outside the convention hall, and ran to the scene to try to get them released. She also was arrested despite the fact that all three had press passes.

Democracy Now! sued and won a $100,000 settlement as well as the concession that they would work with the police to develop a guide for dealing with journalists, she said.

Goodman also discussed the Troy Davis case and its coverage by Democracy Now. Davis was an African-American man who was arrested, tried, convicted and eventually executed for the murder of a white police officer despite alleged unreliable witness testimony and a lack of hard evidence.

Goodman felt it was important to cover the Davis case ‘to bear witness, to be reporters, to see how does this happen’ and because ‘it’s absolutely critical when we make decisions about public policy to understand what is done in our name, no matter how gruesome the pictures are.’

Goodman closed with a discussion about the importance of movements, including the civil rights movement.

She said that former slaves such as Frederick Douglass and David Ruggles started abolitionist newspapers because they ‘saw media as their form of liberation.’

Goodman also shared the story of Hans and Sophie Scholl, a brother and sister who resisted the Nazis during World War II by disseminating pamphlets of information about the Holocaust so that the Germans would never be able to say that they didn’t know.

‘That philosophy should be the Hippocratic oath of the media today: We will not be silent,’ Goodman said.

Lauren Yobs, a freshman advertising major, said she enjoyed Goodman’s lecture.

‘She really increased my awareness,’ Yobs said. ‘I knew about these things before, but I’ve never felt them with this much passion.’

Judy Lee, a freshman public relations major, said she appreciated how upfront Goodman was.

‘She was very passionate,’ Lee said. ‘The media is so filtered, and I like the fact that she wants it to be more raw and transparent.’

jliannet@syr.edu

Published on November 6, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Jessica: jliannet@syr.edu | @JessicaIannetta