{"id":192158,"date":"2026-04-10T13:09:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T13:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/192158\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T13:09:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T13:09:09","slug":"the-indie-news-queen-whos-not-done-pissing-off-the-powerful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/192158\/","title":{"rendered":"The Indie News Queen Who\u2019s Not Done Pissing Off the Powerful"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the opening scene of the new documentary<\/a> Steal This Story, Please! reporter Amy Goodman chases down a senior Trump administration adviser.<\/p>\n

The camera follows as she weaves through a convention hall at a climate<\/a> conference in Poland, shouting questions at energy expert P. Wells Griffith III right up until he shuts a door in her face. Undaunted, she waits outside. The door opens a crack. It\u2019s some lackey, peeping out and shooing her away; right up until the door closes again, Goodman persists, trying to make contact. She\u2019s out of breath when she finally turns back.<\/p>\n

Goodman, the indefatigable longtime host and cofounder of the independent journalism<\/a> stalwart Democracy Now!, has spent the past 30 years asking her subjects tough questions, leading people like former US president Bill Clinton to describe her as \u201chostile and combative\u201d and intimidating government officials so much that they flee on sight.<\/p>\n

Steal This Story, Please! traces Democracy Now!\u2019s rise from an upstart airing on a few handfuls of public radio stations to \u2026 the exact same thing, just distributed on thousands of radio and television stations as well as the internet.<\/p>\n

Democracy Now! is a rare media success story where an outlet has flourished by sticking to its original vision\u2014it has always been a proudly grassroots endeavor that shuns corporate sponsorship and embraces coverage of social movements. It has also always been led by Goodman, 68, whose ascent to progressive icon is documented in parallel to the outlet\u2019s growth.<\/p>\n

Steal This Story, Please!, directed by Oscar-nominated filmmakers Tia Lessin and Carl Deal and in theaters Friday, casts an affectionate eye on its subject\u2014this is no searing expos\u00e9\u2014but it still thrusts Goodman into an unfamiliar position, where she\u2019s the person answering questions rather than asking them. \u201cIt\u2019s painful,\u201d Goodman tells WIRED. \u201cA taste of my own medicine.\u201d<\/p>\n

She was more than happy to deal with the discomfort, though, as she sees the project as a way to spread the word about the necessity of independent journalism. She sees the documentary\u2019s name as a call-to-action of her journalistic ethics: \u201cWe see an exclusive story as a failure.\u201d In an era when media executives tend toward skittishness<\/a>, Goodman hopes that the success of her outlet demonstrates that there is, indeed, an appetite for coverage that is adversarial to power and focused on community-driven movements around the world.<\/p>\n

Steal This Story, Please! is essentially a highlight reel of Democracy Now!\u2019s reportage, from its early work covering a genocide in East Timor, where Goodman was beaten by occupying Indonesian soldiers, to its on-the-ground reporting on the 9\/11 attacks<\/a>, to its crusading reporting on the protest movements in Standing Rock<\/a>, right up to its vigilant documentation of violence in Gaza<\/a>. The film makes it abundantly clear that one of the secrets to the program\u2019s success is its focus on global social movements and speaking with the people directly involved in them. \u201cWe don’t believe in turning to the pundits, who know so little about so much,\u201d says Goodman. Instead, the outlet focuses on what Goodman calls \u201ctrickle-up journalism,\u201d where it privileges interviews with activists, everyday people, and subject-matter experts. \u201cI think it\u2019s that authentic voice that drives people to support Democracy Now!\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, as the mainstream media declines and smaller, independent outings proliferate on platforms like Substack and TikTok, the audience-supported model Democracy Now! relies on has become far more prevalent. Goodman isn\u2019t worried about lagging support in an era where an increasing number of indie outlets rely on reader or viewer donations or subscriptions to stay afloat, though. \u201cWe haven\u2019t had an issue,\u201d she says. \u201cOne of the engines of our growth has been no paywall.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the opening scene of the new documentary Steal This Story, Please! reporter Amy Goodman chases down a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[153,70,1208,158,26795,9,24,63,87,122,124,123,4015],"class_list":{"0":"post-192158","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-journalism","10":"tag-media","11":"tag-movies","12":"tag-national-affairs","13":"tag-new-york","14":"tag-new-york-city","15":"tag-nyc","16":"tag-politics","17":"tag-queens","18":"tag-queens-headlines","19":"tag-queens-news","20":"tag-social-media"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}