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In the new opening scene documentary Steal this story, please! Reporter Amy Goodman stalks a top Trump administration adviser.
The camera follows as it wanders into the conference room of A climate Conference in Poland, shouting questions at energy expert B. Wells Griffith III until he slams the door in her face. She waits outside bravely. The door opens a crack. He is a servant, peeps in and sends her away; Until the door closes again, Goodman continues trying to call. She was out of breath when she finally came back.
Goodman, the indefatigable host and longtime co-founder of The Independent Press burly Democracy Now!She has spent the past 30 years asking her subjects tough questions, leading people like former US President Bill Clinton to describe her as “hostile and combative” and to intimidate government officials to the point where they flee on sight.
Steal this story please! antiquities Democracy Now!Rising from a vanity broadcast on a few public radio stations to…exactly the same thing, just distributed to thousands of radio and TV stations as well as the Internet.
Democracy Now! It is a rare media success story where an outlet has thrived by sticking to its original vision — it has always been a grassroots endeavor that prides itself on eschewing corporate sponsorship and embracing coverage of social movements. It has also always been led by Goodman, 68, whose rise to progressive icon has been documented in parallel with the outlet’s growth.
Steal this story please!directed by Oscar-nominated directors Thea Leisen and Karl Dell, and in theaters Friday, takes an affectionate look at its subject — and this is no painful exposition — but it still thrusts Goodman into an unfamiliar position, in which she is the one answering questions rather than asking them. “It hurts,” Goodman tells WIRED. “A taste of my own medicine.”
She was more than happy to address this discomfort, because she sees the project as a way to spread the word about the necessity of independent journalism. She sees the name of the documentary as a call to action for her journalistic ethics: “We see the exclusive story as a failure.” In the era when Media executives tend to be fickleGoodman hopes her outlet’s success will show that there is indeed an appetite for coverage that challenges authority and focuses on community-led movements around the world.
Steal this story please! It is basically a highlight reel for Democracy Now!The magazine’s reportage, from its early work covering the genocide in East Timor, where Goodman was beaten by occupying Indonesian soldiers, to its field reports on the genocide in East Timor. 9/11 attacksto its crusading reports on the protest movements in Standing Rockright down to her attentive documentation of Violence in Gaza. The film makes clear that one of the secrets of the program’s success is its focus on global social movements and speaking directly to the people involved in them. “We don’t believe in turning to critics, who know so little about so much,” says Goodman. Instead, the newspaper focuses on what Goodman calls “roll journalism,” privileging interviews with activists, ordinary people, and experts on the subject. “I think it’s that authentic voice that drives people to support Democracy Now!“
Today, with the decline of mainstream media and the proliferation of smaller indie outings on platforms like Substack and TikTok, the crowd-supported model Democracy Now! Reliance on it is becoming more widespread. Goodman isn’t concerned about lagging support in an era when an increasing number of independent outlets rely on donations from readers, viewers or subscriptions to stay afloat. “We had no problem,” she says. “One of the drivers of our growth is not having a paywall.”