King Column for 'Democracy Now!' Host Amy Goodman

By: E&P Staff Investigative journalist Amy Goodman -- host of the award-winning news program "Democracy Now!" -- will write a weekly column for King Features Syndicate starting Oct. 24.

"Amy Goodman: Breaking the Sound Barrier" will discuss politics, the media, and current affairs.

In her introductory column, Goodman writes: "My goal as a journalist is to break the sound barrier. To cut through the static and bring forth voices that are not usually heard. I am not talking about a fringe minority, or the 'Silent Majority,' but a silenced majority, increasingly restless, of people who are looking for alternative sources of information in a complex world. My column will include voices so often excluded, people whose views the media mostly ignore, issues they distort and even ridicule."

As co-founder, executive producer, and host, Goodman helped launch Pacifica Radio's "Democracy Now!" in 1996. The independent news program now airs daily on more than 500 public broadcast stations in North America.

Goodman began her journalism career at Pacifica Radio's WBAI, where she produced that New York station's evening news for 10 years.

In 1991, Goodman traveled to East Timor to report on the Indonesian occupation there. She and colleague Allan Nairn witnessed Indonesian soldiers gun down 270 East Timorese men, women, and children during a memorial procession. The soldiers also beat Goodman and Nairn, fracturing Nairn's skull. Their documentary -- "Massacre: The Story of East Timor" -- won the Robert F. Kennedy Prize for International Reporting, the Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia Award, the Armstrong Award, the Radio/Television News Directors Award, as well as honors from the Associated Press, United Press International, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

In 1998, Goodman and producer Jeremy Scahill went to Nigeria. Their award-winning radio documentary -- "Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship" -- exposed Chevron's role in the killing of two Nigerian villagers who were protesting yet another oil spill in their community.

A year later, Goodman traveled to Peru to interview American political prisoner Lori Berenson. It was the first time a journalist had gotten into the prison to speak with her.

In 2004, Goodman obtained the international broadcast exclusive of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's return from his imposed exile in the Central African Republic to Jamaica. That coverage scored more than 3.5 million hits on the "Democracy Now!" Web site, ultimately forcing the story into the mainstream press in what Goodman describes as "trickle up" journalism.

Goodman and her brother -- investigative journalist David Goodman -- are the co-authors of "Static: Government Liars, Media Cheerleaders, and the People Who Fight Back" (Hyperion, 2006). The pair also wrote the best-selling "The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them." The book was chosen by independent bookstores as the No. 1 political title of the 2004 election season and ranked as one of the top 50 nonfiction books that year Publishers Weekly.