Amy Goodman is the host of Pacifica Radio’s daily newsmagazine Democracy Now! She is a 1998 recipient of the George Polk Award for the radio documentary “Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria’s Military Dictatorship,” in which she and co-producer Jeremy Scahill exposed the oil company’s role in the killing of two Nigerian villagers on May 28, 1998. Goodman and Scahill co-wrote two articles in The Nation magazine on the Chevron-related killings.
Goodman has also won numerous awards for the radio documentary she co-produced with journalist Allan Nairn, “MASSACRE: The Story of East Timor,” including the Robert F. Kennedy Prize for International Reporting, the Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia Silver Baton, the Armstrong Award, the Radio/Television News Directors Award, as well as awards from AP, UPI, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
In 1991 Goodman and Nairn survived a massacre in East Timor in which Indonesian soldiers gunned down more than 250 Timorese. The Indonesian military banned them from returning. Goodman twice attempted to re-enter East Timor to cover the historic referendum on self-determination. Citing her name on an army blacklist, the Indonesian regime deported her both times.
Goodman has reported from Israel and the Occupied territories, Cuba, Mexico, Haiti and this year became the first journalist ever to interview the jailed U.S. citizen Lori Berenson, serving a life sentence in Peru. Goodman also recently broadcast the first U.S. radio interview with imprisoned East Timor rebel leader Xanana Gusmao. In addition to her daily radio shows, Goodman speaks around the country on university campuses, as well as to human rights, church and community groups about media activism. She also runs workshops at community radio stations on grassroots coverage.
Democracy Now! airs locally on KUNM 90.7FM Monday-Friday from 4-5pm and on Free Speech TV, channel 9415 of the DISH Network Monday-Friday at 6am, 5pm, and 10pm.