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As the World Focuses on US Abuses in Iraq,
‘Peace Correspondent’ Amy Goodman Speaks Out
Award-winning Host of 'Democracy Now! Radio and TV Show and Now Best-selling Author Sweeps the Nation

Amy Goodman's First Book is a New York Times Bestseller*
Her 70-City National Tour of The Exception to the Rulers:
Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, & the Media That Love Them
Hits Chicago on Friday, May 21st

WHEN: FRIDAY MAY 21, 12:30pm

WHERE: Border's Books & Music
150 North State Street, Chicago

For more information call: (312) 606-0750

NEW YORK, NY-- Amy Goodman, award-winning host Democracy Now! and author’s 70-city national tour is hitting a nerve and sweeping the nation. It was standing room only at the book launch in New York where hundreds were turned away, Los Angeles drew over 2,000, in Minneapolis 1,400, and in Fresno, CA, and Salt Lake City very conservative towns, she drew unexpected crowds of nearly 1,000 at each event.

Goodman, whose first book widely criticizes ‘mainstream media' for excluding anti-war voices in the weeks leading to the war in Iraq, is broadcasting Democracy Now!, her daily national radio/TV show from the road. Democracy Now! is the largest public media collaboration in the U.S., broadcasting on over 225 radio and television stations nationwide

Stops on the tour are fundraisers for local community radio stations and features independent bookstores..

In her third and fourth week on her media and book tour, acclaimed journalist Amy Goodman, spoke to sold-out crowds in Boston, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Houston, Boulder, Portland, Seattle and Buffalo. She also appeared on CNBC's Dennis Miller on Friday April 30th. One viewer gleefully wrote the 'she served the pro-war Miller for breakfast.'

In Chicago, Democracy Now! can be seen or heard on the following stations in Chicago: WZRD 88.3 FM 7-8 a.m., 8-9 a.m., M-F Across the U.S. Free Speech TV, channel 9415 DISH network (satellite TV) M-S: 7-8am (live), Noon-1pm, 6-7pm, 11pm-Midnight CT.

The Exceptions to the Rulers makes the Bestseller Lists:
The New York Times Extended Bestseller List #17
Boston Globe Bestseller List #4
San Francisco Chronicle Best Seller List #5
Booksense National Bestsellers List #15
Daily Camera Boulder Colorado List #2

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE TOUR'S COVERAGE:

'The release of 'The Exception to the Rulers' and the elevated fervor surrounding Goodman come as President Bush is under increased scrutiny about the war in Iraq, particularly as U.S casualties are rising and comparisons to the Vietnam War are being made. Goodman's devotees said she challenged the decision to go to war in Iraq when much of the mainstream media did not.' -Los Angeles Times April 21, 2004

'As Big Media goes ever more corporate, says Goodman, the public hungers for independent outlets. Her program may be proof of that: "Democracy Now!" has grown astronomically in a short period. Two years ago it was on several dozen community radio stations. Today, it can be heard and seen on more than 225 Pacifica Radio stations and affiliates, including a few National Public Radio stations and public access television'. - Newsweek April 27, 2004

'The response has been incredible,' said Goodman, describing crowds of more than 1,000 people at stops she and her brother have made in New York, Fresno and Berkeley.....'There's an exhilaration and excitement about independent media as a place where different voices are heard,' she said. 'We're not talking about the voices of a fringe majority or even the silent majority, but the silenced majority -- silenced by the mainstream media.'- Minneapolis Star Tribune April 24, 2004

'Though her (Goodman) slightly gravelly voice is heard in almost every radio market in America, Goodman is self-effacing. 'I think I represent a lot of community broadcasters. I just connect the dots,' she said in a telephone interview from Boston, one stop on her national tour.'- Salt Lake Tribune May 2, 2004

'We were (Amy and her brother) raised to question authority, to think independently, to value education, to critically question everything. I think those are pretty good principles for a journalist to live by, and that's what we do. The whole model of exception to the rulers is that it shouldn't just address the Pacificas or Democracy Nows!, it should be all the media.' Amy Goodman to the Houston Chronicle May 4, 2004

'I think there is an obsession with reality TV because people are tired of untrue media,' (Amy) Goodman suggests. 'People are tired of fabrication. Well, we need some reality TV when it comes to war. We need to see the ugly, human face of war -- which is burned bodies, which is sheared-off limbs. And when we see that on both sides -- Iraqi babies and U.S. servicemen and -women -- I think war will be eradicated.'- Riverfront Times April 21, 2004

'Many people have never heard of her (Goodman), but Pacifica has good programming, and Amy is an example of that,' said Michael Harrison, editor of Talkers Magazine, which covers talk radio.'Pacifica is more liberal than NPR. Amy proves that radio isn't just dominated by right-wingers.'
- Buffalo News May 9, 2004

Some consider Goodman's stance controversial, but Michael Della Carpini, dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, said she is carrying on the tradition of muckraking journalism...'She's not an editorialist. She sticks to the facts. She's not a Rush Limbaugh-type who is simply letting her ideology drive what she does,' he said. 'She provides points of view that make you think, and she comes at it by saying, 'Who are we not hearing from in the traditional media?'-Philadelphia Inquirer May 13, 2004

'Goodman packed Boulder's Flatirons Theater on Monday, speaking to a sell-out crowd of 900, and was expected to draw a similar audience Tuesday night at Denver's Central Presbyterian Church...
Her show, which is typically shot live in New York at 6 a.m. MST, will be broadcast from Boulder
through Thursday. It is aired locally at different times on Free Speech TV, KGNU and Denver
Community TV channel 57.'- Boulder Camera May 5, 2004

For more information go to: democracynow.org/book
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TRANSCRIPT: Amy Goodman on the CNBC's Dennis Miller Show -April 30, 2004

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

The Dennis Miller Show

DENNIS MILLER: She’s the celebrated host of Dem Now on Pacifica Radio Network and the author of the book “The Exception to the Rulers” please welcome Amy Goodman, ladies and gentleman. Hey Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: Good to be here.

DENNIS MILLER: Alright, first up because it’s right on the docket today I want to ask you about Ted Koppel tonight. I uh, I heard that there is one chain of TV stations that are not going to run it. I, listen, I’m for this war but I also think that this is necessary to do this. I, I, I do think that there is 700 dead young people here and I want to hear their names. I want to see their faces, I don’t want this to turn into a numeric thing in my head and abstract. I want to be reminded of how painful and hard this is for our country. What are you thoughts?

AMY GOODMAN: Well I agree with you there and it’s very unfortunate that Sinclair Broadcasting which gives most of its campaign contributions willingly to the Republican Party, it’s not a surprise because it doesn’t make the Bush Administration look very good. But it does honor the young women and men who died in Iraq. We should know all of their names, we should know all of their stories. I would also like to be able to name the Iraqis who have died because let’s not forget the Bush Administration said that the U.S. went into Iraq to save and liberate them and there are now more than 10,000 Iraqi civilians who have died. These are all casualties and to know their names and to know their numbers matter.

DENNIS MILLER: While I concur with you I’d also happen to agree with the war. I wonder if you think these two are mutually exclusive; that you can back this war but also keep their names uppermost in our minds? When you say you think Bush gets campaign donations from these people and he is somehow connected to it… Isn’t it just a business decision at the end of the day on behalf of a group of stations who feel this might not play well in their market?

AMY GOODMAN: I think it is pretty clear, I mean it’s like Clear Channel banning anti-war songs. Here’s Sinclair Broadcasting it’s not going to make the Bush Administration look good. But I think it’s very important over-all, not only to see these very important pictures and names of people who have died, I think it is important to see caskets, the flag draped caskets. We have to know the casualties of war and for too long the U.S. media has really weighted out these images, has sanitized the war. If there is a war the U.S. is engaged in, I’m not really for reality TV, but I am for reality TV when it comes to war. We should see babies that are dead on the ground, people who are blown up by cluster bombs, and I think then and only then will people say that war is not a civilized answer to conflict in the twenty-first century.

DENNIS MILLER: Well, uh, would you… I don’t think there is anything civilized about war and I think we put ourselves in harm’s way when we try to civilize it. I think war is the last step you take and at the end of the day I think this war is justified. I think we have to fight terrorism. I, I, I agree with you on one aspect of it and I don’t think we should have to see the coffins though, I think that’s a little grisly, that’s just anonymous, there’s no name, there’s no faces attached to that. It seems a little voyeuristic to me. Do you think it is necessary to see those coffins everyday, draped in the flags?

AMY GOODMAN: Well there’s no reason not to know the names of the people who are dead in those coffins.

DENNIS MILLER: Weren’t they showing coffins draped in flags that were in fact not even from the Iraq war they were saying they were and they were from the 9/11, right?

AMY GOODMAN: The Bush Administration has invoked an executive order that would not allow videographers or photographers to photograph those caskets, and it’s for one reason and that is it does not make the Bush Administration look good. But as for linking the issue of the invasion of Iraq with terrorism, I come from New York where there’s New York Governor George Pataki. He said he wanted to take a piece of the statue of Saddam Hussein that the U.S. troops pulled down and put it into the new foundation of the World Trade Center. If in fact they do that, that will be the first proven link between Iraq and the attacks on September 11th.

DENNIS MILLER: Yeah, it hasn’t been proven yet, I concur with you, but I believe it will be proven someday. So, uh…

AMY GOODMAN: Well I’m a journalist and I look at the evidence and I go with the intelligence analysts who for a long time within the establishment, within the CIA, have been saying “this evidence is not credible”. September 11th, which was such a horrific event; three thousand people incinerated in a moment, we’ll never know actually how many people died because those who go uncounted in life go uncounted in death and there are the undocumented workers who died at the World Trade Center. But this horrific moment, we diverted from dealing with this when the U.S. invaded Iraq, something the Bush Administration wanted to do even before September 11th, and it has diverted us from actually dealing with the issue of terror and the threats to National Security that we face in this country.

DENNIS MILLER: Well I disagree with you completely, probably as half of America does and that’s what makes uh, for America. I’d say that there’s around half the people who do believe that there’s some connection. I think terrorism is a wide-sprung network, it’s probably as wide-sprung as the uh, vast left, er, right-wing conspiracy that has abdicated from your side of the aisle. I do think that these people intertwine. It amazes me when people always think that there’s no link between Al Qeda and the secular state of Iraq. To think that they both think we’re Satan tells me that they might have carpooled somewhere along the way. That’s just the way I look at it, you know. To think that you, uh, uh, you might be a journalist but I’m a pragmatist and I don’t put an egg timer on finding evidence. It hasn’t been long enough for us to know exactly, I do think there are connections there.

DENNIS MILLER: Real quick give me one thing that you’re proud about, about America.

AMY GOODMAN: I’m proud…

DENNIS MILLER: What were you most proud at, but, but I don’t want the answer to be that you don’t necessarily like it if you don’t want. What is one thing you do like about the country, that you’re real proud of?

AMY GOODMAN: I’m really proud of mainstream America. Because the fact is leading up to this invasion most people in this country were opposed to this invasion. They believed in more inspections, they believed in more diplomacy. The corporate media in this country I would not say is mainstream media as they beat the drums for war, they are an extreme media and I’m talking about not the fringe minority or even the silent majority, but the silenced majority silenced by the corporate media. And it has to stop. The media has to be a forum for a full diversity of views and that includes so many people who don’t believe that war is the answer and I include military families in that who are grieving right now, wondering why their loved ones were sent off to war to die.

DENNIS MILLER: Alright I have to ask you real quickly and I’m going to wrap up. If mainstream America re-elects this man then, on November 3rd, George Bush, you will be fully in accord and embrace that decision right?

AMY GOODMAN: I deeply believe that our…

DENNIS MILLER: No, not believe, I’m saying that I think mainstream America is going to re-elect this man and I’m hoping that you find uh, there sentiments as endearing men, right?

AMY GOODMAN: I believe as a journalist that the journalists in this country have to be the exception to the rulers, that’s the title of the book, that’s right, and stop cozying up to those in power. I don’t think that the majority of people in this country support this invasion or occupation.

(LOUD APPLAUSE FROM STUDIO AUDIENCE)

DENNIS MILLER: Alright, thank you Amy. I got to break here before they beat me up. Up next we’ll talk fast food, porn, and drugs. You got to stay around for that.
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