Amy Goodman to Appear at WETS Fundraiser, April 7

Amy Goodman, host of the Pacifica radio and television program Democracy Now!, will speak at East Tennessee State University’s Culp Center Auditorium on Tuesday, April 7, at 7 pm.  This lecture is a benefit for ETSU’s public radio station WETS-FM (89.5 MHz) which airs Democracy Now! weeknights at 6 pm.

Tickets for the lecture are $10 and are available at WETS-FM and at the auditorium box office on the night of the lecture.  Tickets for the reception following the lecture are $25. The reception will be held in the East Tennessee Room on the third level of the Culp Center. Proceeds from this event will help support WETS-FM.

Goodman founded the program Democracy Now! on New York’s WBAI-FM in 1996. Since then, Democracy Now! has been called "probably the most significant progressive news institution that has come around in some time" by professor and media critic Robert McChesney. The Los Angeles Times describes Goodman as "radio's voice of the disenfranchised left." Michael Della Carpini, dean of the Annenberg School for Communication, said, "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. 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?’”

Goodman has received acclaim for her exposés of human rights violations in East Timor and Nigeria, and is the first journalist to receive the “Right Livelihood Award.” Other awards include the Golden Reel for the Best National Documentary for 'Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship' in 1998, and the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Prize for 'Massacre: the Story of East Timor'. This story had almost cost her life: In East Timor, she survived a massacre in 1991 in which Indonesian soldiers gunned down 270 Timorese. 

Goodman and her brother, reporter David Goodman, have authored three books: The Exception to the Rulers (2004); Static: Government Liars, Media Cheer-leaders and the People who Fight Back (2006); and Standing up to the Madness (2008). She also syndicates a column to national papers.

Goodman credits the program's success to the mainstream news makers who leave "a huge niche" for Democracy Now! "It's just the basic tenets of good journalism that instead of this small circle of pundits, you talk to people who live at the target end of the policy," she said.

WETS-FM began airing Democracy Now! in July 2005, and since then it has become one of the most popular – and controversial – programs on the station. “Democracy Now! has been one of our most successful programs ever, in terms of listener support,” according to WETS station manager Wayne Winkler.  “This program covers topics and provides viewpoints that are simply not available from other media outlets in this region. We are thrilled to have this respected journalist visit Johnson City and we hope many people will take this opportunity to hear her perspectives on today’s events.”

Tickets will be available around April 1.  Contact Wayne Winkler at 423.439.6441 or winklerw@etsu.edu.