The Exception to the Rulers

Oscar-winning actor and outspoken lefty activist Tim Robbins got an appreciative chuckle from the packed house when he sauntered onstage last night at Cooper Union auditorium in New York City and quipped, "It's very strange to be in a room where I might be one of the least progressive people." He fired up the audience--got it singing, clapping and up on its feet--when he pointed to the petite woman standing in back with the overflow crowd, aand announced that it was her birthday.

The woman, Amy Goodman, is an award-journalist and host of public broadcasting's Democracy Now! radio show. Her new book, The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them (Hyperion, $21.95), went on sale today. Robbins may be A-list in Hollywood, but at Goodman's party, he was just another Goodman groupie, coming out to help launch their hero's book.

In the book, Goodman sticks to the message of her program, which is broadcast on more than 200 outlets on Pacifica Radio, National Public Radio and other community and satellite radio and television stations. She emphatically criticizes what she sees as abuses by the powerful in government and business--saving her harshest judgments for establishment media, which she accuses of functioning as cheerleaders of the government annd censors of dissent. "The press goes on bended knee to the administration, treating them like royalty, and it just has to change," Goodman said during an interview with PW Daily.

Not only does The Exception have a built-in audience among Goodman's current fans--who revere her as if she housed in her diminutive frame the reincarnated spirits of Ida Tarbell, Edward R. Murrow and Gandhii--but it will also be promoted through a scorched-earth touring schedule that includes more than 70 live appearances over the next few months. Starting this week in Northern California, she'll hit cities big (San Francisco, Boston, Seattle) and not so big (Montpelier, Vt., Eugene, Ore., Bellingham, Wash.), in a juggernaut to promote both the book and her favorite cause.

"The point is to support independent media all over the country," Goodman said. "In almost every single stop, we're doing a big fundraiser for an independent radio station or television station." Typically, the events are being co-sponsored by local bookstores but held in larger venues to accommodate the anticipated crowds. On April 27, for example, Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley, Mass., is co-sponsoring a talk and book signing that will take place in the auditorium of Mt. Holyoke College. The venue holds about 1,200 people, said Odyssey co-owner Joan Grenier, who has already stocked 200 copies of the book and is watching to see how the title sells this week before putting in another order. Grenier says she expects The Exception to be her biggest seller this spring.

"I think people are beginning to see that certainly around weapons of mass destruction, we did not get the whole story," Grenier said. "In fact we were lied to. So I think people are really hungry for getting information and getting correct information." Hyperion has done three printings so far, for a total of 5,500 copies.

Goodman's brother and co-writer on The Exception, journalist David Goodman, said working with independent bookstores seemed like a natural fit for what he and his sister were doing. "We feel that they are a treasure and some of the biggest supporters of independent media," he said during a $50-a-head reception that preceded Amy's talk at Cooper Union last night.

The event, a fundraiser for Pacifica Radio station WBAI in New York City, drew about 1,100 people, not including those who were turned away because the venue was full. Among the people milling about the reception were Robbins and author Malachy McCourt, who said, "I'm not a fan. I'm a follower. I'm addicted. If Amy Goodman is removed from my veins, my heart would stop beating."--Karen Holt

REVIEWS OF THE BOOK

—MINNESOTA DAILY, 5/06/04

Amy Goodman takes her critique of contemporary politics from the airwaves to the bookshelf

—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Journalist and radio host Goodman brings her hard-hitting, no-holds-barred brand of reporting to an array of human rights, government accountability and media responsibility issues, and the result is bracing and timely.

Goodman isn't about to let anyone slide by with easy explanations, not even then President Clinton when he called in on her daily Pacifica news show. And she is fierce and tireless in her commitment to dig behind official versions of the facts to get to very different stories. Her analysis of Iraq War contracts won by certain key Bush campaign donors will open many eyes, not only with its neat comparison of donation amount with contract value but also with its bold presentation of "Crony Connections." A gadfly's life in these turbulent times is neither restful nor boring, and Goodman's perspective on events like genocidal massacres in East Timor and mainstream coverage of the Jessica Lynch rescue is both important and alarming. Instances in which newspapers like the New York Times and the Washington Post have published stories based on leaked reports from unnamed government sources only to have to retract the stories later as being unfounded allow Goodman to argue that sophisticated news management techniques of spin, disinformation and controlled access to sources are undermining the reliability of media reporting. How, she asks, could journalists "embedded" with U.S. troops in Iraq be objective reporters of all that was occurring there, and whose interests were being served? These and other provocative questions power Goodman's stirring call for a democratic media serving a democratic society.

—BOOKLIST

Goodman's high-octane blend of investigative journalism and political activism has been the force behind Pacifica radio's Democracy Now!, earning her praise and vitriol alike (not to mention nearly getting her killed by Indonesians in East Timor). Her first book, coauthored with her brother, David, recounts some of her most hard-hitting confrontations with corporate types and politicos of all persuasions, covering much of the same territory as other anti-Bush books and then some, at a compelling, breathless pace. Her real target, however, is not the oil-defense-politics Establishment, but their enablers, the media, which are cowed less by their corporate owners than by their own capacity for self-censorship in the guise of patriotism. NPR listeners, New York Times readers, you're not off the hook; Goodman is just as frustrated with your news outlets' silence when it comes to dead Iraqi civilians and antiwar viewpoints. Although her suggestions for how, exactly, to infuse media with integrity are perhaps quieter than her condemnations of hypocrisy, Goodman's vision for media's role in society is as vigorous as her confidence in the power of motivated communities.

Brendan Driscoll

—amazon.com

Read Amazon reader reviews

—Minneapolis Star Tribune

By Deborah Caulfield Rybak
Star Tribune
April 24 2004

For devotees of independent media and social-justice activists, Amy Goodman's arrival in the Twin Cities today may seem the equivalent of a royal visit from the Queen Mother.

Goodman, an award-winning journalist and iconoclastic host of the radio/TV/Internet news affairs show "Democracy Now!" is touring with her first book, "The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them," which she co-wrote with her brother, David.

As Goodman chatted this week from a stop in Los Angeles, it became clear that this tour is more about cause than commerce.

"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."

In the Twin Cities, Goodman's radio show is broadcast twice a day on the nonprofit community station KFAI (90.3 and 106.7 FM). The show generated 10 percent of listener-membership dollars in 2003, according to KFAI news director Ann Alquist.

Grizzled literary veterans invariably bemoan the rigors of a book tour -- but those are affairs that normally encompass about a dozen cities at a crack.

Goodman, 47, is not only making 70 (!) stops for book signings, she is also doing her normally New York City-based daily show along the way -- and attending fundraisers for the stations that carry it. KFAI will benefit from her appearance in Minneapolis tonight.

Widely indignant

To describe "Exception to the Rulers" as just another in a spate of recent books criticizing the Bush administration is to unfairly limit the scope of its indignation. "Exception" excoriates big media, corporate warmongers and the "power elite," on both sides of the political fence.

Those who see it as just another broadside from the liberal left need to consider the book jacket quote about Goodman from former President Bill Clinton: "Hostile, combative, and even disrespectful." (She and Clinton once butted heads on her show.)

But it is "corporate media" -- the major television networks, newspaper chains and radio conglomerates -- that Goodman roasts on her journalistic spit with particular ferocity.

"The media has reached an all-time low in this country," she said. "It's just been beating the drums for war, and it's unacceptable and inexcusable. You have servicemen and women being sent to kill or be killed in Iraq, and when you don't have a full debate on the most important issues of the day -- war and peace, life and death -- it does them a disservice."

Of course, corporate media isn't all bad. Most mainstream papers along Goodman's book tour have run flattering profiles of her. Plus, "Exceptions to the Rulers" was published by Hyperion Press, owned by one of the most massive media conglomerates of all -- Disney, which also owns the ABC radio and television networks, Miramax Films, A&E, ESPN and the History cable channels, among much more.

Goodman's show was born on a much smaller media consortium, the Pacifica radio network, launched in 1949 by Lew Hill, a pacifist who refused to serve in the military during World War II and spent the war working in a civilian-service camp.

"When Lew got out, he decided to start a media outlet that wasn't run by corporations, but by journalists and artists," said Goodman.

'Democracy Now!'

"Democracy Now!" made its debut on New York Pacifica station WBAI during the 1996 elections. The daughter of Long Island political activists, Goodman had gone to work for WBAI in 1986, shortly after she graduated from Harvard with a degree in anthropology.

Since then, the show has grown in scope, largely because of Goodman's journalistic skills and willingness to "go where the silence is," as she puts it. For instance, the mainstream media pay little attention to Indonesia's civil war in East Timor -- a conflict that has lasted nearly as long as Northern Ireland's, but has gotten only a fraction of the coverage. In 1991, Goodman was almost killed there when Indonesian troops opened fire on a crowd of Timorese en route to a memorial service.

In February, she was one of two journalists to accompany ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide as he flew from the Central African Republic, where he said he had been taken against his will by the U.S. government, to Jamaica.

Broadcasting from an old firehouse near Ground Zero (where she holed up for days after the 9/11terrorist attacks), Goodman has earned a host of journalism honors, among them the George Polk Award and the Robert F. Kennedy Prize for International Reporting, as well as a fiercely loyal fan base.

The show is now broadcast on more than 200 public and community radio stations, along with public-access TV -- including several channels in the Twin Cities (see http://www.democracynow.org) -- satellite TV and the Internet. "And we're adding them at the rate of two to three stations a week," Goodman said.

Deborah Caulfield Rybak is at dcrybak@startribune.com.

The Exception to the Rulers

Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media that Love Them

The First book by Amy Goodman, Host of the National Radio/TV Program Democracy Now, with her brother, Journalist/Author David Goodman

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BOOK REVIEWS & NEWS FROM THE TOUR

—Official Selection of the Book of the Month Club

—LOS ANGELES TIMES, 4/21/04

—Publishers Weekly

REVIEWS OF THE BOOK

—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

—BOOKLIST

—amazon.com

THE EXCEPTION TO THE RULERS IS A NATIONAL BESTSELLER!!!

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER
BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE BESTSELLER
DENVER POST BESTSELLER
BOULDER DAILY CAMERA BESTSELLER
BOOK SENSE NATIONAL BESTSELLER
AMAZON.COM BESTSELLER