Alternative News Source: DEMOCRACY Now!

Review of a radio, TV show, and podcast

Sonora’s low-power radio station, KAAD-LP, broadcasts a news program that covers important stories you may not hear reported by major news outlets. Democracy Now!, hosted by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, has been on the air for 29 years. It is entirely listener-sponsored–meaning it receives no commercial or government funding–and airs Monday through Friday on radio, satellite TV, and as a podcast (1).

Democracy Now! offers feature stories, investigative journalism, and political commentary. It bills itself as providing “independent news coverage,” is considered progressive, and gives a platform to activists who do not find a home on most media (2).

Goodman and Gonzalez offer in-depth interviews with experts such as political thinker and author Noam Chomsky; Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz; acclaimed social justice warrior, Robert Reich; pioneering climatologist Michael E. Mann; public intellectual and author, Naomi Klein; and award-winning author, Ta-Nehisi Coates. Other frequent guests include Greta Thunberg, Arundhati Roy, Ralph Nader, Julian Assange, and Norman Finkelstein. These voices are rarely, if ever, heard on other media.

Besides a focus on corporate and government abuses of power, the hosts cover international stories that get little attention in the U.S. Since October 7, 2023, Democracy Now! has devoted much of its air time to the plight of the Palestinians and the tragedy in Gaza.

The program also furnishes a platform for marginalized people excluded from the mainstream who face discrimination—LGBTQ+ people, the poor, immigrants, victims of police brutality, disabled people, and prison inmates—all whose voices are unheard or undervalued.

As a result of her front-line journalism, Goodman has often found herself in precarious situations. In 2016, while covering the Dakota Access Pipeline protest in North Dakota, as company guards used pepper spray and unleashed dogs on protesters, Goodman was arrested, along with Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein.

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a progressive media watchdog group (3), and the WNYC/NPR investigative radio show and podcast, On the Media (4), both regularly cite Democracy Now! as a reliable source in their media reviews.

We are fortunate to have such a celebrated news program available to us. If you haven’t yet listened to Democracy Now! on local radio, heard the podcast, or watched the TV broadcast, now is the time to broaden your news sources. In these perilous times, our world demands it (5).

NOTES

1. KAAD-LP, 103.5 FM, 9 am., M-F; Free Speech TV, Dish channel 269, 5 am. and 2 pm, M-F; and any podcast platform, such as Spotify.
2. Jon Allsop, “Voices on the Left Are Rising in the U.S. Why Aren’t They in Mainstream Media?” Columbia Journalism Review, May 8, 2018.
3. Fair & Accuracy in Reporting, FAIR.
4. “On the Media,” Our Podcasts, WNYCSTUDIO.
5. Jon Stinton, “Why Progressive Voices,” Progressive Voices, no date.