It really didn't.
It launched a media movement that was falsely branded as "DIY." Do It Yourself.
It has failed so much that there is now a company called DIY Media -- the movement lost its own brand.
So now the tricksters head to places like Full Sail University and try to pimp "YOU are the media!" or "You Are Your Media." It wasn't supposed to be this way.
For example, Crapapedia notes:
The Independent Media Center (also known as Indymedia or IMC) is a global participatory network of journalists that report on political and social issues. It originated during the Seattle anti-WTO protests worldwide in 1999 and remains closely associated with the global justice movement, which criticizes neo-liberalism and its associated institutions. Indymedia uses an open publishing and democratic media process that allows anybody to contribute.
So much time and energy (and a little money) was put into creating Indymedia in the US.
And it's all pretty much gone. Each year of Barack Obama's presidency has seen more and more Indymedia sites in the US stop publishing and disappear. Currently, even the main US collective is down.
The main collective existed as a 'best of' all the other US IMC outlets. (Indymedia's more formal name is Independent Media Center.) Being a 'best of' means US IMC grabbed content from the others. If you visit the cache version of their last published main page, you'll see they were still publishing in September . . . of 2012. They featured "Chicago Teachers Union strike ends, but concerns remain" (from Chicago IMC). Chicago Indymedia continues to publish (with stories that went up this month).
In 2012, US IMC also featured DC and NYC IMC stories. DC Indymedia continues to publish (with stories from this month). NYC? Their most 'recent' story on their main page is from March of this year.
At one point, back when Bully Boy Bush occupied the White House, there were 57 US IMC sites:
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
austin
austin indymedia
baltimore
big muddy
binghamton
boston
buffalo
charlottesville
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
tennessee
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester
Those 57? Most are now other sites (including one that will corrupt your computer so we've removed the links but you can Google them yourselves) or no sites at all. Many are archived sites. We especially like the site that stopped publishing 'temporarily' in 2008 and never came back.
How many are still publishing today?
We're going to be generous an include anyone that published at any time this month.
From 57 to only 9 besides DC and Chicago.
And who are the 9?
Boston Indymedia published this month, Colorado Indymedia, LA Indymedia, Atlanta Indymedia, Philly Indymedia, Portland Indymedia, Rochester Indymedia, Indybay IMC, and Santa Cruz Indybay did as well.
What we know about those sites? The key thing for those 9 is that there was conflict and fighting, disagreement, often open disagreement and that apparently allowed them to thrive because they really were about free speech. Indybay? It was one of two San Francisco sites. The other one -- which e-mailed The Common Ills in 2005 asking that TCI stop noting Indybay (didn't happen) -- is gone. Indybay was the one that welcomed discussions and disagreements. Or take Colorado, for example, which had some posters walk out when Libertarians wanted to post. Portland was the most attacked by the 'respectable' IMC sites -- like NYC.
Why?
Portland practices free speech. That means you can publish on that site even if you're going after a sacred cow. In a free for all over a sacred cow being called out, a lengthy comment included this, "It's not easy to referee an open (or should I say semi-open site?) site. But we shouldn't allow Portland to be sterilized like most of the other IMCs. When you neuter the debate (or arguing if you prefer) you've removed the function of the site."
Portland Indymedia refused to neuter the debare and that's probably why it is among the few still around.
The sacred cow being gone after in that discussion of a 2006 article? Amy Goodman.
She was the poster child for Indymedia -- she made herself that.
Because Seattle 1999 created a media boomtown. Many journalists or 'journalists' suddenly wanted to be presented as the most independent in the world.
Let's drop back to Seattle. Here's Ty explaining it:
The World Trade Organization scheduled their Ministerial Conference in Seattle in 1999. The conference was to begin on November 30th; however, activists turned out in huge numbers and shut the conference down. The Seattle protests were seen as the start of a a new era of activism. In many ways, September 11, 2001 would be used to attack them as if al Qaeda in Iraq were somehow activists. Many tactics of suppression and distortions and attacks followed 9-11.
And the youth activists in Seattle reminded America what activism was -- so much more than signing a petition.
It tapped into something and a lot of journalists and 'journalists' wanted to ride that wave.
Amy Goodman used the wave to get press coverage -- from everyone including The New York Times -- and get various covers from left media.
And, best of all, get covered by friends -- who didn't disclose the friendship but did re-write history.
Friends like the media gadfly, daughter of a semi-famous woman. The still-done-nothing daughter wrote a gushing piece on Amy Goodman 'forgetting' to include that they were friends. Forgetting a lot in fact.
For example, she claimed Goodman created Democracy Now! in 1996.
No, Pacifica Radio created the program in 1996 and it had the following people as hosts: Larry Bensky, Julie Drizin, Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzalez and Salim Muwakkil. Amy Goodman used strife at Pacifica to take over the show and would use her friends (Pacifica board member Leslie Cagan, for example) to get ownership of the show and a contract worth millions.
No one working in public media deserves to be paid millions. They don't even deserve $100,000 a year. Public radio, for example, exists to inform the public and when you're spending more on personalities than on news gathering, you're not doing public radio.
What is Amy Goodman doing?
It's not journalism.
As we've noted before, prior to 2008, the 9-11 Truth Movement was the only one offering a sustained critique and analysis of her work.
In 2008, we joined in. We were the ones pointing out that Amy knew Melissa Lie Face Harris Lacewell (Perry) and knew Melissa was working on Barack Obama's presidential primary campaign yet she just told her audiences that Melissa was a college professor, an independent one who happened to be in New Hampshire and was going to share what she saw.
What Melissa shared was endless praise of Barack.
Goodman was required to disclose to her guest was working for one of the candidates.
Goodman failed to do so.
We noted how when Barack was speaking out against NAFTA and AP broke the story that Barack was actually telling Canada NAFTA would stay law, Goodman worked overtime to ignore the issue and brought John Nichols on so that she and he could engage in 'news' that it was really Hillary Clinton. (No, it was't Hillary. Nichols and Goodman lied.)
We noted how she distorted PUMA on air -- and did so to cover up for Barack supporter who'd just revealed herself to be a liar. There was Amy to distract.
We noted how she used her show to promote Barack as a candidate and how that effected who got booked and what questions they were asked.
We continued documenting how she ran from Iraq as soon as Barack became president and how she was nothing but a used out whore for the White House.
Then came Libya and, with it, Amy Goodman's selling of war.
And with that, her humped back was broken by a straw and reality emerged.
Scott Creighton (Educate Yourself) noted:
Amy Goodman of Democracy NOW! has become one of the most disingenuous
news figures this country has to offer and that’s saying a lot because
there are numbers of them. She is not worthy of your trust, she is not
worthy of your time, she is not worthy of your respect… anymore.
Such a sad legacy she now leaves behind after a long and storied
career as a dedicated teller of the truth in spite of the power
aligned against her.
For whatever reason, she has become just another
prostitute in service of the globalists who are at this minute still
attacking the people of Libya, still bombing them and their
infrastructure, still laying siege to cities and populations who
refuse to surrender to NATO powers, and still planning how to dice up
the people of Libya’s state assets to hand them over to their
favorite corporate contributors.
And Amy Goodman is in their service, lying to her audience on a daily basis.
Bruce A. Dixon (Black Agenda Report) spoke for many when he wrote, "We have to wonder whether, at least as far as the war in Libya goes, whether Democracy Now is simply feeding us the line of corporate media, the Pentagon and the State Department's rather than fulfilling the role of unembedded independent journalists." Truth & Justice Radio's Stan Robison also had the people's megaphone when he declared, "I've been a devout listener for about 10 years and I've urged others to listen/watch Democracy Now. But DN's blatant, outrageous, pro-US Libya propaganda in today's edition has finally put me over the top. I'm finally coming to terms with the sad fact that I'd better not trust Democracy Now any more for basic honesty or integrity." Historian William Blum commented, "The heavy bias of Democracy Now in this area goes back to the very beginning of the Arab Spring. The program made some unfortunate choices in its mideast news correspondents, seemingly only because they spoke Arabic and/or had contacts in the region. Where have you gone Amy Goodman? RT (Russia Today) has stood almost alone amongst English-language television news sources in offering an alternative to the official Western line." Nota Khan (12160) dubbed Amy Goodman a "presstitute" due to her whoring for empire. Rhone Fraser (Edifying Debate) observed Goody's propaganda required vanishing Cynthia McKinney:
Since Cynthia McKinney returned from her fact finding mission in June of 2011, I have been frankly appalled by her being ignored by Amy Goodman’s program Democracy Now. In fact, ever since Goodman’s coverage of Iran in 2009, I have had serious questions about Goodman calling her news source as “independent.” In my opinion, Goodman raised a bit too much questions about the legitimacy of the 2009 presidential election in Iran, especially claiming that protesters numbered in the hundreds of thousands.
To be really clear, former US House Rep. Cynthia McKinney, the 2008 presidential candidate for the Green Party, was a guest on numerous topics for numerous episodes until Barack went into the White House.
Questions would continue to spring up. Clay Clairborne (Linux Beach) would note how the same event would be 'reported' by Goody in different ways, "Orwellian re-writing of history, which is what Democracy Now engaged in on Thursday's show, must be strongly opposed whether it is done by the right or the left." John V. Walsh (Antiwar.com) would report on how Goody's frequent 'expert' guest Juan Cole was actually a CIA contract employee
It would seem then that the interaction between the CIA operatives and Cole was long standing and sufficiently intimate that the CIA spooks could be expected to know things about Cole’s lifestyle and personal life. It is not that anyone should give two figs about Cole’s personal life which is more than likely is every bit as boring as he claims. But his relationship with the CIA is of interest since he is an unreconstructed hawk. What was remarkable to me at the time is that Goodman did not pick up on any of this. Did she know before of Cole’s connections? Was not this the wrong man to have as a “frequent guest,” in Goodman’s words, on the situation in the Middle East?
The late Alexander Cockburn (CounterPunch) would remark, "On Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now one was far more likely to hear CIA-consultant Juan Cole issuing fervent support for the entire intervention than rather any vigorous interviewing of informed sources about what was actually happening on the ground in Libya." Rumors would spin about Goody's own supposed CIA connections and, maybe if Cockburn had lived longer, he would have written about some of those rumors since he certainly enjoyed talking about how Goodman was supposedly recruited in college.
While Cockburn's death may have left her off the hook, Goody couldn't stop destroying whatever was left of her image. Syria only made things worse for Amy Goodman. Finian Cunningham (Global Research) explained:
One such “alternative” news service is “Democracy Now” hosted by Amy Goodman. Goodman is seen as something of a campaigning critical journalist shedding the light of truth on the depredations of the US government, corporations and the Pentagon. But a closer look at what Goodman’s “Democracy Now” is reporting on Syria shows that the purported critical broadcaster has become a purveyor of Western government propaganda. While the mainstream media’s propaganda function is obvious to the informed public, Goodman’s Democracy plays a more subtle role. Camouflaged with the trappings of critical, independent journalism, “Democracy Now” serves to sow powerful seeds of misinformation in a way that the “compromised” mainstream media cannot.
Professor James F. Tracy (Information Clearing House) observed:
Today Goodman’s vaunted
program is contributing to the very violence being committed by
Western-backed mercenaries against the Syrian people.
Goodman
and similar Left media are engaging and convincing precisely
because of their posturing against corporate media control,
economic exploitation and war mongering. Occupying the outer
contours of National Public Radio's milquetoast programming,
Democracy Now’s self-described “independent” reportage takes on
a certain aura of authenticity among its supporters—mainly
progressives with concerns for social justice and human rights.
Such
characteristics make Goodman and Democracy Now among the most
effective sowers of disinformation. Further, their role in
assuaging an educated and otherwise outspoken audience serves
only to aid and abet the wanton military aggression Goodman and
her cohorts claim to decry. In light of the program’s broader
coverage of the “Arab Spring,” such reporting must be recognized
and condemned as sheer public relations for NATO and the Obama
administration’s campaign of perpetual terrorism and war on
humanitarian grounds.
Again to Scott Creighton:
I don’t know what price it took to buy off Amy Goodman, but whatever it was, I hope Amy enjoys it a lot because she sold out her legacy of legitimacy. Her entire career is now nothing more than a bargaining chip she used to cash in big time. I hope and pray her audience has enough sense to abandon her once and for all for this shameless propaganda piece she aired on her show. The memory of her courage and dedication to the truth is now faded away completely and all that’s left is just the realization that they can get to just about anybody these days.
And Amy? Do yourself a favor. Do us all a favor. Just f[**]king retire before you help them justify another Shock and Awe in Syria or Lebanon or Iran, ok? We expect that s[**]t from Bill O’Reilly it’s kinda sad to see you doing it as well.
And Amy's bled listeners and viewers.
We pointed out in 2008 that her book 'writing' days were over because the sales of the clip jobs from the Donny and Marie of the faux left sold less and less each outing.
She went on to publish two more 'books' after we noted her diminishing returns But not with major publishing houses. As we'd noted in 2008 as her latest 'book' was published, they were done with her with that book.
So she signed up with the small publisher Haymarket Books -- which may have just beat self-publishing -- to publish a collection of her bad weekly columns (that she's not the sole author of). Then came The Silenced Majority.
With a photo.
Of herself on the cover.
Grinning.
The Silenced Majority?
It's something to grin about?
It is if the whole thing, the whole 'indy' enterprise was about yourself a media celebrity and stuffing your pockets with cash.
With her books not selling, that's been a little harder to do.
So, like a good whore, she slides her hands down your pants and whispers:
Dear Democracy Now! Visitors: We are an independent, ad-free daily news program that serves millions of viewers and listeners each month. Our show is special because we make it our priority to go where the silence is. We put a spotlight on corporate and government abuses of power and lift up the stories of ordinary people working to make change in extraordinary times. We do all of this with just a fraction of the budget and staff of a commercial news show. We do it without ads, corporate sponsorship or government funding. How is this possible? Only with your support. If every visitor to this site between now and the end of the year gave just $10 we could cover our basic operating costs for 2014. Pretty exciting, right? Please do your part today. It takes just a couple of minutes to make sure that Democracy Now! is there for you and everybody else in 2014.
And if you've ever donated to the show, you got her December 26th "Urgent message" e-mail.
As with everything else about the creepy Amy Goodman, the e-mail was f**ked up.
"Happy Holidays"?
On December 26th?
How stupid is this idiot?
Plenty.
She's repeatedly called out unfair labor practices. This month, Charles Davis' "The Exploited Laborers of the Liberal Media" (Vice) was published revealing the sweat shop Goodman runs.
Interns at Democracy Now! are unpaid for the first two months. After that? If they work over 20 hours a week, they will be paid for the 21st hour and any hours after.
They will be paid the grand sum of $3 an hour.
That's not even half the federal minimum wage.
These interns who are supposed to be gaining news experience?
They're also used for Amy's parties.
They're expected to serve and take coats and, most of all, not to eat the food. After all the guests have left, The Goody Whore will provide (cold) pizza for the sweat shop labor.
The article reveals that Goodman pays herself over $100,000 yearly for serving on the board of the Democracy Now! 'foundation.'
And she has the nerve to ask people to donate $10?
She's part of the group that has put Pacifica at risk of bankruptcy and she wants you to give her ten dollars?
She's got a multi-million dollar contract with Pacifica and, thanks to personal friends like then-board member Leslie Cagan, and Pacifica doesn't even get ownership of these shows.
She's a fraud, she's a fake and people have finally caught on.
We call her Goody Whore and we do our best to ignore her.
But on Friday, the whore decided she 'cared' about Iraq.
The best way to prove that, for Goody Whore, was to bring on W.G. Dunlop and Raed Jarrar.
Jarrar left Iraq long ago physically and apparently mentally and emotionally.
For example, in December, Raed offered 22 Tweets and re-Tweets. Exempting the ones promoting his appearance on Friday's Democracy Now!, how many Tweets or re-Tweets were about Iraq?
Only one. And it was a re-Tweet. Iraq's had a huge resurgence in violence in the last two years. December's already at least the second most violent month (based on deaths) of the year. But Raed never took the time to write a 160 characters or less Tweet on that.
If you go through his Tweets from September through November, you'll find no Tweet or re-Tweet on Iraq.
In fact, you have to drop back to May 1st to find the term "Iraq" on Raed's Twitter feed. That's when he retreats about an attack on a US Iraq War veteran.
1145 people died from violence in Iraq in the month of July. That is currently monthly total record (though December is not over yet). Raed didn't Tweet about it.
In fact, you have to go back to March -- the 10th anniversary of the start of the illegal war -- to find Raed Tweeting about Iraq and then it's more about "pre-2003" than anything else.
Raed's nothing but a useless little bitch and he proves it all the time.
Over and over.
Raed's a blogger and he lasted blogged about Iraq December 15th . . .
2011.
Only Goody Whore would bring on the man who fled Iraq physically, emotionally and mentally as an expert.
It was so bad, it was embarrassing.
It was like sitting in an English Lit grad course where the topic was Edith Wharton and Raed's entire contribution was what he had gleaned from watching Martin Scorsese's film of The Age of Innocence.
It was Friday. Protests in Iraq.
Never mentioned.
Even though the previous Sunday Nouri had threatened the protesters.
Even though he had attempted to attack them on Tuesday but a flurry of political meetings forced him to pull his forces out of Ramadi's sit-in sqaure.
Even though on the Friday Raed 'shared,' Nouri had already gone on Iraqi TV and announced that this had been the last Friday protest and that he would burn down the protest tents in Anbar.
W.G. Dunlap didn't talk about it either.
No one brought up Barack Special-Ops back into Iraq.
No one mentioned The Erbil Agreement.
It was superficial and uninformative.
A 10-year-old could have written all the information shared -- and a 10-year-old could have written it without ever breaking a sweat or cracking a book.
Goody Whore's destroying herself every day.
No real publisher will touch her.
Her fundraisers for the various stations fail to net what they used to.
Her audience has collapsed -- that's listeners, TV viewers, streamers, web visitors, all of it.
She's been exposed as the cheap whore she is and not as the 'brave' and 'independent' 'journalist' she pretends to be.
She rode the wave of interest in independent media. She used it to enrich herself.
In co-opting a movement, she helped destroy it.
And with nothing to support her, she's caving through the ice before our eyes. She's become Lillian Gish in Way Down East -- only no one's rushing to save her -- for obvious reasons.