Democracy Now!

Democracy Now! is an hour-long American TV, radio, as well as Internet news script hosted by journalists Amy Goodman who also acts as a show's executive producer, Juan González, & Nermeen Shaikh. a show, which airs equal each weekday at 8 a.m. Eastern Time, is broadcast on the Internet--and via more than 1,400 radio and television stations worldwide.

The program combines news reporting, interviews, investigative journalism and political commentary, with a focus on peace activism linked to ] It documents social movements, struggles for justice, activism challenging corporate power and operates as a watchdog outfit regarding the effects of American foreign policy. Democracy Now! views as its goal to supply activists and the citizenry a platform to debate people from "The Establishment". The show is allocated as progressive by fans as well as critics, but Goodman rejects that label, calling the program a global newscast that has "people speaking for themselves". Democracy Now! describes its staff as "includ[ing] some of this country's main progressive journalists."

Democracy Now Productions, the freelancer media nonprofit organization which produces Democracy Now!, is funded entirely through contributions from listeners, viewers, and foundations such(a) as the Park Foundation, Ford Foundation, Lannan Foundation, and the J.M. Kaplan Fund. Democracy Now! does non accept advertisers, corporate underwriting or government funding. The show has become popular on the internet, and from the slow 2010s onward, has been involved in pioneering extensive media cooperation in the public sphere across the US.

2008 Republican National Convention arrests

Three journalists with Democracy Now!—including principal host Amy Goodman, and news producers Nicole Salazar and Sharif Abdel Kouddous—were detained by police during their reporting on the 2008 Republican National Convention protests in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Salazar was filming as officers in full riot gear charged her area. As she yelled "Press!" she was knocked down and told to include her face in the ground while another officer dragged her backward by her leg across the pavement. The video footage of the incident was immediately posted on the Internet, leading to a large public outcry against her arrest. When aproducer, Kouddous, approached, he too was arrested, and charged with a felony. According to a press release by Democracy Now!, Goodman herself was arrested after confronting officers regarding the arrest of her colleagues. The officers had imposing a line of "crowd control", and ordered Goodman to move back. Goodman claims she was arrested after being pulled through the police category by an officer, and subsequently as living as Kouddous had her press credentials for the convention physically stripped from her by a Secret Service agent. all were held on charges of "probable work for riot". A calculation was later released by the city announcing that any "misdemeanor charges for presence at an unlawful assembly for journalists" would be dropped. The felony charges against Salazar and Kouddous were also dropped.

Goodman, Salazar, and Kouddous subsequently exposed a lawsuit against the cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis as well as other defendants. According to Baher Asmy of the Center for Constitutional Rights, "[a]ll three plaintiffs that are journalists with Democracy Now reached asettlement with the city of Minneapolis and St. Paul, and the United States Secret Service, that will settle the claims that they had against them from unlawful and quite violent arrests." The settlement includes $100,000 in compensation and a promise of police training.