Review: Steal This Story, Please!
April 25, 2026, I went to Cinema 21 to see the Amy Goodman doc, or was it a Democracy Now doc? We’d find out it was both.
It was a really well put together documentary, 30 years of archival footage from Democracy Now, plus more footage of Amy as a young journalist. Notably, the footage was more playful and funny before 1991. That was the year she witnessed the East Timor massacre.
I will not tell you my favorite thing about the movie, but it was a formative story from her childhood. Amazing where people start there careers!
Great things about it: 1) David Isay, Jeremy Scahill, David Isay, Nermeen Shaikh, Sharif Abdel Kouddous. They all get a chance to tell their origin stories and give Amy the credit for helping them get on the air. Scahill in particular has an amazing story about playing a story on the air while it’s being edited. 2) The overview of the important stories was enough information for a newbie to follow them, and not so slow that someone who lived through it would be bored. That’s a great balance by the directors Carl Deal and Tia Lessin. 3) Amy Goodman gets to be human! She’s crying! She has a dog! She is out of breath chasing down interviews!
Critiques: 1) The case for independent community media is strong, but the problems basic problems of making community media were glossed over or ignored. I know it’s not the point of the doc, but if you’re going to bring it up, flush it out a little. It’s hard to run a volunteer news room when gentrification makes the rent too high for people to live off of part time work. The media model of the Pacifica Network is a damn mess. How do they do it? What’s their budget? More nerd facts please. 2) abrupt ending. One of the “not in my name” protests in Manhattan was the last scene. It’s hard to end something that itself doesn’t have an ending, sure, but it felt abrupt to me.
The Q and A after was amazing, in that the moderator asked a question of Amy and was steamrolled. Carl Deal did answer her second question, and then Amy took the mic, saying she was going to ask Carl something, but she gave shoutouts and did her thing. It was definately a master class in controlling the room! It was a great time, Cinema 21 has excellent popcorn, the balcony was a great place to sit and watch the crowd and have a birds eye view of Amy walking in with her dog. Cinema 21 extended the run of the movie. I recommend it for sure.
