These are the words of Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman letting the cat out of the bag about her talks with Rachel Maddow about merging their shows based on the things they increasingly have more in common. Goodman seems very happy to be the one giving the exclusive `cat out of the bag’- or is it `trial balloon’?- interview.
Amy Goodman left, Rachel Maddow right
It’s not like `continental drift’ although there is a `drift’ to be gotten, . . . and it is drift on a truly monumental scale. People talk about `watching grass grow’ or ‘watching paint dry’ when they talk about things happening slowly so as to go unnoticed. `A watched pot doesn’t boil,’ but when your tea kettle starts whistling, you know that something’s happened.
“Look,” says Goodman, “change is part of life.” Goodman seems more relaxed than usual, as though allowing herself to wax philosophically this way is allowing her to speak her thoughts more truthfully in a liberating way. She continues:
Yes, change is part of life. It was when Rachel was doing Air America radio with Al Franken as a “left–wing,” albeit poorly funded, counter to the likes of Rush Limbaugh, that people got to know who she is. That was then. [2004] Now she, like us, has regular headlines that track well with the lead you can get from the New York Times. Rachel, us, and also pretty dependably the New York Times, we’re true blue behind the powerful narratives of the Democratic Party. When I say that those narratives are powerful, I don’t mean that they are inspiring or attuned to the populace, or to the directions for leadership our populace may yearn and hunger for, what I mean is the power of Democratic party coming from the corporations that the party aligns with and, of course, coming from Wall Street. It’s those alignments that give the selective narratives of the party extraordinary force as they are deployed and can be insisted on. And I am very happy about the whole identity politics thing.If, with some migration of platforms, Democracy Now and the Maddow show are going to merge, the reason for their discussion of the possibility is the growing commonality of themes.
Goodman points out that the nation’s had an era where the awfulness of Donald Trump made it easy to find common ground, “I mean Donald Trump’s awfulness was so important, that you didn’t need to pay attention to really anything else.” And, she points out there have been a lot of things tying into Donald Trump’s awfulness that were consequently easy to agree on: Russiagate and the way that Russians are nefariously interfering to make this country worse and make Trump more dangerous, January 6th and the way we have to stop insurrectionists from taking away our democracy, which we are realizing really needs to be revered (“January 6th sort of taught me that word `insurrectionist’ and got me thinking about it, before then I doubt I’d thought to know what it meant– did you know it’s right out of the constitution?- Though no law under it yet”- interjects Goodman parenthetically), the way we have to censor hate speech (including anything an insurrectionist or any of those election deniers might have to say, and then there’s need to regulate speech in our social media Town Squares so that people don’t get depressed by conversational downers.
Goodman sips her green tea and goes on: “Rachel is very much against hate speech,” she says, “she’s a firm counter the bad kind of hate speech we both deplore.” Blowing on her tea, she continues:
We are also aligned by being both on the right side of those divisive cultural issues that the Trump presidency made even easier to checklist for future segment coverage. Thank God Trump changed his position on abortion, thankfully 180 degrees, before taking on his role as a supremely obnoxious president, otherwise it could have been confusing!
We were also both perfectly aligned on the Covid narrative thing: "Wear a mask, wear two masks," we told our Democracy Now audience, "it’s an act of love.' (We didn’t get to adding the eye visor thing, but thought about it.- Oh maybe we did) While Rachel was beautifully firm and emphatic: "Now we know that the vaccines work well enough that the virus stops with every vaccinated person."!
The whole Covid thing, the crazy need for lock-downs meant there were a lot of fearful things, numbers and statistics to tumble out before the public in a stream; for a while Democracy Now even changed its mantra slogan from "the war and peace report? to the "quarantine report." When it comes to history and wars waged, history, when it doesn’t repeat itself, at least rhymes.
But that Covid fear and what to do about it, that’s another thing where we both agreed about how important it was to be saying the right thing and make sure that people were not allowed to say the wrong thing– That Joe Rogan! Talk about people who need to be stopped in their tracks with a dose of good old healthy censorship and centrally managed social opprobrium- Imagine saying good things about the `horse paste’ Ivermectin,
Mentioning Rogan and Ivermectin Goodman wrinkles her nose in disgust.
“We still have significant differences, Rachel’s show and mine” says Goodman, “so I don’t know where that takes us.”
She mulls:
Rachel is more provincial, addressing herself more specifically to what riles Americans living locally in this country, more specifically, her kind of Americans. Democracy Now has an increasingly worldwide audience and worldwide sensibility, for instance, Rachel hasn’t caught up to match me with things like my guttural pronunciations, like when I say“Afghanistan,” or introduce my co-host Nermeen Shaikh. It just isn’t her style, and we can’t expect it.It causes Goodman to sigh.
But Democracy Now can’t leave its worldwide audience behind it. If this thing is going to happen, we have to take that worldwide audience along with us in the merger. We at Democracy Now, also spend more time feeling for the victims in this world, which is not exactly the way Rachel likes to keep the energy up, especially when those victims come from far-flung places in the world that Americans have rarely heard of. When the time comes, we at Democracy Now are better positioned to do truly convincing ‘worthy victim’ stories.
Some things are going to be very problematic. Democracy Now was originated out of, was incubated out of WBAI, out of the Pacific network of station. We are still carried on that family of stations, still with a reasonably hefty listenership. We’ve established ourselves and Pacifica has cast its lot reporting, with a fair amount of honesty, about the Israeli state’s vile and horrendous treatment of Palestinians. That honesty, on our part and many other Pacifica carried programs, has been determinative in the loss of a certain appreciable amount of funding for Pacifica. Unlike perhaps some other things, that’s something where we can’t now leave our audience behind by backtracking or denying our core DNA. . .
. . But you can imagine what a problem this would be for Rachel. Even if our meld is only accomplished by doing back-to-back shows that could be a toxic proximity for her. The solution, if the time comes, may be to take our cue from her. She deep-sixes those kinds of stories and that kind of reporting. So you also don’t hear anything about our U.S. Saudi Yemen war from her.— Out of sight is out of mind. What we could do, and might do, is just move all of out Israel/Palestine reporting and coverage to our web edition special section. There it would be invisible to the kind of audience that never looks for that kind of thing and justifiably still there for the kind of audience that still does. You know we are all in our individual bubbles these days. So you always have to remember to think in those terms.
But merging these shows is meant to take us counter to that bubble thing. Instead of isolating bubble thinking, we’ll have more people thinking the same things when we get our shows together. But we can’t move too fast. Our audience has to move with us. We do polling and focus groups to make sure we don’t get too far out in front of them. We are alert for feedback. And, for instance, at Democracy Now we’ve recently had to go back and do some stories to illustrate that we are still anti-war and ant-US imperialism, like what’s expected of us from our past. Like, for instance, with that particular segment of the audience that still listens to us on Pacifica stations, those we haven’t yet pulled away to listen to us just through the disintermediation of our multiple internet platforms, it can a bit jarring right now if our content is too different from other Pacifica shows.The interview can’t end without posing one obvious question: Why not PBS or NPR instead? Goodman smiles, shaking her head as if disappointed with the quality or lack of perspicacity of such a question, even if it might be obligatory and expected as inevitable. Goodman speaks slowly and deliberately:
We want to be on the same page with Rachel and crew about things like the Ukraine war, [Goodman catches herself and doubles back]. . The `Russian provoked’ Ukraine war, [she emphasizes], but our audience can get a little unnerved by the idea we are on the brink of possible nuclear annihilation of the world and wonder if we really are still sincerely for peace enough if we are to expect them to keep following us where we go. An easy way to offer reassurance, like we just did, is to use the 20th anniversary of the Iraq war, ahem, U.S. invasion of Iraq, and reiterate where we stood on that twenty years ago. The past is a place where you can anchor the trust you hope to keep getting in the future. So people will keep following into whatever Heraclitian storms may toss us on the waves in that future.
Look, I believe that `in solidarity there is strength.’ For progressivism to win, we have to be rowing in the same direction. When we marched into wars, the Democrats were once thought of as the anti-war party. Now we have two war parties, but it’s clear that the Democrats are now taking the lead. The Republicans have a few isolationists who are against our bringing democracy-enhancing regime change to other countries. . . The name of our show is Democracy Now, something to remember, when we try to keep our bearings.
Merging our audience with PBS or NPR wouldn’t be any kind of achievement. PBS and NPR are already where Rachel and her show are, which is to say, aligned with The Washington Post and New York Times, but PBS and NPR are selling the audience the idea that they are the thinking man’s version and the cultured man’s of media consumption. That pose already successfully siphons audience, say from Pacifica, when the audience is looking for better production values along not so obvious and time-consuming commercials that you get with `commercial’ broadcasts. But sliding over there wouldn’t be an achievement. Because it’s sort of contrary to their brand, PBS and NPR don’t fish for audience indignation, including the Red Team, Blue Team variety of indignation, the way that Rachel and I do,– not so overtly– Rachel does it with her raised-to-the-sky eyebrow and cocked neck, while I put it in my voice. I can do it with slight variations in my tone and I also pick words to drawl out more slowly. Moreover, we at Democracy Now do subtle, not quite subliminal, editorializing with our interspersed music segments, something Rachel doesn’t do. Bringing our audience to MSNBC with skillful drifting would be a much more real achievement.One last question to Goodman (but is it too rude?): And the true “achievement” to be aspired to might also be inextricably associated with handsome recompense?— Doesn’t Rachel Maddow get paid something like $30 million a year counting salary and regular bonuses? Goodman simply smiles.
Democracy Now and The Rachel Maddow Show are not merging broadcasts just yet. This April 1st interview with Goodman was just to preview how it’s being talked about. Goodman was specific that if it happens it could be a year from now, say next April 1st, or two years from now on the April 1st after that.
