Amy Goodman Credit: Brooke Duthie

Ask a polluter, politician, or even an admiring journalist trying to keep pace—it’s tough to outwork Amy Goodman.

P. Wells Griffith III knows the hustle all too well. In the opening scene of a new movie about the legendary journalist, Donald Trump’s climate advisor is seen trying to evade the “Democracy Now!” co-founder as she chases him around the 2018 United Nations Climate Summit in Poland, asking him about his boss’ claim that climate change is a Chinese hoax and the president’s plan to pull the U.S out of the Paris Climate Agreement.

“I’m running late for a meeting,” Griffiths says.

“You weren’t running late when you were just standing there,” Goodman replies as she presses him on coal and other issues.

“If you would like to set up an interview we can do that, but you’re actually harassing me,” he says after going up the wrong stairs more than once.

“A reporter asking you questions, sir,” she says, “is not harassment.”

The sequence is just one of many in “Steal This Story, Please!” that viscerally illustrates the tenacity that Goodman, 68, and her co-workers have brought to “Democracy Now!” since its founding at New York City’s WBAI 30 years ago.

Breathless in many ways, the film directed and self-released by Emmy-winning, Oscar-nominated filmmakers Tia Lessin and Carl Deal also includes footage from the 1991 Santa Cruz massacre where Goodman and Allan Nairn documented U.S.-backed Indonesian soldiers with M16s killing at least 250 peaceful, pro-independence mourners. For their coverage, Goodman was left beaten, with Nairn earning a skull fracture from soldiers slamming the butts of their guns into his head as he protected his reporting partner. The package, however, opened the door for East Timor’s independence after The House of Representatives cut off military assistance to Indonesia.

Goodman and journalist Jeremy Scahill exposing Chevron’s role in the killing of two Nigerian activists is also among the storylines, along with her coverage of Native American protestors at the Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota. “Democracy Now!’s” work on 9/11, from their studio blocks away from Ground Zero, also makes the film, along with hints of the cough Goodman developed in the aftermath.

Asked to say why, or whether, the danger and self-harm is worth it, Goodman talked about impact.

“When I covered the massacre and survived the massacre in East Timor, the bravery of the young people—believing that they would someday see an end to the repression, an independent nation—just was awe-inspiring,” she told CL.

She remained just as focused on the work and who funds it when reached by Creative Loafing Tampa Bay on the same day that Special Operations Forces week organizers were showing off their guns in a loud demo outside the Tampa Convention Center.

It’s critical, she said, that war and peace be covered by outlets not paid for by weapons manufacturers. Climate change journalism, she added, can’t be brought to readers by oil, gas and coal companies, the same way coverage about inequality shouldn’t be funded by banks. “Democracy Now!,” she noted, is paid for by its readers, listeners and viewers. “Independent media is essential to the functioning of a democratic society,” she added.

The notion is at the heart of Lessin and Deal’s film, and will be a theme of a visit from Goodman, who takes part in post-screen Q&As at Tampa’s Sun-Ray Cinema next Friday along with Lessin and Denis Moynihan, a “Democracy Now!” correspondent who founded Winter Park, Colorado community radio station KFFR 88.3-FM.

‘Steal This Story, Please!’ w/Amy Goodman

Time Fri., June 5, 6:30 p.m.

Location Sun-Ray Cinema, 12332 University Mall Court, Tampa

Description “Steal This Story, Please!” is directed and self-released by Emmy-winning, Oscar-nominated filmmakers Tia Lessin and Carl Deal, the same team behind documentaries about Hurricane Katrina survivors (“Trouble the Water”) and rich mofos who influence the political process (“Citizen Koch”). Amy Goodman, Oscar-nominated filmmakers Tia Lessin and Carl Deal, and “Democracy Now!” will participate in two Q&As moderated by Creative Loafing Tampa Bay Editor-In-Chief Ray Roa following screenings in theaters nine and 10.—Ray Roa

“Steal This Story, Please!” is a narrative film that shows the arc of Goodman’s career along with the arc of media as so much of it has succumbed to consolidation and technology.

“It was ambitious, and I hope we pulled it off,” Lessin told CL about the film. “I think we pulled it off.”

And then some.

Despite her ferocity in the field, the roughly 100-minute film also captures another side of Goodman.

That’s a side deeply attached to her Shih Tzu-Bichon mix, Zazu Goodpup—who will also come to Tampa in June—and the side that smiles at school kids passing by on the sidewalk. In one scene, Goodman is in Long Beach, New York to visit her soon-to-be 106-year-old grandmother, a refugee from Russia and Poland who came to the U.S. by boat and landed on Ellis Island. Hard of hearing, grandma puts radio headphones on to try and make sense of what Goodman is saying, and just tells her granddaughter to comb her hair.

“Do you know who George Bush is?,” Goodman asks.

“Who’s the boyfriend?,” grandma counters.

Laughing, Goodman’s face during the exchange is a pristine example of what it feels like to be loved and love someone back.

Lessin first worked with Goodman as a “Democracy Now!” volunteer during the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia (don’t tell her union), and told CL that capturing that part of the famed journalist’s personality was a delight.

“There’s a lightness of being, which was surprising, given how much heaviness she covers every single day,” Lessin said. “And I think she’s sort of fueled by a sense of optimism and hope, and I think those kinds of scenes really show that.”

Other parts of “Steal This Story, Please!” do show the emotional toll of doing the hour-long “Democracy Now!” newscast every weekday. In one shot, Goodman is listening to a report about children with burns on their bodies that will prove to be fatal. After the broadcast, she appears to be in a state of PTSD, or post-traumatic show disorder. In her chat with CL, Goodman again found a silver lining.

“You’re right that I cover very difficult things—we all do as journalists—but it’s very inspiring to cover people who are doing something about the horror,” she said. “They’re just so inspiring, and that’s what gives me hope.”

So many moments of the film will make journalists, and anyone who believes in supporting them, run through a wall.

In one interview, Sharif Abdel Kouddous, a senior producer, co-host, and correspondent for “Democracy Now!” for eight years, says that while they reported from Israel and Palestine, Goodman, who is Jewish, covered the conflict as she would any other issue.

“She taught me how to cover a story properly,” Kouddous says. “Speak to people on the ground. Speak to people at the target end of the bomb. Speak to people who are being deliberately silenced—and, yeah, put those voices on the air.”

The message is resonating around the country.

Lessin said that since hitting the festival circuit late last year, “Steal This Story, Please!” has earned nine audience awards and about seven other juried awards. Goodman added that on its opening weekend at Greenwich Village’s IFC Center, the film earned the largest audience for a documentary in the last 10 years of the independent art house theater. It enjoyed a similarly record-breaking debut at Chicago’s Music Box theater, and at Milwaukee’s Oriental Theatre, the film outsold “The Devil Wears Prada 2.”

“It shows their talents and prowess,” Goodman said about the work from Lessin and Deal. “But it also shows a hunger for independent media and voices.”

(L-R) Carl Deal, Amy Goodman with Zazu, and Tia Lessin. Credit: Brooke Duthie

At a time when Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos can make a “good business decision” by spending $75 million on a Melania Trump movie—all while laying off 300 from the newsroom—the need for those voices is bigger than ever. Goodman noted how the Post’s slogan “Democracy Dies In Darkness” was developed under the Amazon creator, telling CL, “It’s very dark at the Washington Post.”

That hunger and thirst for more independent media might only be satiated by reporters ready to move past the challenges that journalism faces and make hard choices—including ditching their corporate-backed jobs while evading the dreaded jump to PR and marketing.

“Everyone has to find their own way,” she said about journalists looking for a path forward.

For Floridians wondering how the state will move forward after eight years of Ron DeSantis, and with a new electoral map gerrymandered to hell, Goodman says she’s excited to be in town—and offered this bit of encouragement: “I think of Isabel Allende, the great Chilean writer, who said, for every thug there is in a community, there are 1000 compañeros and compañeros who are there to help.”

Many of those helpers will pack the theater next Friday, and proceeds from the film will support WMNF-Tampa, the nearly 50-year-old independent, listener-supported radio station that carries “Democracy Now!” locally. Goodman called WMNF a jewel of independent radio in the U.S., and said art houses like Sun-Ray (and Green Light Cinema, where the movie will screen for a week in St. Pete) are important parts of the independent media network.

“These are sanctuaries of dissent, and I really do think dissent is what will save us,” she said. “I see Creative Loafing in the same way. It’s so important that we shore up independent media.”

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This article appears in May 21 – 27, 2026.