oh i'm so marvin in washington d.c. and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture she knows a thing or two about getting the big story no matter what stands in her way award winning journalist and author any good joins me for conversations with great odds and i will discuss her work as a journalist and how she sees democracy changing in this country because it's a grassroots movement and plenty of steam discuss occupy wall street's allowed us to man's on the rest of this week's biggest stories of the panel experts and tonight's big picture rumble then looking through war tossing at minimum wage jobs

have in common with the republican party explain this it might be at least. for the eyes conversations of great minds i'm joined by award winning journalist syndicated columnist and new york times bestselling author any goodman and he's the host and executive producer of democracy now a national daily independent news program airing on over nine hundred television and radio stations in north america she's been in the forefront of developing truly independent grassroots political journalism that brings to light the alternative voices often excluded by the mainstream media she's won numerous awards for both her reporting and her efforts to create and maintain independent media in the united states including the park center for independent media as is the award the american women in radio and television gracie award george polk. ward in the robert

f. kennedy prize for international reporting as well as journalism awards in the united from the associated press united press international the corporation for public broadcasting any good news the author of four new york times bestsellers her latest book breaking the sound barrier explores the role and power of independent journalism in the struggle for a better world i'm delighted to welcome any good to our studios in new york city for this edition of conversations with great minds in iraq and it's great to be with you town thank you in the in the wake of the whole occupy wall street movement you just announced a final settlement in your federal lawsuit in your case along with your producers sharifa nichole against the city of minneapolis and the police there and i'd like to show our viewers as a set up here just a short clip of that very violent arrest. thank

. you john i. think you know i know is that. did you. feel you. were right there. right beside us today. i still remember when you came into the r. and c. radio row after that event you were pretty pretty shaken up physically and can you tell our listeners what happened and why. that's very time in fact your show is one of the first shows interviews that we did that was actually succumb to first two thousand and eight it was labor day the first day of the republican convention we've just come from denver from the democratic convention flown into the twin cities in the morning there was a massive peace march from the st paul city hall to the excel center where the

convention would be later that day ten thousand people marched led by soldiers and full military regalia some it served some were resisting and of course thousands of civilians saying no to war and that was two years ago then i went into the convention to interview delegates from the hottest state from alaska remember sarah pailin who was running for vice president then her name was just becoming a national entity and wanted to find out what you know just what people were thinking and sharif in a call my producers sharifa go could do send nicole salazar went back to the t.v. studios to digitize tape as i was interviewing people on the convention floor i got a call from our senior producer saying come quickly to seventh and jackson and st paul because nicole and sharif have been arrested they've been bloodied and you should get here quickly i raced off the convention floor of my credentials around my neck with our cameraman that i was working with that day the great filmmaker

rick reilly of big noise films we raced down the streets of st paul i've got to this big parking lot the riot police had surrounded the area fully contained it and i went up to them just sort of running along the line to find an officer that i could ask. to get a commanding officer and that's just what i did that was the second of the images you saw i ran up to the officer and i said please i'd like to speak your commanding officer you can see i just came from the convention floor i'm a credential journalist and need to get my reporters out now they too are credentialed it wasn't seconds before he written me through that line twisted my arms back slap the head. pushed me up against the wall and on to the ground i was still desperately looking for a free from the cold heard they've been hurt i saw sharif across the parking lot arms behind his back clearly handcuffed i demanded to be brought to him finally the officers did so there we were standing i couldn't find nicole anywhere with my eyes at least we were standing handcuffed both of us had our credentials dangling from

around our necks demanding to be released saying you know to anyone who would listen we're credentialed journalists whereupon the secret service came over and ripped the credentials from around our necks i was then brought into the police wagon after i was charged by the way with mr meaner interfering with a peace officer if only there was a peace officer in the vicinity in the police van that's where i found the call her face was bloody troops arm was bloody when i saw him her face was bloody should her credentials on her hands were handcuffed and she quickly describe what happened she said when i went off to the convention they'd gone to the t.v. studio they heard a commotion outside and they just well were doing their job in fact if they hadn't gone downstairs they would not have been doing their job is journalist you don't stay in the cozy studios when something is happening outside she grabbed the camera sharif drag grabbed the microphone they went outside and there with the riot police those are the first images you saw they were coming at her quickly she's in

a parking lot trapped by the parked car she's filming she has her press credential up at the same time they're shouting as they're running at her and your face on your face she shouting back press press and she's filming at the same time they take her down from the front and behind and they slam are on the ground on her face near boot and her back they're dragging on her leg which means they're dragging her face on the ground and the first thing they do as her camera tumbles to the ground is pull the battery out of the camera if you will wondering what it was they wanted to stop happening the documentation of what was taking place sharif was there. our senior producer sure if. he went up to the riot police i should say rioting police any told them to calm down they threw him up against the wall kicked him twice in the chest and they took him down bloodying his arm they face felony riot charges brought off to the police garage where they directed the protest cages for the

protesters and sharif in a color taken to jail well the you tube video of our arrests went viral immediately the first two days of convention it was the most watched you tube video of the convention thousands if not tens of thousands of e-mail calls tweets everything came into the twin city authorities to say release us and alternately after hours we were released it shows the power of the grassroots response you know sharif was jailed with an a.p. photographer sharif got out before the photographer did and i think that just shows what it means when people respond and when there's independent media going to where the silence is you know capturing what's happening on film so i'm taken off to the convention networks wanted to talk to me on in the n.b.c. sky box and i do an interview the cameras turned off at the end and an n.b.c. producer came up three and said hey i don't get it why wasn't i arrested and i said oh are you outside covering the protests as well and he said no i said you know you

have to get out there as woody allen says ninety percent of life is just showing up and i'm not getting arrested in the sky box either. and that's really it you know it is our job to be on the convention floor to cover what is happening there to interview the delegates to get into those corporate suites who sponsoring what are supposed to be the celebrations of democracy both at the republican and democratic conventions but also to go outside where the thousands of people are who are the uninvited guests they have something important to say as well and you know moines des. ocracy is a messy thing and we shouldn't have to get a record when we try to put things on the record it's our job to capture all the voices are very well set and you know legally been vindicated in their case in minneapolis. we brought suit or immediately and well we brought suit within the

first year as we have a lot of work to do is journalist doing democracy now every day but now it is three years later we went back to minneapolis st paul this past week after a lot of the depositions were taken to go shooting with the police as well as the secret service because they were involved they ripped our security these are the security credentials that are given to us by the very authorities that were arresting us so there was no question about who we were and we got a landmark settlement between the federal authorities the secret service and the police they all have to pay up but in addition and what's really important is the same poll of police have agreed to training their officers and will be involved in that training as well as the center for constitutional rights was which was involved with our lawsuit along with the a.c.l.u. will be involved there's an a.c.l.u. chapter there the reporters committee for. the reporters committee for freedom of the press it is absolutely critical as we move into these next conventions that

will take place in tampa and in charlotte. and in covering these protests that are happening that's why we held the press conference announcing our landmark settlement right in the midst of occupy wall street downtown from where i am right now it is a message to police departments around the country that they will have to pay if they abuse journalists if they are engaged in unlawful arrests at all and in a marvelous and important message to be conveying amy we in we have. about two minutes in the break here you started to mock or see now in a war and peace report back in ninety six you've been doing this kind of reporting before that you were director of before that. not motived you motivated you into that work who is amy goodman how do you think yourself both as a professional and as an agent of change in this critical moment in history. well

you know i've always seeing journalism as a way to hold those in power accountable you know when i was a kid when i was in junior high and high school i was involved with a high school newspaper that was holding the principal accountable and then it was just moving to a larger stage but there we have a sacred responsibility as journalists there's a reason why our profession journalism is the only one explicitly protected by the u.s. constitution because we're supposed to be in the check and balance on power and there is absolutely critical right now and as we come from wall street you know covering what is taking place there this remarkable uprising that is expanding from new york to washington d.c. to austin to boston to san francisco to seattle and beyond i mean hundreds of cities around the world now are involved in these kind of uprisings it is absolutely critical that we hold the authorities accountable and madison wisconsin

the police and the firefighters joined with the protesters even though they weren't targeted they felt if nurses and teachers are targeted that they felt they were targeted as well even if the governor at the time was saying you're exempted and they would sleep with the protesters in the capital we're protecting them here in new york there are many good cops but there are also a very big problem two weeks ago the largest one of the largest mass arrests in u.s. history took place in new york at a peaceful protest as people were marching over the brooklyn bridge the other day when tens of thousands of union members rallied in new york at foley square and then march to join the occupy wall street and catmint and then some people went off to wall street to engage in civil disobedience they were beaten they were pepper sprayed a few weeks before young women directly pepper sprayed in the face completely blindsided and no no warning no reason this is an acceptable and it must. the challenge and when the police tell us to turn off our

cameras that's exactly when we're supposed to be turning them on police misbehavior flourishes in the dark we need sunlight and transparency that's why it's important that reporters be there were conversations with great minds with any good in just a moment. what drives the world the fear mongering used by politicians who makes decisions great through it through greed made who can you trust no one who is human view with a global missionary see where we had a state controlled capitalism it's called sackfuls when nobody dares to ask we do our tea question more.

talk about conversations of great minds tonight i'm joined by award winning journalist and author amy goodman amy let me package a couple of questions here and toss it to you as a as a as a set up by i'm sure you have some very strong thoughts and and i'd love to get your observations on this the occupy wall street movement you're referencing a few times earlier where is it going number one number two the mainstream media is attacking the movement for being leaderless and fractured i remember. you know

a part of i was in the s.d.s. in the sixty's and all this movement organically move on its own despite the president to figure it out and also i'm curious about your thoughts on the heavy strain of ma was of that's actually running through at least one of those smaller groups this trying to co-opt the occupy movements along with people like the democratic party trying to occupy it read it several. my radio show over the last couple days and say almost always using identical phraseology that the machine must be brought down totally and that every aspect of american institutions from our government to our business our cultural institutions are illegitimate and must be brought down with no alternative suggestion i'm curious that there's a whole spectrum of stuff for you to refine your thoughts on this well you know i think when you look at the corporate media is approach to this when you have people like erin burnett who just started her heralded show on c.n.n. and called out friend by going down to wall street and doing

a segment called seriously. the response is we'll look at how this is catching on i remember september seventeenth our team was out there in force but where was the corporate media if there were two thousand people occupying wall street who were tea party members should have as many reporters probably more of their focus was different and yeah you got it this was different and it has just gradually gained momentum and capture the imagination of not only the american people but people all over so that you had in the last few days this massive union rally the e.c.l. you has endorsed the occupy wall street movement i think the union leaders the establishment labor movement is scratching its head at first it was is this for real and then they realized it was you know the labor movement has been organizing

for years last year i think they had a demonstration washington one hundred thousand hardly got coverage but they saw that there was a real sentiment that especially young people were tapping that they believed in as well it's what they were organizing around and they join. joined with them it was remarkable to see the head of the cia you eleven ninety nine in d.c. thirty seven to see the health nurses talking about the system being sick to see that arinze and others so that you had tens of thousands i mean twenty thirty thousand people and then they marched to wall street and it's to hear people speak for themselves that's what the media should be doing don't form conclusions you know if they had one message the media would rip that apart if they are the centralized and i mean i think the some of the posters capture what it is people are saying one of them is it's not a recession it's

a robbery there was another poster and some of these are written on the backs of pizza boxes this is interesting just like in madison wisconsin which are the largest protests in its history right when governor walker was passing this anti labor law and people occupied the capital eight hundred fifty thousand people marching in the freezing cold in the same way their people all over the world are sending in orders to the local pizza parlors so that the occupiers will be fed they call them occupies and then they take their boxes and they use the back and they make posters they're extremely creative one of them said something like i'll believe corporations are people when texas executes one. another of the posters said i lost my job and found an occupation but people are serious here and they come from all walks of life and i mean the power of democracy now was

just playing people's voices people describing why they were there you had a thousand students thousands of students marching from new york university in columbia city university of new york kids coming from high school and then you had the doctors coming from montefiore in the bronx running a south bronx clinic doctors against poverty as it were. why are you dealing with this issue and they said when people are poor they can't afford medicine when people are poor they don't get health care and the system ends up having to pay i mean you had teachers on mass marching you had steelworkers and talking for example to a group of students holding a large banner from union theological seminary and one young man said this is where jesus would be. the eloquence of the people there you have the rappers talking about well the theme has become we are the ninety nine percent and that touches a chord with so many people around the country so it has become

a place where people can come and talk to joe stiglitz the nobel prize winning economist they are doing a teachin. peter of peter paul and mary you had michael moore came down naomi klein addressed people yesterday author of the shock doctrine the rise of disaster capitalism it is a place where people gather to learn to share to talk and i think part of its power is there is not one message but it is about the threads that connect all these different movements it's about people recognizing they or the majority we are the ninety nine percent basically you know i've always said we are not afraid of minority not even a silent majority but the silenced maturity silenced by the corporate media which is why we have to take it back so there's just a just to quickly get back to this it seems that there are there's this enormous

power it's like the nation is pregnant in this moment with the revolution and the violence wants change and in fact if we were in two thousand a lot of people out we didn't get the change we got we had we thought we did but in any case and there are people on on. both extremes. trying to co-opt is probably too strong the language but i'm not sure how else to say it to say you know this is my parade whether it's you know politicians or spokespeople. i've heard from people who are very upset that some of the people you talked about big names and quotes showed up on the other hand people who are very proud of it and i'm greatly and that is not the general i mean that is not the general theme big famous people coming out it is the power of this movement is that it is so many different kinds of people that they you know you never can predict

when a chord is going to be struck in this is what's happened you know tom one of the things i've been doing is going down there and asking people did you vote for president obama in two thousand and eight and how you feel today you know on that day when president obama was elected there's no question it was said historic moment i mean if nothing else and a country with a legacy of slavery to have elected the first african-american president and all that he represented i mean the major difference in heaven hellary clinton was that he was opposed to the iraq war the antiwar movement elected ten african-americans elected him so many people when voted before decided to come out and vote but when a person that you want to selected in a situation like this this massive change from president bush people who are hoping for all that means is that a door is open a crack you know people felt they were hitting their heads against a brick wall for so long and now that war was a door the door was open a crack they saw

a big backlash against obama they didn't want to join in that in criticizing and that was the problem and so the demands were coming from the other side a very reactionary side the door being open a crack doesn't necessarily open it can either be kicked open or slammed shut and that's not up to that one. person in the white house no matter powerful how powerfully it's it's up to all of those people that elected him and others that well whoever is our president we're going to fight for what we want when he's sitting in the oval office and those who are used to having the ear of the most powerful person on earth and whisper in his ear if he can't point out the window and say if i do that they will storm the best deal and there's no one out there he won't be able to say that whether he agrees with people protesting or not is a very awkward position right now the very people who are elected him are protesting what he has done surrounded himself by wall street the very street that people are so furious about now that so few have been protected at the expense of

so many and that touches people across the political spectrum but it is not up to that one person it is up to everyone to decide where they want this country to go and then the so-called leaders will follow we're seeing it every day right now well it's you know the constitution doesn't say leaders as representatives so you know if the parade is out there in a politician jumps in front of it with a flag that willie is part of the way it should happen i guess or jumps behind it with a flood whatever i'm curious you've done brilliant original reporting from a variety of places in the world an embedded straight to be issue what are some of the stories that you've covered that you think most clearly perhaps personify the real issues that the human race faces today. well here in this country i don't have to go too far back i'll just go to last week this september

twenty first. democracy now when to the death row prison in jackson georgia it's death row for georgia one hundred men are on death row were on death row now they're ninety nine and we went to broadcast from the prison grounds where the next man was being slated for execution its name was try anthony davis and it was a horrific night we began our broadcast at six o'clock he was slated to die at seven this is a man who the pope has called for a stay of his execution jimmy carter the president archbishop desmond tutu who just turned eighty in south africa. bob barr the former republican congress member from georgia william sessions the republican f.b.i. director former f.b.i. director the former warden of that particular person death row person of georgia alan old cold for a stay of his execution he's gotten three death poor death warrants before that

were staged this was the fourth there were so much doubt around this forty two year old african-americans case that the world was watching and it goes to a larger issue of course of the death penalty so we were there to show i mean if executions are going to be done by the state it is important that we all watch that we are i witness to an execution it's very rare in the world we're alone in the industrialized world and instituting the death penalty this was a case in one nine hundred eighty nine a white police officer who was moonlighting as a security guard had gone to help a homeless man who's been pistol whipped and this officer named mark macphail was shot dead troy davis was convicted of the murder there was no direct evidence no d.n.a. evidence no gun found seven of the nine and police witnesses recanted her change their testimony jurors came forward said if they knew then. they knew now they would never have convicted him the one of the two people who did not change their

testimony sylvester red coals has been fingered by so many as the probable shooter he is the one who pointed the thing or originally to troy troy professed his innocence to the end that just let me describe the play have a moment what it was like more than one hundred fifty people on the grounds of the prison are waiting vigil outside a thousand people students march from spelman and morehouse college in atlanta to this prison forty miles from there the prison guards gave us the department of corrections the thin press packet that said what he would be eating that night very specific grilled cheese burger over and roasted potatoes great great beverage cole slaw of course he rejected that and then it would be followed by the lethal cocktail of potassium chlorate that would stop this heart of pentobarbital all that would. last the ties isn't in another drug that would paralyze him and he ultimately was executed at eleven

o eight that night this is absolutely critical an example of where the need needs to be the state of georgia executed troy anthony davis on september twenty first we were there then went back for the funeral will continue to follow the story because the death penalty in this country must be put in the context of what the world has decided to do and that is not to institute the death penalty unless we want to join iran and china we have to be there we have to go to where the silence is we need an independent media in this country that raises the critical issues as people make decisions about this day whether war continues the longest war in u.s. history the war in afghanistan today ten years old ten years ago today. the united states and afghanistan we have to decide issues of war and peace life and death and we need a media that is there to provide.