Amy Goodman’s arrest yesterday at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, may be just a sideline in the US, but in other countries, it’s big news. Aporrea, the popular Venezuelan news portal, made her story top of their headlines today.
Why the hoopla? Because Amy, along with Democracy Now co-host Juan Gonzalez, was the first US journalist to interview Hugo Chavez on US soil. (She and Juan followed it up two years ago with a similar, hour-long interview of Chavecito’s good friend and ally, Evo Morales of Bolivia–another first.)
Suffice to say that while the US mainstream media largely ignores the work of Amy and her colleagues, it does not go unnoticed in Latin America–where she has a large fan following simply because her handling of the news is so evenhanded–and because, unlike most US-based reporters, she does not report what Washington wants people to see, but what is actually going on. That kind of thing is hugely appreciated in any maligned, misunderstood part of the world.
