Steal This Story, Please! Urges Journalists to Go Where the Silence Is

Much of the news shared in this country is filtered through mainstream media voices: so-called experts who breeze through communities too quickly, often missing the truths around the corner. There has been a decades-long campaign from the political right for control of mass media that has led us to this moment where information is monopolized and weaponized. Long-time journalist and activist Amy Goodman prides herself on her boots-on-the-ground journalism that amplifies the many different voices of this country. “We’ve got to go closest to the story, to the people who are experts in their own lives,” says Goodman in an interview. 

Tia Lessin and Carl Deal’s new documentary Steal This Story, Please!–screening at cinéSPEAK Under the Stars on June 5–is a loud call to action. Chronicling Goodman’s career and the rise of her grassroots news program Democracy Now!, the film asks journalists to learn from Goodman’s approach to story sharing. It begins with Goodman in the present day literally chasing down P. Wells Griffith III, Trump’s Climate Advisor, urging him to comment on her burning questions by saying, “A reporter asking you a question is not harassment.” 

Democracy Now!, through syndication, can be found on television screens in every state and is aired twice daily on Philadelphia’s Public Access TV Station, PhillyCAM. Goodman often finds herself in the midst of the action, from anti-pipeline protests in North Dakota to Ground Zero during the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks, and most recently, in the ruins of Gaza during the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. If a protest ends, as it often does, with people arrested, Goodman can be found in cuffs. 

The film shows the stories that changed not only Goodman, but also the world. We are introduced to her beginnings as an independent radio journalist at WBAI where she helped exonerate Maurice Bickman, a man who was wrongfully imprisoned for 38 years. “Who else would I go to with this story but Amy? I knew she’d dig her heels in and get the job done,” Dave Isay, founder of Storycorps, says in the documentary regarding this case. 

In the interview with Bickman after he’s been released, we see the spark of determination in Goodman’s eyes. Once she discovered the power of her platform, there was no stopping her. The film holds no punches, offering the graphic and brutal stories that left scars on the journalist; literally in cases like Timor, a story that left Goodman physically harmed.

Steal This Story, Please! is a plea to preserve independent media that is not influenced by corporations. “Mainstream media usually keeps voices at the margins, while Democracy Now! centers those voices,” Nermeen Shaikh, a Democracy Now! co-host, explains in the film. Amongst the voices at the margins is Philadelphia activist Mumia Abu-Jamal who had his controversial death sentence overturned with help from Goodman. Democracy Now! had been the only media source to play Abu-Jamal’s reports from prison. This resulted in the show being removed from stations in the city. 

As this country looks ahead to celebrate 250 years of “independence,” Steal This Story, Please! and Democracy Now! invoke our supposed inalienable right to freedom of the press to expose human rights violations in our country and around the world. Goodman’s journalism is an act of defiance and a profound tool in our battle against rising fascism and corporate consolidation in this country. 

Philadelphia is the perfect place to be during the Semiquincentennial as the country’s original capital, but more importantly as a city with a robust independent media scene. Our freedom of speech is loud here. Organizations like cinéSPEAK, Scribe Video Center and PhillyCAM offer people in our city ample opportunities to learn media making skills, promote media literacy, and amplify movements for liberation. Goodman, feeling grateful and inspired by the local cinemas and theaters screening her film, pronounced these spaces “sanctuaries of dissent.” cineSPEAK’s Under the Stars is one such sanctuary. 

One local story that Goodman would surely love to see stolen, Abolition Conversations, will screen at Under the Stars prior to Steal This Story, Please!. Abolition Conversations is a series of short videos featuring community stewards, activists, artists, and people impacted by mass incarceration. Local filmmaker Lori Waselchuk, in collaboration with local journalist and filmmaker Gabriela Watson-Burkett, intends to educate and inspire communities in Philadelphia, New Orleans, and Green Bay to rethink policing, criminalization, and mass incarceration. The voices featured in these shorts are typically minimized, misrepresented, and even weaponized. Alternatively, Abolition Conversations shares with viewers the complexities of our justice system by allowing them to hear directly from the people impacted by it. 

The project will feature 10 conversations in the three cities that personalize the impacts of America’s abuse of criminalization and mass incarceration as well as uplift the work that people are doing to interrupt that system. Waselchuk explains her intentions, saying, “I am keeping the films short in the hopes that they can be used in community gatherings to initiate conversations about our people power: to strengthen the ‘village’ that Chris and Kevin, the conversationalists in episode one [screening at Under the Stars], are dedicating themselves to.” 

In her work and in the film, Goodman asks us to “steal” the stories and share the truths the oppressive structures fight so hard to diminish. “I really do think that those who care about war and peace, those who care about climate change, the fate of the planet, those who care about equality, racial and economic injustice, who care about LGBTQ issues, are not the silent minority but rather, the silenced majority,” explains Goodman during a Q&A before the film’s premiere in Philadelphia. Steal This Story, Please! reminds us that we need to go where these “silences” are: these are the stories we need to tell. 

Steal This Story, Please! and Abolition Conversations: Episode 1 are screening at the 2026 cinéSPEAK Under The Stars Festival on Friday, June 5 at 7 PM at Clark Park in West Philadelphia. RSVP for free to receive up-to-date information and discounts at participating businesses.

*Featured Image: Image of Carl Deal, Amy Goodman, and Tia Lessin. Photo credit: Reed Brody.