Special Event Discussion Panel: From Audience to Activist

Amy Goodman is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on over 1,400 public television and radio stations worldwide.

Goodman has co-authored six New York Times bestsellers. Her latest one, Democracy Now!: Twenty Years Covering the Movements Changing America looks back over the past two decades of Democracy Now! and the powerful movements and charismatic leaders who are re-shaping our world. She co-writes a weekly column with Denis Moynihan (also produced as an audio podcast) syndicated by King Features, for which she was recognized in 2007 with the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Reporting.

Goodman has received the American Women in Radio and Television Gracie Award; the Paley Center for Media’s She’s Made It Award; and the Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship. Her reporting on East Timor and Nigeria has won numerous awards, including the George Polk Award, Robert F. Kennedy Prize for International Reporting, and the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award. Time Magazine named Democracy Now! its “Pick of the Podcasts,” along with NBC’s Meet the Press. PULSE named Goodman one of the 20 Top Global Media Figures of 2009.

She has also received awards from the Associated Press, United Press International, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and Project Censored. Goodman received the first ever Communication for Peace Award from the World Association for Christian Communication. She was also honored by the National Council of Teachers of English with the George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language.

Dennis Flores is a Nuyorican multimedia artist, activist and educator born and raised in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. He is the co-founder of El Grito de Sunset Park, a grassroots community-based organization that advocates around issues of discriminatory policing and housing rights. Dennis is also the lead organizer of the Sunset Park Puerto Rican Day Parade, which, entering it's third year, has created a celebration of Puerto Rican culture safe from police harassment. 

As a teaching artist for over ten years, educating city youth on multimedia art and documentary filmmaking, Dennis' work often focuses on youth empowerment, Afro-Diaspora cultural traditions as well as racial and social justice. In the mid-1990s, influenced by The Young Lords Party, he and the street organization he belonged to – deemed a "gang" by law enforcement officials – began organizing around social justice issues. He and others began to organize with families of victims of the police amid the political unrest of the Rudy Giuliani era in New York City.

One of the pioneers of the modern day copwatch movement in New York, Dennis began to organize patrols of everyday people to film and document police misconduct beginning in 1999. The use of video to not only expose police brutality, but to help exonerate those who were arrested and criminally charged, laid the foundation for the growing police accountability movement seen across the country today. Today, Dennis is a frequent speaker, commentator and well-regarded community advocate. 

Jennifer MacArthur produced the critically acclaimed, feature documentary Whose Streets?, which premiered opening night of the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Magnolia Pictures acquired the film for North American distribution and releases the film in movie theaters on August 11.

In 2008, MacArthur founded her strategy firm Borderline Media. Borderline’s strategy work includes Almost Sunrise (POV, 2017), Southern Rites (HBO, 2015), Out in the Night (LOGO/POV, 2015), and the Emmy-nominated films Gideon’s Army (HBO, 2013) and Traces of the Trade (POV, 2008). She also advised on America Divided (EPIX, 2016), American Promise (POV, 2014), and Oscar-nominated Dirty Wars (IFC, 2013).

Together with producer Brenda Coughlin (Dirty Wars, CitizenFour, Risk), she established the peer support network Impact Producers Group and launched Impact Socials, a networking event for creative change-makers. MacArthur’s commitment to field-building also has taken her to Melbourne, Guadalajara, and Amsterdam for keynotes addressing the intersections of documentary with neoliberalism, big data, white privilege, social movements, and low-fi transmedia. 

MacArthur is a 2016 Sundance Creative Producing Summit Fellow, a 2016 Opportunity Agenda Creative Change Leader, a 2015 Rockwood JustFilms Fellow and a 2015 NAMAC Creative Lab Leader. Recently, she joined the Industry Advisory Board for the Camden International Film Festival/Points North Institute.

Courtney C. Radsch, PhD, is advocacy director at the Committee to Protect Journalists. She serves as chief spokesperson on global press freedom issues for the organization and oversees CPJ’s engagement with the United Nations, the Internet Governance Forum, and other multilateral institutions as well as CPJ’s campaigns on behalf of journalists killed and imprisoned for their work. As a veteran journalist, researcher, and free expression advocate, she frequently writes and speaks about the intersection of media, technology, and human rights. Her book Cyberactivism and Citizen Journalism in Egypt: Digital Dissidence and Political Changewas published in 2016.

Prior to joining CPJ, Radsch worked for UNESCO, edited the flagship publication "World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development," and managed the Global Freedom of Expression Campaign at Freedom House. She has worked as a journalist in the United States and Middle East with Al-Arabiya, the Daily Star, and The New York Times. Radsch holds a PhD in international relations from American University. She speaks Arabic, French, and Spanish.

Jackie Zammuto leads WITNESS’ programmatic work in the United States, focusing on the use of video for advocacy and evidentiary purposes in the thematic areas of police accountability, immigrant rights, LGBTQ rights and beyond. She has over five years of experience training and collaborating with grassroots activists, educators and organizers on issues related to forced evictions, militarized policing, gender-based violence, climate justice, and more.

Jackie also coordinates the development and distribution of WITNESS’ training resources and online platforms, overseeing the production of materials like the Forced Evictions Advocacy Toolkit and the Video as Evidence Field Guide.

Before coming to WITNESS she spent five years as a Producer and Project Manager for the award-winning Free State Studios. She holds a B.S. in Broadcast Production Journalism and Women’s Studies from the University of Colorado. Additionally, she has collaborated on several feature-length documentaries and independent video projects.