I teach a course called “Mass Media and Popular Culture” in which I spend a good amount of class time on the news. Democracy Now is an important teaching tool for me. In addition to viewing specific reports from the program, students compare DN! with mainstream news shows. They are always surprised by DN—for its subject matter (not the usual news fare in their experience), its extensive stories from which they actually learn a lot about specific issues, and the diverse perspectives that many reports offer (very different, they realize, from network news). DN is a real eye-opener for them.
-Judith Wittner, Graduate Program Director Department of Sociology, Loyola University