Jim Goodman - Sleeper Cell for the Revolution!
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If activists received any coverage in Rochester from the mainstream press the last three decades, it was probably because of Jim Goodman. Activists don’t trust the mainstream press, for good reason, they are typically the translators of the capitalist class. But James Goodman was the exception, he wrote for us, not them.
Goodman was a graduate of the University of Wisconsin, a hotbed for leftist academic study. He held a degree in history from there and a master’s in history from some Ivy league we won’t mention. The important thing to note here is that Goodman was the people’s historian. Goodman was not a reporter embedded with the military, nor police state, but was on the ground with us. He was telling our stories NOT as advertised by some suave looking reporter on the D&C billboard: Your Stories, My Words, no Goodman actually reported accurately what we were saying, in our own damn words. Our words were good enough for him. While other reporters of the mainstream press, would chase after the next, and the next story, Jim took his time on the scene making sure to get every detail and then often times more.
I recall the first time I met Goodman. I had attended some political event, was in the parking lot afterwards, and all the television reporters had left, nearly everyone who had attended the event had left for that matter. Jim was there just casually talking with some straggler. I went up to him to ask him a question, not sure if he was an official reporter or not, since he didn’t really fit the description. He was not suave, in the made for corporate marketing sense, many times his shirt fell untucked outside his drawers, he stood average height with a crop of unorganized curls, more typical of a member of a rock band than that of the mainstream press.
I asked him one question, Jim answered it in his disarming way, then just started talking to me about the entire event and getting my ideas. It was a real conversation, something I had never seen with reporters. Here he was randomly talking to people who had no power, had no title, he didn’t even ask for my name to use or anything in his story. It was just purely human, if the true nature of humans is to interact without trying to extract some monetary gain out of one other. You had this sense that Goodman was always on the job and that he never was. He had wrapped journalism around who he was and his interests, and that meant covering stuff that his managers never would have assigned for him, and it also meant lingering longer at the scene to gain depth of knowledge, to throw a net around the subtleties of a story. I think I had to end that conversation because I had to go somewhere. Now I wish I hadn’t…
Later I got to know Jim a bit more through my wife Erica Bryant’s working at the adjacent cubicle at the D&C with him. I would joke with him when I would see him that Erica was my second favorite reporter. Goodman would suggest revolutionary reading for me, “have you read the speeches of Rosa Luxemburg?”
He was known for a completely riotous cubicle, with all his notebooks flowing into other people’s spaces and onto the floor. Erica looked up to him tremendously, I know this from the way she emulated his cubicle organization skills, meaning none. They both deserved each other as workplace neighbors. And I have a feeling that despite my attempts to tell here she could probably have more focus if she cleaned up her work area, I fear now that cause is lost. And for good reason.
Because it takes more than efficient working methods, and clean-cut looks, to tell a good story. I repeat Jim Goodman wrote for us. Despite his disheveled ways, he infiltrated the castle walls of corporate media in 1983 and always looked back. And that has made all the difference. JIM GOODMAN SLEEPER CELL OF THE REVOLUTION, YOU WILL BE MISSED !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
A CALL TO ACTION: For all you activists in Rochester and beyond, come through for JIM Goodman as he came through for us!
A service will be held on Thursday, July 7, 11:00 a.m., at Anthony Funeral & Cremation Chapels, 2305 Monroe Ave., Rochester, NY. The service will be livestreamed here https://client.tribucast.com/tcid/1508143451
