Screening: Steal This Story, Please! Q&A

This is a documentary screening, yes, but the real event is the conversation around it. *Steal This Story, Please!* lands in Chicago this weekend with Amy Goodman appearing in person at the Music Box Theatre, and the setup is pretty specific: Friday, May 8 at 7:30 p.m. brings a Q&A with Goodman and director Carl Deal, while Saturday, May 9 at 2:30 p.m. adds co-director Tia Lessin for a larger post-screening discussion. The point is not just to watch a film about journalism. It’s to sit in a room where the people who made it — and the journalist at its center — can argue out why independent reporting still matters. ### What is this film, exactly? It’s a 98-minute documentary about Amy Goodman and the rise of *Democracy Now!*, the daily independent news program she hosts. The film follows her reporting career from war zones and protest lines to the inside mechanics of a newsroom built outside commercial TV logic. Carl Deal and Tia Lessin — the Oscar-nominated team behind *Trouble the Water* and *The Janes* — directed it. ### Why is Amy Goodman the draw? Because Goodman is not just the subject of the movie — she’s one of the clearest symbols of a certain kind of journalism. Her whole thing has been putting movements, dissidents, labor organizers, and people shut out of mainstream coverage at the center of the story rather than the margins. That’s why a live Q&A matters here. You’re not getting what the film is defending. ### What’s special about the Chicago shows? The Chicago stop is part of a national self-release tour, which is unusual and kind of the point. Instead of handing the film off to a traditional distributor, the filmmakers are rolling it out city by city with in-person appearances by Goodman and the directors. Chicago gets two of those with the Independent Media Project. Saturday’s is film critic Clint Worthington. ### Why self-distribute a movie like this? Basically, because the release strategy matches the movie’s politics. The team said they’re building the run through partnerships with public media and grassroots groups, not just relying on the normal arthouse pipeline. That makes the screenings feel less like passive exhibition and more like organizing. ### What argument is the movie making? That the crisis in journalism is not just about bad headlines or shrinking attention spans. It’s about structure. The film frames the problem as a media landscape warped by corporate consolidation, algorithms, and political attacks on truth-telling. In other words, the pressure is coming from money, technology, and power all at once. That gives the Q&A more weight than the usual “how did you make this?” chatter. ### Is this just for Democracy Now! fans? No — not really. If you care about documentaries, local media, press freedom, or how stories get buried in the first place, this is the lane. The Doc10 festival description for the film leaned hard into that broader frame, tying Goodman’s career to a bigger question: what communities lose when local and independent outlets disappear. That’s the hook for people who don’t follow Goodman day to day. ### Why does the venue matter? Music Box is the right kind of room for this. It’s a repertory and arthouse theater, which means the audience is already primed for a documentary that wants discussion, not just consumption. And the Chicago listings are treating these shows as standout events in the city’s week-ahead calendar, not just another booking. ### Bottom line If you go, go for the talkback as much as the movie. The film is the entry point. The live discussion is where the story turns from a portrait of one journalist into a broader argument about who gets to tell the news now.