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Bill Moyers

 
Biography: Bill Moyers

Television journalist and author Billy Don (Bill) Moyers (born 1934) served as special assistant, speechwriter, chief of staff, and press secretary to President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Billy Don Moyers was born June 5, 1934, in Hugo, Oklahoma, and grew up in Marshall, Texas. By the age of 15, Moyers was working as a reporter on his local paper, the Marshall News Messenger. He started college at North Texas State College, where he became class president. In 1954 he worked on Lyndon B. Johnson's Senate campaign and then, at Johnson's urging, transferred to the University of Texas at Austin, where he majored in journalism and worked at KTBC, the Johnson's television station. He graduated from the University of Texas in 1956, then spent a year studying church history at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, before returning to study for a bachelor of divinity degree at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, which he completed in 1959. Meanwhile, he married Judith Davidson in 1954. They had three children.

In 1960 Moyers abandoned plans to pursue graduate work in American studies in order to join the campaign staff of Lyndon Johnson as a personal assistant, then a special assistant, during the Kennedy-Johnson presidential campaign. In 1961 Moyers became associate director of public affairs, in effect the chief lobbyist and public relations director of the Peace Corps, working under R. Sargent Shriver. He became deputy director of the Peace Corps in 1963.

On the day that John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, Moyers was in Austin helping with the presidential trip to Texas. When he heard that Kennedy had been shot, Moyers flew to Dallas to offer his services to Lyndon Johnson, sending a handwritten note, "I'm here if you need me." From that moment until the end of 1966, Moyers served Johnson in a variety of important roles under the traditional and ambiguous title of "special assistant to the President." Moyers coordinated the work of the 14 task forces that produced the legislative foundation for Johnson's "Great Society" programs in a sweeping series of bills designed to implement the "War on Poverty." These domestic programs were the most ambitious and progressive social welfare measures to be enacted since the New Deal of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, though their impact was blunted by the burdens imposed by the war in Vietnam.

Moyers helped to write the Democratic party platform of 1964, which had a strong commitment to civil rights. As Johnson's liaison with the advertising firm that was preparing television advertising for the campaign, Moyers ordered a strong attack on Barry Goldwater. Moreover, he approved of the famous "Daisy" ad, which showed a young girl counting the petals on a daisy, then cut to a countdown to a nuclear explosion with a voiceover of Johnson speaking of the importance of peace. The ad evoked protests from the Goldwater campaign and was aired only once. Though it never explicitly mentioned Goldwater or the Republicans, the ad was a highly effective evocation of Goldwater's reputation for nuclear bellicosity.

As a special assistant, Moyers acted as an adviser, as chief speech writer, as chief of staff, and from July 1965 until he resigned in December 1966, as White House press secretary, where he was highly regarded by the working press. As the Vietnam War deepened, Moyers became one of the most visible doves in the White House, and he became increasingly isolated from Johnson. Moyers resigned in December 1966, with considerable bitterness on Johnson's part, to become publisher of Newsday, a large circulation daily paper on Long Island with a reputation for conservative political views. Moyers hired star writers such as Pete Hamill and, for special reports, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Saul Bellow. He led the paper in a progressive direction and to a series of journalistic awards. But the conservative Harry Guggenheim, who owned a controlling interest in the paper, withdrew his support of Moyers and sold out to the Times-Mirror company. Moyers left the paper in 1970.

Moyers took time out to write Listening to America (1971), based on interviews conducted on a tour across America. He then turned to a successful career as a television journalist for CBS and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). At PBS, Moyers found he had the freedom to examine and tell stories that interested him in whatever way he wanted to present them. Moyers was editor-in-chief of "Bill Moyers Journal" on PBS from 1971 to 1976 and again from 1978 to 1981. He was editor and chief correspondent of the "CBS Reports" series from 1976 to 1978 and senior news analyst for CBS News, 1981-1986. Beginning in 1987 he was executive editor of Public Affairs TV, Inc., an independent production company making documentary and public affairs series for public television. His television work won virtually every major broadcasting award.

Moyers' television style was a traditional mix of news and documentary formats, in which he acted as narrator and interviewer. His series were distinguished not for innovations in form so much as for their combination of deep seriousness, earnest curiosity, attentiveness, and respect to his subjects (without, however, giving up his own views). Moyers held a consistent and clear set of values that were progressive and humane, and he possessed an ability to aim his material in such a way as to be both popular and intellectually lively.

As part of his series "A Walk Through the Twentieth Century with Bill Moyers," Moyers tackled such subjects as the arms race, labor history, and the influence of television on political campaigns. The most noted show of the series was "Marshall Texas, Marshall Texas," a description of the town in which he grew up, containing interviews of friends, residents, and former teachers. The series included a long interview with James Farmer, a civil rights leader who also grew up in Marshall, but whom Moyers had not known at the time he lived there because of the culture of segregation (hence the image of Marshall as two towns, and the repetition of the name in the title of the show).

In 1988 Moyers released the six-part series "Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth." Campbell, for many years a professor of comparative religion at Sarah Lawrence College and author of a number of influential works on world mythology, talked with Moyers about myth as a way of coming to an experience of "the rapture of being alive" as Moyers, trained as a Baptist minister, engaged with him in a search for the cosmic truth behind religious doctrines and mythical tales.

In a five-part PBS series that premiered in 1993, Moyers examined the connection between emotions and physical response. Healing and the Mind took viewers first to China and the ancient medical traditions of "qi" (pronounced "chee"), which emphasizes the mental-physical energy that herbalists, acupuncturists, and massage therapists have insisted is the basis of good health. Moyers also paid visits to hospitals in the United States where nontraditional therapies are being used: a hospital in Massachusetts uses Buddhist meditation to aid patients with unyielding pain; and a Boston hospital showed how "the relaxation response" has been beneficial in the treatment of insomnia, hypertension, and infertility. Georgetown was slated to be the first medical school with a thorough course of study in mind-body techniques. Dr. David Eisenberg, who developed an "unconventional medicine" course at Harvard, reported that 34 percent of the people they surveyed had tried at least one unconventional therapy in the past year for primarily chronic conditions, such as back pain, insomnia, and headaches, a percentage that converts to about 61 million people. Moyers' series reinforced a growing popularity of alternative medicine. The companion book soared to the top of the best-seller lists, and PBS scored ratings with Healing and the Mind double what they usually earned at that time of the year.

Moyers was not as fortunate with his 1995 series, The Language of Life, in which he spent eight installments celebrating poetry readings and workshops which were flourishing after decades of relative disappearance. Although he did point out that the publication of poetic tomes had been abandoned by many trade publishers, Moyers showed how enlightened and unified poets are after what Brad Leithauser described as "the poetry reading as a blend of A. A. Meeting and encounter-group therapy," in his article for Time. Leithauser criticized Moyers' lack of probing questions about what the public needs to understand about the contemporary poet, not just the joy of sharing one's work. Most poets, for example, still have to teach to earn a living. Furthermore, he questions why we continue to refer to poetry as Postmodernist after 75 years. "Moyers makes virtually no attempt to place the poet in a larger social context - to view poetry as a profession (or, perhaps more to the point, to analyze what it means that ours is a culture where it's all but impossible to be a professional poet)," Leithauser wrote.

The next issues Moyers tackled were ones more close to home for the ordained Southern Baptist minister. Newsweek called his Spring 1996, five-part series, The Wisdom of Faith "disappointing." The show was to center around religious guru Houston Smith, one of the foremost scholars of world religions; yet Kenneth Woodward said it lacked focus. Moyers, he said, was unable to decide if the programs were about Smith and his experiences or about the six "wisdom traditions" of Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. The fall of 1996 brought better reception of his probe of the first book of the Bible. Genesis: A Living Conversation was a ten-part "outreach," bringing together small groups of scholars, writers, and other intellectuals for hour-long discussions. PBS widely promoted the programs, distributing more than 100,000 copies of a 177-page accompanying guide. Moyers' intention was to promote study groups around the country like the one broadcasted into living rooms, anticipating "that this series will become part of the resurgence of democratic conversation." Hoping to capture the same success as Healing and the Mind, Moyers recycled some of his journalistic techniques to find contemporary meaning out of the ancient text. Believing the Baptist conviction that everyone is equipped to interpret the Bible for him or herself, Moyers brought together a diverse group, consisting of a psychotherapist, poet, author, evangelicals, and even nonbelievers to reveal the meaning of the stories of Genesis. Moyers wanted people to "listen and understand," not to change their beliefs, and "to talk to each other without that kind of false protocol and superficial tact we sometimes pretend we have." Kenneth Woodward and Anne Underwood of Newsweek commended Moyers for performing "a public service by discussing Genesis in extended conversation." However, they recognized that the series did little to explain why the stories found their literary forms or how they influence the Biblical material and message. Moyers told Christianity Today that he perceives himself more as a student than as an adversarial journalist. Because he finds himself drawn to learn what others have to offer, Genesis: A Living Conversation became what Woodward and Underwood called "too much free association and self-confession for a series that wants us to be serious about the Bible."

Nevertheless, during the decades in which television news evolved into a form of entertainment and public television sometimes seemed to play it safe by hiding behind nature documentaries, Moyers was one of the most consistent champions for the democratic potential of public affairs television, exercising a special blend of historical awareness, moral imagination, and intellectual integrity.

Further Reading

For additional information see especially works by Bill Moyers: Listening to America (1971); A World of Ideas (1989); The Secret Government (1988); and The Power of Myth, with Joseph Campbell (1988). Video tapes of Moyers' television series are available in many university libraries. For biographical accounts of Moyers, see Patrick Anderson, The President's Men (1968); Martha Gross, The Possible Dream (1970); and Mimi Swartz, "The Mythic Rise of Billy Don Moyers," in Texas Monthly (November 1989). Periodical sources cited are "Mind Over Malady," Time (March 1, 1993); "Helping Docs Mind the Body," Newsweek (March 8, 1993); "Prince of PBS," Modern Maturity (October-November 1993); "I'm Ed, and I'm a Poet," Time (July 3, 1995); "The Spiritual Surfer," and "In the Beginning," Newsweek (April 1, 1996 and October 21, 1996, respectively); and "Bill Moyers' National Bible Study," Christianity Today (October 28, 1996).

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"When I learn something new-and it happens every day-I feel a little more at home in this universe, a little more comfortable in the nest."

Wikipedia: Bill Moyers
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Bill Moyers

Bill Moyers, 2005

In office
1965 – 1967
President Lyndon B. Johnson
Preceded by George Reedy
Succeeded by George Christian

Born June 5, 1934 (1934-06-05) (age 75)
Hugo, Oklahoma, United States
Political party Democratic
Spouse(s) Judith Suzanne Moyers (née Davidson)
Children William Cope, Alice Suzanne, and John Davidson
Residence New York City, New York, United States
Occupation Journalist
Religion United Church of Christ

Billy Don "Bill" Moyers (born June 5, 1934) is an American journalist and public commentator. He served as White House Press Secretary in the United States President Lyndon B. Johnson Administration from 1965 to 1967. He worked as a news commentator on television for ten years. Moyers has had an extensive involvement with public television, producing documentaries and news journal programs. He has won numerous awards and honorary degrees. He has become well known as a trenchant critic of the U.S. media. Since 1990, Moyers has been President of the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy. He lives in New York City, New York, United States.

Contents

Career

Early years and education

President Johnson (right) meets with special assistant Moyers in the White House Oval Office, 1963

Born in Hugo, Oklahoma, to father John Henry Moyers, a laborer, and mother Ruby Moyers (née Johnson), he was raised in Texas.[1]

He began his journalism career at the age of sixteen as a cub reporter at the Marshall News Messenger in Marshall, Texas. Moyers studied journalism at the University of North Texas, Denton, Texas. In 1954, he worked as a summer intern for then U.S. Senator Lyndon B. Johnson, eventually being in charge of Johnson's personal mail before his internship was finished. Moyers soon transferred to the University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, where he wrote for The Daily Texan newspaper, and graduated in 1956 with a bachelor of arts degree in journalism. While in Austin, Moyers worked as an assistant to the news editor for KTBC radio and television stations owned by Lady Bird Johnson, wife of then U.S. Senator Johnson. During the academic year 1956–1957, he studied at the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom, as a Rotary International Fellow. In 1959, he received a bachelor of divinity degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas.[1]While at SWBTS, Moyers worked in the public relations office with Bill P. Keith, later a Texas author and a former member of the Louisiana State Senate.[2]

Moyers was ordained two years later after working as a minister. Moyers planned to enter a doctor of philosophy program with the University of Texas System and briefly accepted a lectureship in Christian ethics at Baylor University, Waco, Texas. During Senator Johnson's unsuccessful bid for the 1960 Democratic U.S. presidential nomination, Moyers served as a top aide, and in the general campaign he acted as liaison between Democratic vice-presidential candidate Johnson and the Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy.[3]

Kennedy and Johnson Administrations

Moyers giving a press conference at the White House in 1965

During the Kennedy Administration, Moyers was first appointed as associate director of public affairs for the newly created Peace Corps in 1961. He served as Deputy Director from 1962 to 1963. When Lyndon B. Johnson took office after the Kennedy assassination, Moyers became a special assistant to Johnson, serving from 1963 to 1967. He played a key role in organizing and supervising the 1964 Great Society legislative task forces and was a principal architect of Johnson's 1964 presidential campaign. Moyers acted as the President's informal chief of staff from October 1964 until 1966. From July 1965 to February 1967, he also served as White House press secretary.[3]

After the resignation of Walter Jenkins because of a sexual misdemeanour in the runup to the 1964 election, President Lyndon B. Johnson, alarmed that the opposition was framing the issue as a security breach,[4] ordered Moyers to request FBI name checks on 15 members of Goldwater's staff to find "derogatory" material on their personal lives.[5][6] Goldwater himself only referred to the Jenkins incident off the record.[7] The Church Committee stated in 1975 that "Moyers has publicly recounted his role in the incident, and his account is confirmed by FBI documents."[8] In 2005, Laurence Silberman claimed that Moyers denied writing the memo in a 1975 phone call.[9] Moyers said he had a different recollection of the telephone conversation.[10]

Moyers, acting for Johnson, also sought information from the FBI on the sexual preferences of White House staff members, most notably Jack Valenti.[11] Moyers indicated his memory was unclear on why Johnson directed him to request such information, "but that he may have been simply looking for details of allegations first brought to the president by Hoover." [12]

Journalist Morley Safer said that Moyers and President Johnson met with and "harangued" Safer's boss, CBS president Frank Stanton, about Safer's coverage of the behaviour of U.S. troops in Vietnam (Safer had filmed them burning down a village).[13] During the meeting, Safer alleges, Johnson threatened to expose Safer's "communist ties". This was a bluff, according to Safer. Safer says that Moyers was "if not a key player, certainly a key bystander" in the incident.[14] Moyers stated that his hard-hitting coverage of conservative presidents Reagan and Bush were behind Safer's allegations.[15]

In The New York Times on April 3, 1966, Moyers offered this insight on his stint as press secretary to President Johnson: "I work for him despite his faults and he lets me work for him despite my deficiencies."[16][17] The details of his rift with Johnson have not been made public but may be discussed in a forthcoming memoir.[18]

Journalism

Newsday

His journalistic career began in earnest when he served as publisher for the Long Island, New York, daily newspaper Newsday from 1967 to 1970. Moyers left when the paper was fully acquired by the Times-Mirror Company, publisher of the Los Angeles Times.[18]

PBS — Bill Moyers Journal

In 1971 he began working for the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), hosting a news program called Bill Moyers' Journal, which ran until 1981 with a hiatus from 1976 to 1977.[19]

CBS News

In 1976 he moved to CBS, where he worked as editor and chief correspondent for CBS Reports until 1980, then as senior news analyst and commentator for the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather from 1981 to 1986. He was the last regular commentator for the network broadcast.[20] During his last year at CBS, Moyers made public statements about declining news standards at the network and declined to renew his contract with CBS, citing commitments with PBS.

The Power of Myth series

In 1986 Moyers and his wife, Judith Davidson Moyers, formed Public Affairs Television. Among their first productions was the popular PBS 1988 documentary series Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth, consisting of six one-hour interviews between Moyers and mythologist Joseph Campbell. The documentary covers Campbell's exploration of the monomyth and the hero cycle, or the story of the hero, as it manifests itself in various cultures. Campbell's influence is clearly seen in the work of George Lucas's Star Wars saga. In the first interview, filmed at George Lucas' "Skywalker Ranch,"[21] Moyers and Campbell discuss the relationship between Campbell's theories and Lucas's creative work. Twelve years after the making of The Power of Myth, Moyers and Lucas met again for the 1999 interview, the Mythology of Star Wars with George Lucas & Bill Moyers, to further discuss the impact of Campbell's work on Lucas's films.[22]

NBC News

Moyers briefly joined NBC News in 1995 as a senior analyst and commentator, and the following year he became the first host of sister cable network MSNBC's Insight program. He was the last regular commentator on the NBC Nightly News.[20]

PBS

The latest of Moyers's PBS programs are available for viewing online at PBS.org.

NOW with Bill Moyers

Moyers hosted the TV news journal NOW with Bill Moyers on PBS for three years. He retired from the program on December 17, 2004, but returned to PBS soon after to host Wide Angle in 2005. When he left NOW, he announced that he wished to finish writing a biography of Lyndon B. Johnson.[23]

Bill Moyers on Faith and Reason

In 2006 he presented two public television series. Faith and Reason, a series of conversations with esteemed writers of various faiths and of no faith, explored the question "In a world in which religion is poison to some and salvation to others, how do we live together?"

Bill Moyers on America

The other recent series, Moyers on America, analyzed in depth the ramifications of three important issues: the Jack Abramoff scandal ("Capitol Crimes"), evangelical religion and environmentalism ("Is God Green?"), and threats to open public access of the Internet ("The Net at Risk").

Bill Moyers Journal

On April 25, 2007, Moyers returned to PBS with Bill Moyers Journal. The first episode, entitled "Buying the War", had Moyers investigating the general media's shortcomings in the runup to the War in Iraq.

On February 12, 2007 , Moyers wrote “Discovering What Democracy Means.” Moyers disclosed the significance of cultural education. His critics responded by saying that there is no economic benefit. But people can become empowered through understanding how exploitation works. Moyers stated, “Some members of congress realized that we were talking not only about how to improve our lives as individuals but how to nurture a flourishing democracy.” Politicians would be able to handle decisionmaking more effectively with a cultural education, and if they stop focusing on the economic gain. Moyers also says citizens need to raise a higher consciousness for their “inner tutor”. Citizens must distinguish real life from make-believe: for instance, many of the shows that are aired on networks are packaged together to make viewers believe that they are real life.

On November 20, 2009, Moyers announced that he would be retiring from his weekly show on April 30, 2010.[24]

Awards

Recipient of the 2006 Lifetime Emmy Award, "Bill Moyers has devoted his lifetime to the exploration of the major issues and ideas of our time and our country, giving television viewers an informed perspective on political and societal concerns," according to the official announcement, which also noted that "the scope of and quality of his broadcasts have been honored time and again. It is fitting that the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences honor him with our highest honor—the Lifetime Achievement Award."[25] He has received well over thirty Emmys and virtually every other major television journalism prize, including a gold baton from the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards, a lifetime Peabody Award, and a George Polk Career Award (his third George Polk Award) for contributions to journalistic integrity and investigative reporting. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and has been the recipient of numerous honorary degrees, including a doctorate from the American Film Institute.[1]

Commentary

Regarding the U.S. media

On the media and class warfare

In a 2003 interview with BuzzFlash.com,[26] Moyers said, "The corporate right and the political right declared class warfare on working people a quarter of a century ago and they've won." He noted, "The rich are getting richer, which arguably wouldn't matter if the rising tide lifted all boats." Instead, however, "[t]he inequality gap is the widest it's been since 1929; the middle class is besieged and the working poor are barely keeping their heads above water." He added that as "the corporate and governing elites are helping themselves to the spoils of victory," access to political power has become "who gets what and who pays for it."

Meanwhile, the public has failed to react because it is, in his words, "distracted by the media circus and news has been neutered or politicized for partisan purposes." In support of this, he referred to "the paradox of Rush Limbaugh, ensconced in a Palm Beach mansion massaging the resentments across the country of white-knuckled wage earners, who are barely making ends meet in no small part because of the corporate and ideological forces for whom Rush has been a hero.... As Eric Alterman reports in his recent book—a book that I'm proud to have helped make happen—part of the red meat strategy is to attack mainstream media relentlessly, knowing that if the press is effectively intimidated, either by the accusation of liberal bias or by a reporter's own mistaken belief in the charge's validity, the institutions that conservatives revere—corporate America, the military, organized religion, and their own ideological bastions of influence—will be able to escape scrutiny and increase their influence over American public life with relatively no challenge."[26]

On media bias

When he retired in December 2004, the AP News Service quoted Moyers as saying, "I'm going out telling the story that I think is the biggest story of our time: how the right-wing media has become a partisan propaganda arm of the Republican National Committee. We have an ideological press that's interested in the election of Republicans, and a mainstream press that's interested in the bottom line. Therefore, we don't have a vigilant, independent press whose interest is the American people."[27]

On Karl Rove and U.S. politics

During his speech at the "Take Back America" conference, Moyers defined what he considered to be Karl Rove's influence on George W. Bush's administration. Moyers asserted that, from his reading of Rove, the mid to late 1800s were to Rove a "cherished period of American history." He further states, "From his own public comments and my reading of the record, it is apparent that Karl Rove has modeled the Bush presidency on that of William McKinley...and modeled himself on Mark Hanna, the man who virtually manufactured McKinley."[28]

He stipulated that Hanna's primary "passion" was attending to corporate and imperial power.

Furthermore, Moyers indicates that Hanna gathered support for McKinley's presidential campaign from "the corporate interests of the day" and was responsible for Ohio and Washington coming under the rule of "bankers, railroads and public utility corporations." He submitted that political opponents of this transfer of power were "smeared as disturbers of the peace, socialists, anarchists, or worse."[28]

Lastly, he refers to what historian Clinton Rossiter called the period of "the great train robbery of American intellectual history," when "conservatives—or better, pro-corporate apologists" began using terms such as "progress", "opportunity", and "individualism" in order to make "the plunder of America sound like divine right." He added that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution was also used by conservative politicians, judges, and publicists to justify the idea of a "natural order of things" as well as "the notion that progress resulted from the elimination of the weak and the 'survival of the fittest.'"[28]

He concludes, "This 'degenerate and unlovely age', as one historian calls it, exists in the mind of Karl Rove, the reputed brain of George W. Bush, as the seminal age of inspiration for the politics and governance of America today."[28]

During coverage of the 2004 presidential election, Moyers stated, "I think that if Kerry were to win this in a tight race, I think that there would be an effort to mount a coup, quite frankly. I mean that the right wing is not going to accept it."[29][30]

On August 16, 2007, Bill Moyers, in response to Karl Rove’s announcement of his resignation from the White House, called into question Rove’s belief in God when he stated that Rove was a secular skeptic and agnostic who had manipulated the Christian right for partisian purposes and made the comment that “. . .on his last play of the game all Karl Rove had to offer them (the Christian right) was a Hail Mary pass, while telling himself there’s no one there to catch it."[31] "The next day, Rove made a previously scheduled appearance on Fox with Chris Wallace and when asked about Moyer’s comments, Rove said Moyers had relied on a blogger at the San Antonio Express for his source, and said, “And he (Moyers) took a comment where I acknowledged my shortcomings in living up to the beliefs of my faith . . .and somehow or another he (Moyers) goes from taking it from me being an Episcopalian wishing I was a better Christian to somehow making me into an agnostic. You know, Mr. Moyers ought to do a little bit better research before he does another drive-by slander.”[32]

Presidential draft initiative

In late 2005 an attempt was begun to draft Moyers for a 2008 run at the Democratic Presidential nomination. The founder of this initiative, Scott Beckman, circulated an article on the Internet entitled You Are Not Alone,[33] laying out his reasoning and establishing a website. Although the effort was popular on the Internet, it was not supported by Moyers, who, according to his attorneys, would "not under any circumstances" run for President.[34] The petition drove to gain 100,000 signatures by the end of the year, but it garnered less than one percent the few months it was in operation. The website was taken down at Moyers's request, but on July 24, 2006, political commentator Molly Ivins published an article entitled Run Bill Moyers for President, Seriously[35] on the progressive website Truthdig. A follow-up was published two days later by John Nichols on his blog on The Nation magazine's website.[36] However, this effort too failed to garner the extensive grassroots support envisioned. Then in October 2006 an article[37] was published on Common Dreams NewsCenter by Ralph Nader in which he supported the Moyers candidacy. "With his deep sense of history relating to the great economic struggles in American history between workers and large companies and industries," Nader added, "Moyers today is a leading spokesman on the need to deconcentrate the manifold concentrations of political and economic power by global corporations. He is especially keen on doing something about media concentration about which he knows from recurrent personal experience as a television commentator, investigator, anchor and newspaper editor." Nader's effort was seconded by Nichols.[38] There are also two websites promoting the effort: Draft Bill Moyers For President Blog[39] and Draft Bill Moyers For President Activist Center.[40]

Allegations of bias

In 2005, then Corporation for Public Broadcasting chairman Kenneth Tomlinson commissioned a study of the show NOW with Bill Moyers. Tomlinson said that the study supported what he characterized as "the image of the left-wing bias of NOW".[41] Moyers replied to this by saying that his journalism showed "the actual experience of regular people is the missing link in a nation wired for everything but the truth." Moyers characterized Tomlinson as "an ally of Karl Rove and the right-wing monopoly's point man to keep tabs on public broadcasting." Tomlinson, he said, "found kindred spirits at the right-wing editorial board of The Wall Street Journal where the 'animal spirits of business' are routinely celebrated."[41] Moyers also responded to these accusations in a speech given to The National Conference for Media Reform, pointing out that he had repeatedly invited Tomlinson to debate him on the subject and had repeatedly been ignored.[42] Tomlinson subsequently resigned on November 4, 2005, after a CPB inquiry found improprieties in the commissioning of the study. Investigators at the CPB said on November 15, 2005, that they had uncovered evidence that Tomlinson had repeatedly broken federal law and the organization's own regulations in a campaign to combat what he saw as liberal bias.[43]

Referring to a July 13, 2007, edition of Bill Moyers Journal discussing the possible impeachment of then President George W. Bush and featuring guests from opposing ends of the political spectrum, both in favor of impeachment,[44] PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler praised Moyers for his initiative in highlighting different topics but felt he could have used a more balanced approach.[45] Moyers disagreed, saying:

"The journalist's job is not to achieve some mythical state of equilibrium between two opposing opinions out of some misshapen respect—sometimes, alas, reverence—for the prevailing consensus among the powers-that-be. The journalist's job is to seek out and offer the public the best thinking on an issue, event, or story."

Getler responded by saying that

"On the broad issue of balance, I don't disagree with Moyers.... It can create a false sense of equivalence among readers or viewers in cases where that is not justified... [but that] while conventional, equal-time balance is frequently a false measure, the absence of any balance can undermine any program."[46]

Personal life

Moyers married Judith Suzanne Davidson (a producer) on December 18, 1954. They have three children and five grandchildren. His son William Cope Moyers (CNN producer, Hazelden Foundation spokesman) struggled to overcome alcoholism as detailed in the book Broken: My Story of Addiction and Redemption. He includes letters from Bill Moyers in his book, which he says are "a testament to a father's love for his son, a father's confusion with his son, and ultimately, a father's satisfaction with his son."[47] His other son, John Moyers, assisted in the foundation of www.TomPaine.com, "an online public affairs journal of progressive analysis and commentary."[48]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c "Bill Moyers". The Museum of Broadcast Communications. http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/M/htmlM/moyesrbill/moyersbill.htm. Retrieved May 15, 2008. 
  2. ^ "A Personal Note from Bill Moyers, October 27, 2009". billkeithbooks.com. http://billkeithbooks.com/wordsmith/. Retrieved November 25, 2009. 
  3. ^ a b "Bill Moyers Biographical Note". LBJ Library and Museum. http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/holdings/Findingaids/Aides/Moyers/MoyersBio.asp. Retrieved June 7, 2007-. 
  4. ^ Johnson, David K. (2004). The Lavender Scare. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 197pp. ISBN 0226404811. http://books.google.com/books?id=gbfOrkS5ziAC&pg=PA197. 
  5. ^ "US Dept Justice FBI Investigation 1975". USDOJ. 1975. http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/vol6/html/ChurchV6_0275a.htm. Retrieved 2008-05-10. 
  6. ^ Hoover's men ran name checks on 15 of them, producing derogatory information on two (a traffic violation on one and a love affair on another) "Hoover's Political Spying for Presidents, TIME, 1975"
  7. ^ Dallek, Robert (2005). Lyndon B. Johnson: Portrait of a President. UK: Oxford University Press. pp. 188. ISBN 0195159217. http://books.google.com/books?id=JIGcq0RXspMC&pg=PA188. "When reporters on his campaign plane pressed him for a comment, he would only speak 'off the record.' 'What a way to win an election,' he said, 'Communists and cocksuckers.'" 
  8. ^ "US Senate Select Committee To Study Governmental Operations, With Respect To Intelligence Activities". http://www.aarclibrary.org/publib/church/reports/vol6/pdf/ChurchV6_5_Elliff.pdf. Retrieved 2008-05-14. 
  9. ^ Silberman, Acting Deputy Attorney General in 1975, says Moyers called his office and said the document was a "phony CIA memo" but declined Silberman's offer to conduct an investigation to clear his name. "Hoover's Institution, WSJ, 2005" Moyers responded that Silberman's account of the conversation was at odds with his. "Removing J. Edgar's name, Robert Novak, CNN, 2005"
  10. ^ "CNN.com - Removing J. Edgar's name - Dec 1, 2005". cnn.com. http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/12/01/novak.hoover/index.html. Retrieved 2009-02-23. 
  11. ^ "Letter to Bill Moyers from FBI - December 2, 1964". washingtonpost.com. http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/investigations/documents/Moyers.pdf. Retrieved 2009-02-23. 
  12. ^ Stephens, Joe (2009-02-19). "Valenti's Sexuality Was Topic For FBI: Under Pressure, LBJ Let Hoover's Agents Investigate Top Aide". Washington Post. pp. A01. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/18/AR2009021803819.html?hpid=topnews. Retrieved 2009-02-20. 
  13. ^ Gibbons, William Conrad (1995). The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War: Executive and Legislative Roles and Relationships. Princeton University Press. pp. 69pp. ISBN 0691006350. http://books.google.com/books?id=W3fy6AABBXsC&pg=PA69&lpg=PA69. 
  14. ^ "Booknotes: Flashbacks On Returning to Vietnam". www.booknotes.org. http://www.booknotes.org/Transcript/?ProgramID=1002. Retrieved 2009-02-28. "And Moyers was present during some of this showdown stuff about me being a Communist, clearly knew it was a bluff. As I say, there are limits, I think, even to being a good soldier. And even if one does, I think there is a time to come clean." 
  15. ^ "Is ill will behind piece `60 Minutes' plans to do on PBS' Bill Moyers?". Baltimore Sun. http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/baltsun/access/113557171.html?dids=113557171:113557171&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT. Retrieved 2009-02-28. "Mr. Moyers wonders aloud whether his hard-hitting coverage of presidents Reagan and Bush has vexed Mr. Wallace and Mr. Safer, who, friends say, have become more politically conservative as they've grown older and wealthier." 
  16. ^ Anderson, Patrick (1966-04-03). "No. 2 Texan in the White House". NY Times. pp. SM1. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F10F16FE3A5411708DDDAA0894DC405B868AF1D3. 
  17. ^ Simpson, James B. (1988). Simpson's Contemporary Quotations, No. 848. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-39543-085-2. http://www.bartleby.com/63/48/848.html. 
  18. ^ a b Carr, David (2004-12-17). "Moyers Leaves a Public Affairs Pulpit With Sermons to Spare". NY Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/17/arts/television/17moye.html?ex=1261026000&en=e634685e55090435&ei=5090. Retrieved 2007-06-04. 
  19. ^ "Moyers, Bill: U.S. Broadcast Journalist". Museum of Broadcast Communications. http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/M/htmlM/moyesrbill/moyersbill.htm. Retrieved 2007-06-07. 
  20. ^ a b Shister, Gail (2006-04-18). "Opinions Differ on CBS News’ Commentary Plan". Philadelphia Inquirer. http://www.freepress.net/news/15028. Retrieved 2007-06-07. 
  21. ^ "The Hero's Adventure". TV.com. http://www.tv.com/joseph-campbell-and-the-power-of-myth/the-heros-adventure/episode/432756/summary.html. Retrieved 2007-06-07. 
  22. ^ DVD: The Mythology of Star Wars with George Lucas and Bill Moyers. 1999. ISBN 978-0-7365-7936-0. 
  23. ^ "Bill Moyers to leave PBS". AP/USA Today. 2004-02-19. http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2004-02-19-bill-moyer_x.htm. Retrieved 2007-06-07. 
  24. ^ Jensen, Elizabeth (November 20, 2009). "Bill Moyers to Leave Weekly Television". The New York Times. http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/20/bill-moyers-to-leave-weekly-television/?src=twt&twt=nytimestv. Retrieved November 2009. 
  25. ^ National Television Academy (August 1, 2006). "Bill Moyers to receive Lifetime Achievement Award at News & Documentary Emmy Awards". Press release. http://www.emmyonline.org/emmy/27_news_moyers.html. Retrieved June 7, 2007. 
  26. ^ a b "Bill Moyers is Insightful, Erudite, Impassioned, Brilliant and the Host of PBS' "NOW"". interview (BuzzFlash.com). 2003-10-28. http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/03/10/int03281.html. Retrieved 2006-12-18. 
  27. ^ Frazier Moore (2004). "Bill Moyers Retiring From TV Journalism" (html). Associated Press. http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines04/1210-11.htm. Retrieved 2007-07-25. 
  28. ^ a b c d Moyers, Bill. "This is Your Story - The Progressive Story of America. Pass It On." 'Take Back America' Conference (2003-06-10). Retrieved on 2006-12-18. The venue and date of the speech are not clear from the source cited here; the date provided is the publication date.
  29. ^ Will, George (2004-11-09). "How Not To Win Red America". Jewish World Review. http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/will110904.asp. Retrieved 2007-06-09. 
  30. ^ Koch, Edward I. (2004-11-18). "Shocked by Bill Moyers' 'Coup' Comment and Radical Media". NewsMax.com. http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/11/17/142900.shtml. Retrieved 2007-06-09. 
  31. ^ www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2007/08/my_fellow_texan.html
  32. ^ Michael Getler (24 August 2007). "PBS Ombudsman Responds to "My Fellow Texan"". PBS Ombudsman. http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2007/08/pbs_ombudsman_responds_to_my_f.html. 
  33. ^ Beckman, Scott (2005-12-13). "You Are Not Alone". OpEdNews.com. http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_scott_be_051213_you_are_not_alone.htm. Retrieved 2007-06-09. 
  34. ^ Brett, James R. (2006-07-27). "Why I Took Down the Draft Bill Moyers Website and Petition". self-published. American Liberalism Project. http://americanliberalism.org/showDiary.do?diaryId=76. Retrieved 2007-06-09. 
  35. ^ Ivins, Molly (2006-07-24). "Run Bill Moyers for President, Seriously". truthdig.com. http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060724_molly_ivins_bill_moyers/. Retrieved 2007-06-09. 
  36. ^ Nichols, John (2006-07-25). "Bill Moyers for President? Absolutely!". The Nation blog. http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?bid=1&pid=105621. Retrieved 2007-06-09. 
  37. ^ Nader, Ralph (2006-10-28). "Bill Moyers For President". CommonDreams.org. http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1028-24.htm. Retrieved 2007-06-09. 
  38. ^ Nichols, John (2006-10-31). "A New 'Moyers for President' Twist". The Nation blog. http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?mm=10&yr=2006. Retrieved 2007-06-09. 
  39. ^ "Very Active Bill Moyers for President Blog?". blog. Draft Bill Moyers for President. 2006-11-15. http://draftbillmoyers.blogspot.com/. Retrieved 2007-06-09. 
  40. ^ "Draft Bill Moyers for President Activist Center". self-published?. Irreguar Times. http://irregulartimes.com/draftmoyers.html. Retrieved 2007-06-09. 
  41. ^ a b Bode, Ken A. (2005-09-01). "CPB Ombudsmen Reports: The Question Of "Balance"". http://web.archive.org/web/20060213111433/http://www.cpb.org/ombudsmen/050901bode.html. Retrieved 2007-06-09. 
  42. ^ Moyers, Bill (2005-05-15). "Bill Moyers’ speech to the National Conference for Media Reform". FreePress.net. http://www.freepress.net/news/8120. Retrieved 2007-06-09. 
  43. ^ [1]
  44. ^ Bill Moyers (2007-07-13). "Bill Moyers Journal" (html). PBS. http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07132007/transcript4.html. Retrieved 2007-08-11. 
  45. ^ "The Ombudsman Column". 2007-07-20. http://www.pbs.org/ombudsman/2007/07/the_ombudsmans_mailbag_13.html. Retrieved 2007-08-09. 
  46. ^ "On Balance: Bill Moyers Responds". 2007-07-26. http://www.pbs.org/ombudsman/2007/07/on_balance_bill_moyers_responds.html. Retrieved 2007-08-09. 
  47. ^ "Moyers's memoir serves as a voice for recovery". http://www.hazelden.org/web/public/ade60904.page. Retrieved 2008-05-15. 
  48. ^ "TomPaine.common sense". http://www.tompaine.com. Retrieved 2008-05-16. 

Books

External links

Television productions

Political offices
Preceded by
George Reedy
White House Press Secretary
1965 – 1966
Succeeded by
George Christian
Media offices
Preceded by
None
Host of NOW
2002–2005
Succeeded by
David Brancaccio

 
 

 

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