Bill Moyers

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Bill Moyers

Bill D. Moyers (born June 5, 1934 as Billy Don Moyers) is an American journalist and public commentator.

He was born in Hugo, Oklahoma, and was raised in Texas. Moyers began his journalism career at age 16 as a cub reporter at the Marshall News Messenger in Marshall, Texas. He and his wife, Judith Davidson Moyers, have three grown children and five grandchildren. He is currently president of the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy and lives in New York City.

Contents

[edit] Education and Early Career

Bill Moyers studied journalism at North Texas University. In 1954, he worked as a summer intern for Senator Lyndon Baines 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, where he wrote for The Daily Texan newspaper and graduated in 1956. While in Austin Moyers worked as an assistant to the news editor for KTBC Radio and Television, a station owned by Lady Bird Johnson. During the academic year 1956-1957 he studied at the University of Edinburgh as a Rotary International Fellow. In 1957, he received a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. He was ordained two years later after working as a minister. He briefly accepted a lectureship in Christian ethics at Baylor University. During Lyndon Johnson's unsuccessful bid for the 1960 Democratic 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 hopeful, John F. Kennedy. [1]

[edit] Public service

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 1962-63. When Johnson took office after the Kennedy assassination, Moyers became a special assistant to Johnson, serving from 1963–1967. 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. When Walter Jenkins resigned from Johnson's staff in October 1964, Moyers became the President's informal chief of staff until 1966. From July 1965 to February 1967, he also served as White House Press Secretary[1]. The details of his rift with Johnson have not been made public, but may be discussed in a forthcoming memoir.[2]

[edit] Journalism

The recipient of the 2006 Lifetime Emmy, "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, "the scope of and quality of his broadcasts have been honored time and again. It is fitting that the National Television Academy honor him with our highest honor – the Lifetime Achievement Award." [[1]] He has received well over thirty Emmys and virtually every other major television journalism prize, including a gold baton from the Dupont Journalism awards, a lifetime Peabody award, and a George Polk Career 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 (honorary degree).

The latest of his programs are webstreamed for viewing online at pbs.org/moyers[[2]].

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.[2] 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 1976-1977.[3] 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 1981-1986. He was the last regular commentator for the network broadcast.[4]. During his last year at CBS, Moyers made public statements about declining news standards at the network. Though Thomas H. Wyman was removed as CBS chairman and news president Van Gordon Sauter resigned, Moyers declined to renew his contract with CBS, citing commitments with PBS.

In 1986 Moyers and his wife Judith Davidson Moyers formed Public Affairs Television. Among their first productions was the popular PBS series Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth. 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.[5]

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 memoir of Lyndon Johnson.[6]

In 2006 he presented two Public Television series. In Faith and Reason http://www.pbs.org/moyers/faithandreason/ [3], a series of conversations with esteemed writers of various faiths and of no faith, Moyers explored the question, "In a world in which religion is poison to some and salvation to others, how do we live together?" The other recent series, Moyers on America [4], 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").

[edit] The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell, and George Lucas

One of Moyers' signature projects was the popular 1988 television series, The Power of Myth, [5]. Consisting of six one-hour interviews between Moyers and mythologist Joseph Campbell, it garnered wide attention and acclaim [[6]]. In addition to discussing Campbell's scholarship in the area of mythology and folklore, Moyers also discussed George Lucas' deliberate use of Campbell's theory of the monomyth in the making of the Star Wars saga. Filmed at Lucas' "Skywalker Ranch", the first episode of the series, The Hero's Adventure, [7] directly discusses this relationship. 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' films [8].

[edit] Commentary

[edit] Regarding the U.S. media

[edit] On the media & class warfare

In a 2003 interview with BuzzFlash.com, 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 that "The rich are getting richer, which arguably wouldn't matter if the rising tide lifted all boats." Instead, however, "The 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."[7].

[edit] On media bias

When he retired in December 2004, the AP News Service quoted Moyers, "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."

[edit] On Karl Rove & 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 1800's were a "cherished period of American history." He further states that, "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 [8]."

He stipulated that Hanna's primary "passion" was attending to corporate and imperial power; Moyers quoted Hanna, "without compunction, (that) the state of Ohio existed for property. It had no other function...Great wealth was to be gained through monopoly, through using the State for private ends; it was axiomatic therefore that businessmen should run the government and run it for personal profit[8]."

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.'[8]"

Lastly, he refers to what historian Clinton Rossiter called the period of "the great train robbery of American intellectual history," when "conservatives & pro-corporate apologists" began using terminology like "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.'[8]"

He concludes that, "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.[8]"

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 [9]."

[edit] Presidential draft initiative

In late 2005 an attempt was begun to draft Moyers for a 2008 run at the Democratic presidential nomination, in part to spark discussion of the qualities needed of a presidential candidate. The founder of this initiative, Scott Beckman (development director at the Northern Pueblos Housing Authority in Santa Fe, New Mexico), circulated an article on the Internet entitled You Are Not Alone, laying out his reasoning and establishing a website. Although the effort was popular on the Internet, it was not supported by Mr. Moyers, who, according to his attorneys, would "not under any circumstances" run for president[[10]]]. The petition drive to gain 100,000 signatures by the end of the year garnered less than one percent of the total the few months it was in operation. The website was taken down at Moyers' request, but on July 24, 2006, political commentator Molly Ivins published an article entitled Molly Ivins: Run Bill Moyers for President, Seriouslyon the progressive website Truthdig. She went on to provide his mailing address and suggested that readers write to him to urge him to run. The article was widely circulated on the internet, posted the next day on Common Dreams NewsCenter, another progressive website, and a follow-up was published two days later by John Nichols on his blog on The Nation magazine's website. However, this effort too failed to garner the extensive grassroots support they envisioned. Then in October of 2006 an article was published on Common Dreams NewsCenter by consumer advocate/Public Citizen-founder [[11]] and two-time Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader in which he supported the Moyers candidacy because of his professional qualifications and his knowledge of America's various regions. "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. There are also two new websites promoting the effort: Draft Bill Moyers For President Blog and Draft Bill Moyers For President Activist Center.

[edit] Criticism

[edit] Charges of bias

Moyers has been the subject of accusations of liberal bias from some quarters. In 2005 former Corporation for Public Broadcasting chairman Kenneth Tomlinson commissioned a study of the show NOW with Bill Moyers. The study supported what Tomlinson characterized as "the image of the left-wing bias of NOW"[12]. Moyers 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 [13]. Tomlinson subsequently resigned on 4 November 2005 after a CPB inquiry found improprieties in the commissioning of the study. Investigators at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting said on 15 November 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."

Moyers' frequent criticism of conservative policy has led conservative commentators like Brent Bozell to label him a liberal commentator rather than an objective journalist[14].

Moyers has drawn further allegations of bias in his role as president of the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, [15]. In 2003 the center gave money to a variety of establishments which have been described as "left leaning," such as the Christian evangelical magazine Sojourners ($500,000), Salon.com ($277,785) and The Nation magazine ($115,000)[16]. After reviewing these donations David Horowitz's conservative Discover the Network website has asserted that "Bill Moyers has dropped any pretense of objectivity". He has also been involved with the group Take Back America, an organization that seeks to help elect liberal political candidates.

October 2006, Dr E. Calvin Beisner, whom Moyers interviewed for Is God Green, wrote that Moyers had told him that he "intended for the documentary to influence the November elections to bring control of Congress back to the Democrats". [17] Moyers denies the claim [18], but Beisner stands by it [19].

[edit] Charges related to the 1964 presidential campaign

In October 1964 Walter Jenkins resigned from Johnson's staff after being arrested in a men's room in Washington, and Moyers became the President's informal chief of staff. According to Laurence H. Silberman—who examined J. Edgar Hoover's secret files upon their discovery in 1974— Moyers, in his capacity as chief of staff, directed Hoover to have the FBI investigate Barry Goldwater's staff to find similar evidence of homosexual activity, to be used in case Goldwater brought up Jenkins's arrest as a campaign issue. According to Silberman, Moyers at first claimed that the memo was a forgery, but then admitted to him that it was genuine. [20] Moyers denies these allegations, stating, "Silberman's account of our conversation is at odds with mine." [21]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/holdings/Findingaids/Aides/Moyers/MoyersBio.asp
  2. ^ a b http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/17/arts/television/17moye.html?ex=1261026000&en=e634685e55090435&ei=5090
  3. ^ http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/M/htmlM/moyesrbill/moyersbill.htm
  4. ^ http://www.freepress.net/news/15028
  5. ^ http://www.freepress.net/news/15028
  6. ^ http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2004-02-19-bill-moyer_x.htm
  7. ^ http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/03/10/int03281.html
  8. ^ a b c d e http://www.wjh.harvard.edu/~wjs/BillMoyersSpeech.htm

[edit] External links

[22]

Google Video

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


White House Press Secretaries White House Logo
Early • Reinsch • Daniels • Ross • Early • Short • Tubby • Hagerty • Salinger • Reedy • Moyers • Christian • Ziegler • terHorst • Nessen • Powell • Brady • Speakes • Fitzwater • Myers • McCurry • Lockhart • Siewert • Fleischer • McClellan • Snow
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