Misplaced Pages

Bill Moyers

Article snapshot taken from Wikipedia with creative commons attribution-sharealike license. Give it a read and then ask your questions in the chat. We can research this topic together.

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 2600:6c47:bf7f:bae1:e154:b0eb:d3f0:a0ca (talk) at 02:55, 9 November 2022 (→Bill Moyers Journal). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Revision as of 02:55, 9 November 2022 by 2600:6c47:bf7f:bae1:e154:b0eb:d3f0:a0ca (talk) (→Bill Moyers Journal)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff) American journalist (born 1934) For the co-founder of the Movement for a New Society, see William Moyer.
This article may have too many section headers. Please help consolidate the article. (May 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
This article contains paid contributions. It may require cleanup to comply with Misplaced Pages's content policies, particularly neutral point of view. Please discuss further on the talk page.

Bill Moyers
11th White House Press Secretary
In office
July 8, 1965 – February 1, 1967
PresidentLyndon B. Johnson
Preceded byGeorge Reedy
Succeeded byGeorge Christian
Personal details
BornBilly Don Moyers
(1934-06-05) June 5, 1934 (age 90)
Hugo, Oklahoma, U.S.
Political partyDemocratic
Spouse Judith Suzanne Davidson ​ ​(m. 1954)​
Children3
Education

Bill Moyers (born Billy Don Moyers, June 5, 1934) is an American journalist and political commentator. Under the Johnson administration he served from 1965 to 1967 as the eleventh White House Press Secretary. He was a director of the Council on Foreign Relations, from 1967 to 1974. He also worked as a network TV news commentator for ten years. Moyers has been extensively involved with public broadcasting, producing documentaries and news journal programs, and has won numerous awards and honorary degrees for his investigative journalism and civic activities. He has become well known as a trenchant critic of the corporately structured U.S. news media.

Life and career

Early years and education

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

Born Billy Don Moyers in Hugo in Choctaw County in southeastern Oklahoma, he is the son of John Henry Moyers, a laborer, and Ruby Johnson Moyers. Moyers was reared in Marshall, Texas.

Moyers began his journalism career at 16 as a cub reporter at the Marshall News Messenger. In college, he studied journalism at the North Texas State College in Denton, Texas. In 1954, US Senator Lyndon B. Johnson employed him as a summer intern and eventually promoted him to manage Johnson's personal mail. Soon after, Moyers transferred to the University of Texas at Austin, where he wrote for The Daily Texan newspaper. In 1956, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism. While in Austin, Moyers served as assistant news editor for KTBC radio and television stations, owned by Lady Bird Johnson, wife of Senator Johnson. During the academic year 1956–1957, he studied issues of church and state at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland as a Rotary International Fellow. In 1959, he completed a Master of Divinity degree at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. Moyers served as Director of Information while attending SWBTS. He was also a Baptist pastor in Weir in Williamson County, near Austin.

Moyers was ordained in 1954. Moyers planned to enter a Doctor of Philosophy program in American Studies at the University of 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.

Kennedy and Johnson administrations

The Peace Corps

The Peace Corps was established by President Kennedy by Executive Order in March 1961, but it was up to top aide Sargent Shiver and Bill Moyers to find the funding to actually establish the organization. The Peace Corp Act was signed by President Kennedy on September 22, 1961. In Sarge, Scott Stossel reports that "Peace Corps legend has it that between them Moyers and Shriver personally called on every single member of Congress."

Reflecting 25 years later on the creation of the program Moyers said: ”We knew from the beginning that the Peace Corps was not an agency, program, or mission. Now we know—from those who lived and died for it—that it is a way of being in the world." At the 50th Anniversary “Salute to Peace Corps Giants,” hosted by the National Archives, Moyers said, "The years we spent at the Peace Corps were the best years of our lives.” Moyers gave the same answer in the famed Vanity Fair Proust questionnaire in 2011.

Moyers served first as associate director of public affairs and then as Sargent Shriver's deputy director before becoming special assistant to President Lyndon B. Johnson in November 1963.

Corporation for Public Broadcasting

Bill Moyers was a key player in the creation of the public broadcasting system.  When, in 1961, FCC Chairman Newton Minnow labeled television a  “vast wasteland” and called for programming in the public interest, the Johnson Administration instituted a study of the issue. The Carnegie Corporation of New York established a commission to study the value of and need for noncommercial educational television. Bill Moyers served on this committee, which released its report 'Public Television: A Program for Action,' in 1967. Moyers said of the endeavor: “We became a central part of the American consciousness and a valuable institution within our culture."

Moyers was influential in creating the legislation that would fulfill the committee's recommendations. In 1967, President Johnson signed Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. (1) it is in the public interest to encourage the growth and development of public radio and television broadcasting, including the use of such media for instructional, educational, and cultural purposes;

On the 50th anniversary of the Public Broadcasting Act, Moyers and Joseph A. Califano, Jr. spoke about their experience with WNET.

Johnson Administration

When Lyndon B. Johnson took office after the Kennedy assassination, Moyers became a special assistant to Johnson, serving from 1963 to 1967. Moyers and Pamela Turnure are the last surviving people identifiable in the photograph taken of Johnson's swearing in. 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.

After the resignation of White House Chief of Staff Walter Jenkins because of a sexual misdemeanor in the run up to the 1964 election, President Lyndon B. Johnson, alarmed that the opposition was framing the issue as a security breach, ordered Moyers to request FBI name checks on 15 members of Goldwater's staff to find "derogatory" material on their personal lives. Goldwater himself only referred to the Jenkins incident off the record. The Church Committee stated in 1975 that "Moyers has publicly recounted his role in the incident, and his account is confirmed by FBI documents." In 2005, Laurence Silberman wrote that Moyers denied writing the memo in a 1975 phone call, telling him the FBI had fabricated it. Moyers said he had a different recollection of the telephone conversation.

Moyers also sought information from the FBI on the sexual preferences of White House staff members, most notably Jack Valenti. 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."

Under the direction of President Johnson, Moyers gave J Edgar Hoover the go-ahead to discredit Martin Luther King, played a part in the wiretapping of King, discouraged the American embassy in Oslo from assisting King on his Nobel Peace Prize trip, and worked to prevent King from challenging the all-white Mississippi delegation to the 1964 Democratic National Convention.

Moyers approved (but had nothing to do with the production) of the infamous "Daisy Ad" against Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential campaign. Goldwater blamed him for it, and once said of Moyers, "Every time I see him, I get sick to my stomach and want to throw up." The ad is considered the starting point of the modern-day harshly negative campaign ad.

Moyers giving a press conference at the White House in 1965

Journalist Morley Safer in his 1990 book "Flashbacks" wrote that Moyers and President Johnson met with and "harangued" Safer's boss, CBS president Frank Stanton, about Safer's coverage of the Marines torching Cam Ne village in the Vietnam War. 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. Moyers stated that his hard-hitting coverage of conservative presidents Reagan and Bush was behind Safer's 1990 allegations.

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." On October 17, 1967, he told an audience in Cambridge that Johnson saw the war in Vietnam as his major legacy and, as a result, was insisting on victory at all costs, even in the face of public opposition. Moyers felt such a continuation of the conflict would tear the country apart. "I never thought the situation could arise when I would wish for the defeat of LBJ, and that makes my current state of mind all the more painful to me," he told them. "I would have to say now: It would depend on who his opponent is."

The full details of his rift with Johnson were not made public. However, an Oval Office tape which was recorded following Johnson's public announcement that he would not seek re-election on March 31, 1968, suggested that Moyers and Johnson were still in contact after Moyers left the White House, with Moyers even encouraging the President to change his mind about running.

Journalism

Newsday

Moyers served as publisher for the Long Island, New York, daily newspaper Newsday from 1967 to 1970. The conservative publication had been unsuccessful, but Moyers led the paper in a progressive direction, bringing in leading writers such as Pete Hamill, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and Saul Bellow, and adding new features and more investigative reporting and analysis. Circulation increased and the publication won 33 major journalism awards, including two Pulitzer Prizes. But the owner of the paper, Harry Guggenheim, a conservative, was disappointed by the liberal drift of the newspaper under Moyers, criticizing the "left-wing" coverage of Vietnam War protests. The two split over the 1968 presidential election, with Guggenheim signing an editorial supporting Richard Nixon, when Moyers supported Hubert Humphrey. Guggenheim sold his majority share to the then-conservative Times-Mirror Company over the attempt of newspaper employees to block the sale, even though Moyers offered $10 million more than the Times-Mirror purchase price; Moyers resigned a few days later.

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. He later hosted a show with this title from 2007 to 2010.

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. 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 Suzanne Davidson Moyers, formed Public Affairs Television. Among their first productions was the 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", 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.

The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis

In 1987 Moyers produced and hosted a scathing documentary, The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis, covering the infringement on the limitations on government and the executive branch provided by the Constitution. It considered U.S. foreign policy and militarism historically and recently, centering on the Iran–Contra affair. It was harshly rebuked by conservatives and continuing into the 1990s was used by Republicans as a reason to threaten the funding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS.

In Search of the Constitution

Also in 1987 Moyers produced an 11-part documentary celebrating the bicentennial of the signing of the U.S. Constitution and critically analyzing the present state of affairs and the intervening 200 years. Four episodes of In Search of the Constitution were interviews of sitting Supreme Court justices and the remainder contained discussionsĖ with prominent scholars. The mini series was produced by Madeline Amgott.

A World of Ideas

In 1988, Moyers produced an interview series featuring writers, artists, philosophers, scientists, and historians he had become acquainted with. The series broke new ground for national television by bringing thoughtful, intelligent, provocative, and noteworthy people to the screen, most of whom had little prior exposure in the mass media. The series was revived in 1990. Moyers published companion books for both the first series and the second.

Two American Families

Bill Moyers first met the Stanleys and Neumanns when they were featured in his 1990 documentary Minimum Wages: The New Economy. The two working class families in Milwaukee, one white and one black, were revisited in 1995 in Living on the Edge. The last update, Two American Families, aired on Frontline in 2013. Each time the producers entered the family lives they saw a struggle — but a different struggle to make it past “just surviving.” The New York Times noted it was the details that grounded the production: '''Either we make ends meet, or we stay home with the kids.’''  Salon.com told their readers to watch as "Frontline's" new documentary offers a heartbreaking portrait of the new normal for the former middle class.”

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.

Genesis

"In the Beginning There Was a Bible Discussion Group. And Then PBS Came Calling." Genesis was a 10-part series produced in 1996 to stimulate interfaith dialogue in a democratic spirit. The discussions and debates included writers, artists, psychologists, composers, lawyers, college presidents, journalists, translators and Biblical scholars discuss. Los Angeles Times' writer John Dart said Genesis "marks a real departure for television treatment of the Bible." The discussion is anything but boring. Rodger Kamenetz remarked on one exchange “It's a startling, nearly rude moment in a series with many small shocks to received ideas.”

Moyers on Addiction: Close to Home

Washington Post columnist Patricia Brennen titled her review of the 1998 series “From the Moyers Family To Yours.” “Bill and Judith Moyers called the series Close to Home because of the family connection and because they wanted to ‘disabuse people of the idea that addiction is somewhere else, the notion that it's not in my home, in my workplace, in my neighborhood -- it's over there some place.’” The series grew out of their own son's battle with addiction and recovery. Cope Moyers remarked “I think my father uses the tool of his trade to go into areas that he wants to know more about.’' The five-part series covers the neuroscience of addiction, genetics, treatments, recovery and drug-policy. The Journal of American Medicine (JAMA) recommend “using the series in trying to help families understand the disease of addiction.”

On Our Own Terms: Moyers on Dying

This 2000 series was labeled “Potent Medicine” by the Washington Post’s Megan Rosenfeld and “The Mystery that No One Wants to Think About" by The New York Times' Julie Salamon. “Bill Moyers goes from the bedsides of the dying to the front lines of a movement in this six-hour series from hospitals to hospices to homes to capture some of the most intimate stories and most candid conversations ever shared with a television audience.” John Leonard, writing for NYMAG, "This Is the End" said: "Pain, fear, choice, dignity, a death of one's own, and a friend against the night – these are the deepest chords, and On Our Own Terms touches all of them, in six hours without cant or condescension, without sentimentality or self-aggrandizement.”

Earth on Edge

More than twenty years ago Bill Moyers set out to document the impact of human activity on the environment. Earth on Edge visits five ecosystems: the Kansas prairie to the beautiful hills of South Africa's Cape of Good Hope, from an ancient rain forest in British Columbia to the grasslands of Mongolia, and into the sea and the coral reefs of Brazil.

NOW with Bill Moyers

Moyers hosted the TV news journal NOW with Bill Moyers on PBS for three years, starting in January 2002. 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.

Faith and Reason

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

Moyers on America

The series, Moyers on America, analyzed in depth the ramifications of three important issues: the Jack Abramoff scandal, evangelical religion and environmentalism (Evangelical environmentalism), and threats to open public access of the Internet (Net neutrality.)

Bill Moyers Journal

On April 25, 2007, Moyers returned to PBS with Bill Moyers Journal. In the first episode, "Buying the War", Moyers investigated what he called the general media's shortcomings in the runup to the War in Iraq. "Buying the War" won an Emmy at the 29th Annual News & Documentary Emmy Awards (2008) for Best Report in a News Magazine.

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

Moyers & Company

In August 2011 Moyers announced a new hour-long weekly interview show, Moyers & Company, which premiered in January 2012. In that same month, Moyers also launched BillMoyers.com. Later reduced to a half hour, Moyers & Company was produced by Public Affairs Television and distributed by American Public Television. The show has been heralded as a renewed fulfillment of public media's stated mission to air news and views unrepresented or underrepresented in commercial media.

The program concluded on January 2, 2015.

Moyers on Democracy

In 2020, Moyers started a series of podcasts named Moyers on Democracy. Conversations included Lisa Graves on the Post Office conflict; Heather Cox Richardson on How the South Won the Civil War; Heather McGhee on racism's pernicious effect on American society and Bill T. Jones on his newest project — a retelling of Moby Dick from the viewpoint of a Black cabin boy. The series ended in early 2021.

In Conversation with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

In February 2020, Bill Moyers and Ruth Bader Ginsburg had a two-hour conversation at the annual Judith Davidson Moyers Women of Spirit Award Lecture at Union Theological Seminary in New York City.

Rosedale: The Way It Is

In 1975 Bill Moyers produced Rosedale: The Way It Is, documenting the furor after the first Black family moved into Rosedale, Queens — including a rash of fire bombings. Forty-five years later a graduate student drew attention to a short segment recording the reactions of a group of black girls trying to make sense of the virulent racist attack they'd just experienced. The New York Times picked up on the story and found the children and others featured in the documentary and produced its own reported feature: " A Racist Attack on Children Was Taped in 1975. We Found Them."

Juneteenth Address at Carnegie Hall

In 2019, Bill Moyers gave the keynote address at the Healing of the Nations Foundation Juneteenth celebration at Carnegie Hall.

Poetry

Bill Moyers has produced a number of series on poetry: Fooling with Words (1999); Rita Dove (1994); Sounds of Poetry (1999) and The Language of Life (1995.) Every series combines public performances and deep conversations about the art. The Atlantic's David Barker's answers his own question: “What Makes Poetry ‘Poetic’? Real poets in an invigorating session of talking shop.” Moyers programming makes poems “sources of delight rather than calls to duty.”

On Evil and Hate

Bill Moyers produced a number of series on fighting evil and hate. Facing Evil (1988) offers intimate testimonies of eloquent men and women — including Maya Angelou, Philip Hallie, Raul Hilberg, Sam Proctor, and Al Huang — as they discuss the force of evil. In Beyond Hate (1991) Bill Moyers talked to those whose lives have been shaped by hate and those who have dedicated their lives to moving beyond it, including Elie Wiesel, Nelson Mandela, Jimmy Carter, Myrlie Evers-Williams, Václav Havel and others. Facing the Truth (1999) followed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. NYMAG's John Leonard remarked that we should be grateful to Moyers for his series. “… this sort of television is also an art, more expansive and compelling than any article or book.” Moyers also talked intimately with Archbishop Desmond Tutu in 1999.

Awards

In 1995, Bill Moyers was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame. The same year, he also won the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism. When he became a recipient of the 2006 Lifetime Emmy Award, the official announcement noted that “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," and 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." 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, the American Philosophical Society, and has been the recipient of numerous honorary degrees, including a doctorate from the American Film Institute. In 2011, Moyers received the honorary Doctor of Humane Letters (L.H.D.) from Whittier College.

Commentary

Regarding the U.S. media

On the media and 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, "The rich are getting richer, which arguably wouldn't matter if the rising tide lifted all boats." Instead, however, "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."

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."

On the Bush Admistration

This section contains close paraphrasing of non-free copyrighted sources. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please help Misplaced Pages by rewriting this section with your own words. (August 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this message)
"The Progressive Story of America" speech

On June 4, 2003, Moyers gave a speech at the "Take Back America" conference. The speech, “The Progressive History of America,” Bill Moyers reviewed American history in the light of what he names as a constant tension in American history: "The oldest story in America: the struggle to determine whether 'we, the people' is a spiritual idea embedded in a political reality.'"

Moyers compared the current state of the United States to that of the late 19th Century — deemed Mark Twain and others as “The Gilded Age.”

The Gilded Age is defined by the virtually untrammeled access of fiscal powerhouses to the administration and on laws covering commerce and working conditions.  Moyers cites historian Clinton Rossiter who defined the period "the great train robbery of American intellectual history.”

Moyers stated that America under the leadership of George W. Bush had begun to resemble the worst of the Gilded Age in an unequal distribution of wealth and government sanction of the influence of corporate power.  Moyers compared the influence of Karl Rove on the administration to that of Gilded Age powerbroker Mark Hanna. Moyers posited that Rove like Hanna “had one consummate passion – to serve corporate and imperial power.”

Moyers continued on to discuss the era following the Gilded Age, the Progressive Era and its efforts to change work, housing and health laws born of a frustration with current government oversight. Progressives like Jane Addams, the generation of crusading journalists known as muckrakers (not always in a flattering manner) and the work of photographer Jakob Riis changed the discussion.

Moyers returned to his analogy to the current day political system:

"Karl Rove isn't tougher than Mark Hanna was in his time and a hundred years from now some historian 'will be wondering how it was that Norquist and Company got away with it as long as they did – how they waged war almost unopposed on the infrastructure of social justice, on the arrangements that make life fair, on the mutual rights and responsibilities that offer opportunity, civil liberties, and a decent standard of living to the least among us.'”

The speech ends with a call to tap into the energy of previous progressives to remember that "Democracy is not a lie.”

Presidential draft initiative

On July 24, 2006, liberal political commentator Molly Ivins published an article entitled Run Bill Moyers for President, Seriously, urging a symbolic candidacy, on the progressive website Truthdig. The call was taken up in October 2006 by Ralph Nader. Moyers did not run.

Conflict with CPB over content

In 2003, Corporation for Public Broadcasting chairman Kenneth Tomlinson wrote to Pat Mitchell, the president of PBS, that NOW with Bill Moyers "does not contain anything approaching the balance the law requires for public broadcasting." In 2005, Tomlinson commissioned a study of the show, without informing or getting authorization from the CPB board. The study was conducted by, Fred Mann, Tomlinson's choice, a 20-year veteran of the American Conservative Union and a conservative columnist. Like the study itself, Mann's appointment was not disclosed to the CPB.

Tomlinson said that the study supported what he characterized as "the image of the left-wing bias of NOW". George Neumayr, the executive editor of The American Spectator, a conservative magazine, told the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer that "PBS looks like a liberal monopoly to me, and Bill Moyers is Exhibit A of that very strident, left-wing bias... uses his show as a platform from which to attack conservatives and Republicans."

The Reporters Committee on the Freedom of the Press was vocal about the danger of the CPB chairman interfering with programming independence. The PBS Ombudsman and the Free Press noted that a poll taken in 2003 by the CPB itself found that 80 percent of Americans believe PBS to be "fair and balanced." In a speech given to The National Conference for Media Reform, Moyers said that he had repeatedly invited Tomlinson to have a televised conversation with him on the subject but had been ignored.

On November 3, 2005, Tomlinson resigned from the board, prompted by a report of his tenure by the CPB Inspector General, Kenneth Konz, requested by Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives. The report, which found that Tomlinson violated the Director's Code of Ethics and the statutory provisions of the CPB and PBS, was made public on November 15. It states:

We found evidence that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) former Chairman violated statutory provisions and the Director's Code of Ethics by dealing directly with one of the creators of a new public affairs program during negotiations with the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and the CPB over creating the show. Our review also found evidence that suggests "political tests" were a major criteria used by the former Chairman in recruiting a President/Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for CPB, which violated statutory prohibitions against such practices.

In 2006, the PBS Ombudsman, whose role was reinvigorated by the controversy published a column entitled "He's Back: Moyers, not Tomlinson." Reflecting on the conflict, Moyers told The Boston Globe: "It's a place where if you fight you can survive, but it's not easy. The fact of the matter is that Kenneth Tomlinson had a chilling effect down the line."

Organizations

Moyers is a former director of the Council on Foreign Relations (1967–1974), and a member of the Bilderberg Group and since 1990 has been president of the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy.

Personal life

Moyers at the LBJ Presidential Library in 2018

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 and crack addiction 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." His other son, John Moyers, assisted in the foundation of TomPaine.com, "an online public affairs journal of progressive analysis and commentary." His daughter, Suzanne Moyers, a former teacher and editor, is the author of the historical novel, ‘Til All These Thing Be Done (She Writes Press; September 13, 2022).

Works

See also

References

  1. "Mimi Swartz, " The Mythic Rise of Billy Don Moyers: From Marshall, Texas, he set off on a heroic journey: to become LBJ's protégé, the conscience of TV news, and the prophet of a brand-new faith," November 1989". Texas Monthly. Retrieved March 7, 2014.
  2. ^ "Bill Moyers". The Museum of Broadcast Communications. Archived from the original on May 17, 2008. Retrieved May 15, 2008.
  3. ^ "Bill Moyers Biographical Note". LBJ Library and Museum. Archived from the original on July 13, 2007. Retrieved June 7, 2007.
  4. Mark the Moment! Peace Corps anniversary discussion, marking the 60th anniversary down to the minute, September 22, 2021, retrieved January 8, 2022
  5. "Bill Moyers Says It All At The 25th Anniversary Conference | Peace Corps Worldwide". peacecorpsworldwide.org. Retrieved January 8, 2022.
  6. "Salute to Peace Corps Giants | C-SPAN.org". www.c-span.org. Retrieved January 8, 2022.
  7. "Proust Questionnaire: Bill Moyers". Vanity Fair. June 1, 2011. Retrieved January 8, 2022.
  8. Coverdell, Paul D. (June 2003). "Voices From the Field" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on December 31, 2015.
  9. York, Carnegie Corporation of New. "Public Broadcasting Turns 50". Carnegie Corporation of New York. Retrieved February 3, 2022.
  10. "President Johnson's Remarks". www.cpb.org. January 14, 2015. Retrieved February 3, 2022.
  11. "Preserving Public Broadcasting at 50 Years". Library of Congress. Retrieved February 3, 2022.
  12. terHorst, Jerald; Albertazzie, Col. Ralph (1979). The Flying White House. New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan. p. 225. ISBN 0-698-10930-9.
  13. Johnson, David K. (2004). The Lavender Scare. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 197. ISBN 0-226-40481-1.
  14. "US Dept Justice FBI Investigation 1975". USDOJ. 1975. Retrieved May 10, 2008.
  15. 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 Archived August 11, 2013, at the Wayback Machine"
  16. Dallek, Robert (2005). Lyndon B. Johnson: Portrait of a President. UK: Oxford University Press. p. 188. ISBN 0-19-515921-7. 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.'
  17. "US Senate Select Committee To Study Governmental Operations, With Respect To Intelligence Activities" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on May 28, 2008. Retrieved May 14, 2008.
  18. 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," The Wall Street Journal, 2005 Archived February 27, 2009, at the Wayback Machine" Moyers responded that Silberman's account of the conversation was at odds with his. "Removing J. Edgar's name, Robert Novak, CNN, 2005 Archived March 3, 2016, at the Wayback Machine"
  19. Robert Novak (December 1, 2005). "Removing J. Edgar's name". CNN. Retrieved February 23, 2009.
  20. "Letter to Bill Moyers from FBI – December 2, 1964" (PDF). The Washington Post. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 26, 2009. Retrieved February 23, 2009.
  21. Stephens, Joe (February 19, 2009). "Valenti's Sexuality Was Topic For FBI: Under Pressure, LBJ Let Hoover's Agents Investigate Top Aide". The Washington Post. pp. A01. Retrieved February 20, 2009.
  22. Kotz, Nikc (2005). Judgment days: Lyndon Baines Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the laws that changed America. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. .
  23. Barnes, Bart (May 30, 1998). "Barry Goldwater, GOP Hero, Dies". The Washington Post. Retrieved January 17, 2010.
  24. "The Power of Myth". The New Republic. August 19, 1991.
  25. Fox, Margalit (June 17, 2008). "Tony Schwartz, Father of 'Daisy Ad' for the Johnson Campaign, Dies at 84". The New York Times. Retrieved January 17, 2010.
  26. Gibbons, William Conrad (1995). The U.S. Government and the Vietnam War: Executive and Legislative Roles and Relationships. Princeton University Press. pp. 69pp. ISBN 0-691-00635-0.
  27. "Booknotes: Flashbacks On Returning to Vietnam". booknotes.org. Archived from the original on November 16, 2010. Retrieved February 28, 2009. 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.
  28. Gunther, Marc (May 29, 1992). "Is ill will behind piece '60 Minutes' plans to do on PBS' Bill Moyers?". The Baltimore Sun. Retrieved February 28, 2009. 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.
  29. Anderson, Patrick (April 3, 1966). "No. 2 Texan in the White House". The New York Times. pp. SM1.
  30. Simpson, James B. (1988). Simpson's Contemporary Quotations, No. 848. Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-395-43085-2. Archived from the original on December 5, 2008.
  31. Daniel Ellsberg, Secrets, 197f
  32. ^ Carr, David (December 17, 2004). "Moyers Leaves a Public Affairs Pulpit With Sermons to Spare". The New York Times. Retrieved June 4, 2007.
  33. Moyers to LBJ: Hope You Change Mind about Running Miller Center: American President, YouTube, Accessed October 29, 2020
  34. ^ "Bill Moyers." Contemporary Heroes and Heroines, Book IV. Gale Group, 2000. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2010.
  35. Gale Research (1998). Encyclopedia of World Biography. University of Michigan: Gale Research. p. 215. ISBN 0-7876-2551-5.
  36. "Bill Moyers." Newsmakers 1991, Issue Cumulation. Gale Research, 1991. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2010.
  37. Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2010. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2010.
  38. ^ "The Press: How Much Independence?". Time. April 27, 1970. Archived from the original on October 30, 2010. Retrieved February 15, 2010.
  39. Keeler, Robert F. (1990). Newsday: a candid history of the respectable tabloid. Morrow. pp. 460–61. ISBN 1-55710-053-5.
  40. "Newsday Goes For Nixon, But Moyers Balks". Chicago Tribune. October 17, 1968. Retrieved February 15, 2010.
  41. "Moyers Resigns Post at Newsday". The New York Times. May 13, 1970. Retrieved February 15, 2010.
  42. Raymont, Henry (March 13, 1970). "Newsday Employes Seek to Block Sale of the Paper". The New York Times. Retrieved February 15, 2010.
  43. "Moyers, Bill: U.S. Broadcast Journalist". Museum of Broadcast Communications. Archived from the original on June 8, 2007. Retrieved June 7, 2007.
  44. ^ Shister, Gail (April 18, 2006). "Opinions Differ on CBS News' Commentary Plan". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Archived from the original on September 27, 2007. Retrieved June 7, 2007 – via Free Press.
  45. Boyer, Peter J. (November 7, 1986). "Bill Moyers Is Expected to Keep Tie to CBS News". The New York Times. Archived from the original on February 3, 2018. Retrieved March 1, 2022.
  46. Boyer, Peter J. (November 21, 1986). "Moyers Will Sever CBS Tie". The New York Times. Archived from the original on August 12, 2017. Retrieved March 1, 2022.
  47. "The Hero's Adventure". TV.com. Retrieved June 7, 2007.
  48. DVD: The Mythology of Star Wars with George Lucas and Bill Moyers. 1999. ISBN 978-0-7365-7936-0.
  49. "Madeline Amgott Dead: Pioneering Female TV News Producer Dies at 92". Variety. July 22, 2014. Retrieved August 14, 2014.
  50. O'Connor, John J. (September 12, 1988). "Reviews/Television - Bill Moyers Examines Public Issues - NYTimes.com". The New York Times. Retrieved February 13, 2015.
  51. "A World of Ideas (1988, 1990)". Moyers & Company. Retrieved February 13, 2015.
  52. Moyers, Bill. Bill Moyers' World of Ideas. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 0385262787.
  53. Moyers, Bill. A World of Ideas II. New York: Main Street Books. ISBN 0385416652.
  54. Goodman, Walter (March 28, 2000). "Tracking the Toll After 2 Breadwinners Lose Jobs". The New York Times. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
  55. Paareene, Alex (July 13, 2013). "Watch "Two American Families" right now". Salon.com. Retrieved December 7, 2021.
  56. Kemenetz, Rodger (October 20, 1996). "In the Beginning There Was a Bible Discussion Group. And Then PBS Came Calling". The New York Times. Retrieved December 8, 2021.
  57. "Genesis: A Living Conversation". Moyers & Company. Retrieved March 1, 2022.
  58. McElvaine, Robert S. (November 3, 1998). "The Book on Genesis". The Washington Post. Retrieved December 8, 2021.
  59. Dart, John (October 16, 1996). "Bill Moyers Helps Take a Scholarly Look at 'Genesis'". The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved December 8, 2021.
  60. Kamenetz, Rodger (October 20, 1996). "In the Beginning There Was a Bible Discussion Group. And Then PBS Came Calling". The New York Times. Retrieved December 8, 2021.
  61. Brennan, Patricia (March 28, 1998). "From the Moyers Family to Yours". Washington Post. Retrieved December 8, 2021.
  62. Wren, Christopher S. (March 20, 1998). "Celebrity's Son: Big Connections And Addictions; Ordeal of Moyers Family Underlies a TV Documentary". The New York Times. Retrieved December 8, 2021.
  63. "Moyers on Addiction: Close to Home". Moyers & Company. Archived from the original on July 11, 2012. Retrieved December 8, 2021.
  64. "Close to Home: Moyers on Addiction". Journal of American Medicine (JAMA). 280: 2046–2047. December 16, 1998 – via JAMA Network.
  65. Rosenfeld, Megan (September 9, 2000). "'Moyers on Dying': Potent Medicine". Washington Post. Retrieved December 8, 2021.
  66. Salamon, Julie (September 9, 2020). "TV WEEKEND; That Mystery That No One Wants to Think About Is Getting More Complex". The New York Times. Retrieved December 8, 2021.
  67. "On Our Own Terms: Moyers on Dying". Moyers & Company. Archived from the original on July 11, 2012. Retrieved December 8, 2021.
  68. Leonard, John (September 11, 2000). "This Is the End". NYMAG. Retrieved December 8, 2021.
  69. "Earth on Edge". June 19, 2001. Archived from the original on December 10, 2021. Retrieved December 10, 2021.
  70. "Bill Moyers to leave PBS". USA Today. AP. February 19, 2004. Retrieved June 7, 2007.
  71. Lowry, Brian (April 20, 2007). "Bill Moyers Journal: Buying the War". Variety. Archived from the original on May 9, 2010. Retrieved May 20, 2010.
  72. "Buying the War: How Big Media Failed Us in Iraq". Moyers & Company. Retrieved November 23, 2021.
  73. Jensen, Elizabeth (November 20, 2009). "Bill Moyers to Leave Weekly Television". The New York Times. Archived from the original on November 23, 2009. Retrieved November 21, 2009.
  74. Elizabeth Jensen. "Bill Moyers Returns to Public Television, but Not PBS". The New York Times. Retrieved February 13, 2015.
  75. 08-25-2011 Bill Moyers, Host of New Public Television Series Moyers & Company, Keynote Speaker at APT Fall Marketplace 2011
  76. "Bill Moyers Is Back". FAIR. Retrieved February 13, 2015.
  77. Jensen, Elizabeth (September 18, 2014). "Moyers Says Show Really Is Ending This Time". The New York Times. Retrieved September 18, 2014.
  78. "Moyers on Democracy Podcast". Moyers & Company. Archived from the original on April 15, 2020. Retrieved December 10, 2021.
  79. "Rosedale: The Way It Is". Archived from the original on January 9, 2016.
  80. Nir, Sarah Maslin (June 21, 2020). "A Racist Attack on Children Was Taped in 1975. We Found Them". The New York Times. Retrieved December 8, 2020.
  81. "Bill Moyers Delivers Juneteenth Address at Carnegie Hall". June 17, 2019. Archived from the original on July 15, 2020.
  82. "Bill Moyers: Rita Dove". Moyers & Company. Archived from the original on January 20, 2012. Retrieved December 8, 2021.
  83. Barber, David. "What Makes Poetry 'Poetic'?". The Atlantic. Retrieved December 8, 2021.
  84. Leonard, John (April 5, 1999). "Talking Cure?". NYMAG. Retrieved December 8, 2021.
  85. "Archbishop Desmond Tutu". Archived from the original on March 18, 2021. Retrieved December 8, 2021.
  86. "Television Hall of Fame Honorees: Complete List".
  87. Arizona State University. "Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication". Retrieved November 23, 2016.
  88. "Bill Moyers to receive Lifetime Achievement Award at News & Documentary Emmy Awards" (Press release). National Television Academy. August 1, 2006. Archived from the original on September 27, 2007. Retrieved June 7, 2007.
  89. 63rd Annual Peabody Awards Archived August 20, 2016, at the Wayback Machine, May 2004.
  90. "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved December 21, 2021.
  91. "Honorary Degrees | Whittier College". www.whittier.edu. Retrieved December 6, 2019.
  92. ^ "Bill Moyers is Insightful, Erudite, Impassioned, Brilliant and the Host of PBS' "NOW"". interview. BuzzFlash.com. October 28, 2003. Archived from the original on December 6, 2006. Retrieved December 18, 2006.
  93. Frazier Moore (2004). "Bill Moyers Retiring From TV Journalism". Associated Press. Archived from the original on June 12, 2007. Retrieved July 25, 2007.
  94. Moyers, Bill (June 4, 2003). "This is Your Story – The Progressive Story of America. Pass It On". commondreams.org. Original speech. Archived from the original on June 10, 2003. Retrieved January 4, 2022. {{cite web}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; January 21, 2010 suggested (help)
  95. Boyte, Harry C. (2004). Everyday politics: reconnecting citizens and the public life. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0812238141.
  96. Moyers, Bill (June 4, 2002). "This is Your Story – The Progressive Story of America. Pass It On". commmondreams.org. Archived from the original on June 10, 2003. Retrieved January 5, 2022. {{cite web}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; January 21, 2010 suggested (help)
  97. Moyers, Bill (June 4, 2003). ""This is Your Story – The Progressive Story of America. Pass It On"". commondreams.org. Archived from the original on June 10, 2003. Retrieved January 5, 2022. {{cite web}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; January 21, 2010 suggested (help)
  98. "Ivins: Reality-based candidate – Jul 25, 2006". CNN. Retrieved February 16, 2010.
  99. Ivins, Molly (July 24, 2006). "Run Bill Moyers for President, Seriously". truthdig.com. Retrieved June 9, 2007.
  100. Nichols, John (July 28, 2006). "Bill Moyers For President? Absolutely". cbsnews.com. Archived from the original on July 29, 2020. Retrieved November 24, 2021.
  101. Nader, Ralph (October 28, 2006). "Bill Moyers For President". CommonDreams. Archived from the original on June 13, 2007. Retrieved June 9, 2007.
  102. ^ "Public Broadcasting Under Fire". NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. PBS. June 21, 2005. Retrieved February 14, 2010.
  103. Labaton, Stephen (November 16, 2005). "Ex-Chairman of Public Broadcasting Violated Laws, Inquiry Suggests" Archived January 13, 2015, at the Wayback Machine. The New York Times.
  104. Labaton, Stephen (June 21, 2005). "Public Broadcasting Monitor Had Worked at Center Founded by Conservatives". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 22, 2022.
  105. Bode, Ken A. (September 1, 2005). "CPB Ombudsmen Reports: The Question Of "Balance"". Retrieved June 17, 2010.
  106. "Screening for bias". The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Retrieved February 22, 2022.
  107. "Bill Moyers to Address PBS Controversy at National Conference for Media Reform in St. Louis". Free Press (Press release). May 12, 2005. Retrieved February 22, 2022.
  108. "Bill Moyers' speech to the National Conference for Media Reform". Free Press. May 15, 2005. Archived from the original on July 4, 2007. Retrieved February 22, 2022.
  109. "Moyers: "Tomlinson had a chilling effect"". Current (publication of American University School of Communication). October 16, 2006. Retrieved February 22, 2022.
  110. "History of CFR". Council on Foreign Relations. Archived from the original on July 22, 2012. Retrieved March 1, 2022.
  111. "Former steering Committee Members - Bilderberg Group". Archived from the original on February 2, 2014. Retrieved November 19, 2013.
  112. "Moyers's memoir serves as a voice for recovery". Retrieved May 15, 2008.
  113. "TomPaine.common sense: About Us". Archived from the original on July 10, 2010. Retrieved July 15, 2010.
  114. "Journalist Bill Moyers". NPR.org. Retrieved January 8, 2022.

External links

Political offices
Preceded byGeorge Reedy White House Press Secretary
1965–1967 		Succeeded byGeorge Christian
Media offices
New office Host of Now
2002–2005 		Succeeded byDavid Brancaccio
Awards for Bill Moyers
Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for Nonfiction Program
1979–1994
2003–present
Between 1979–1994, the category was a juried award.
Television Hall of Fame Class of 1995
White House Press Secretaries
PBS
Documentaries
Drama
Music and fine arts
History
News and public affairs
Personalities
How-to and special interest
Science and nature
Networks
Major stations
Former
Related
Categories: