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64 of 70 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Legacy of a champion journalist---and a great storyteller, June 20, 2004
After a half century of journalism, Bill Moyers is retiring at year's end. There has been no other broadcast journalist like him, and unfortunately it's unlikely there will be again. American television journalism does a notoriously poor job covering the arts, culture, science, humanities---in fact, ideas of any kind, and certainly of any complexity. Yet Bill Moyers was perfectly comfortable questioning Senators, foreign diplomats, and philosopher Martha Nussbaum, playwright August Wilson, and physicist Murray Gell-Man. His interviews with Joseph Campbell and Robert Bly changed the cultural landscape, and just last year his coverage helped stir public outrage which stopped the FCC from allowing media conglomerates to absorb even more news outlets. Moyers made two significant detours in his journalistic journey: an early stint at a Baptist seminary, and several years working in the White House for the man who'd given him his first broadcast journalism job at a tiny Texas station, Lyndon Johnson. The impulse that led to each, and the experience gained, gave his journalism a rare richness. Viewers responded to his integrity and authenticity, and the courage behind the smile---also rare. All of these are on display in this collection taken from talks and commentaries, along with historical perspective and informal reminiscence too informative and entertaining for prime time. Moyers'words in this book on the dangerous trends of celebrity journalism and conglomerate control should be required reading for young journalists, if not all citizens. His evaluations of his private and public past will be equally useful and inspiring to readers who have grown up with him. This is a penetrating yet companionable volume, from an exemplary journalist who says he still believes, and still doubts.
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31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Man of Our Times, July 12, 2006
This review is from: Moyers on America: A Journalist and His Times (Paperback)
One thing when you get when you read Bill Moyers is a man who speaks from his soul. This journalist and minister laments the disappearance of a free and diverse press being taken over by conglomerates that filter our information with a singular point of view.
He is a populist who believes that our elected representatives are supposed to represent the people who vote for them, not the corporations who give contributions to them. In any other place that is called bribery. In Congress, it is called a contribution.
Equally disconcerting to Moyers is his perception that Americans no longer thirst for the news and the political decisions that affect their lives on a daily basis. Americans care less even about the information that is filtered to them.
I was unable to connect some of the experiences he wrote here to his central theme, but I was always able to imagine the words on the page being spoken by the man with a calm, reassuring voice, the same man who received more than thirty years of Emmy and other awards for outstanding journalism.
Naturally, there is always someone like Bernie Goldberg who saw fit to place this patriotic American and gentleman on his list of 100 people who are ruining America. But, it took no time to feel good again. All I had to do was consider the source. (You don't make comparisons between a Goldberg and a Moyers.)
Read Moyers, watch Moyers every time you can. National treasures are hard to come by.
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27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A man who loves his country and his craft, January 5, 2005
Whether or not one agrees with his conclusions, it's hard to deny that Bill Moyers loves his country and his craft. This volume is a series of his speeches, pieces for television, and other writings, which have been edited for the book. Nearly every page sparkles with his love of democracy and the people who depend upon it.
The book is divided into four parts, the first two concentrating on the nation and the questions America faces in a new era. While the author devotes a lot of time to the war in Iraq, especially in Part One, he also writes passionately about the loss of good jobs and the lack of aid available for families who fall on hard times.
His critique of the media is solid, as Moyers has worked in the field since the 1950s. His essay "Making of a Journalist" traces his beginnings as a cub reporter at a small Texas newspaper. Elsewhere the author condemns the mega-mergers and vested interest of the modern corporate media, noting their silence during the reforms of the Telecommunications Act in 1996.
But while the author decries the trend toward corporate media domination, he isn't overly sentimental about the past. During his days as a cub, there was virtually no coverage of blacks in the paper, even though they represented half of the town: "Only white people counted in those days," he writes, "only their doings were considered newsworthy. What blacks did, felt, and thought never made the paper."
His final chapter, "Looking Back," is most revealing. Here we get a sense of the influences that have shaped the man. His piece "Where the Jackrabbits Were" tells of going home to East Texas to spend time with his father. Life was very rough there, especially during the Depression years. The essay gets its title from his uncle's story about eating rabbits when there is nothing else. The author's father wants to be a farmer but has to give it up because he simply can't make enough money. He has to take construction jobs, or whatever work he can find. His family has no ready access to health care in the early days, and lose two of their five children to illnesses.
Clearly, it is life experiences like these that have informed Moyer's passions, from his role in the creation, and later production, of public television, to his calls for campaign finance reform. In his piece "Wearing the Flag," he recalls his decision to put a flag pin on his lapel. In blasting the proponents of the Iraq war, he asserts that the flag "belongs to the country, not to the government."
At the very least, one has to agree that he's consistent. Moyer's is a progressive message that's all about returning power to the people.
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