Another authentic journalist/commentator has left us.
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…To Americans who grew up after the 1960s, Mr. Moyers was known above all as an unusual breed of television correspondent and commentator. He was once described by Peter J. Boyer, the journalist and author, as “a rare and powerful voice, a kind of secular evangelist.”
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In his four decades as a television correspondent and commentator, Mr. Moyers, an ordained Baptist minister, explored issues ranging from poverty, violence, income inequality and racial bigotry to the role of money in politics, threats to the Constitution and climate change. His documentaries and reports won him the top prizes in television journalism, more than 30 Emmy Awards and comparisons to Edward R. Murrow, his revered predecessor at CBS.
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Interesting article. Quite a career.
One of the rare press secretaries who came out of the job with more respect and credibility than he had going into it.
1of the finest broadcast journalists ever, Bill Moyers also introduced me to the great scholar of mythology Joseph Campbell. This series, a basic conversational interview format but with very illuminating ideas discussed, changed how I viewed the world & my place in it.
Well, as far as his fan-boying of Joseph Campbell, there’s been a revisionist treatment of that. (Above and beyond Campbell’s cuckolding of John Steinbeck and an earlier attraction to Fascism: I mean, we were all young once).
As for Bill Moyers, I’d always identified with him via the decent, humble Baptists from my mother’s family. In one interview, over thirty years ago, he identified our current problems having arisen from our gone from citizens to consumers. He’s more right now than ever.
A journalist truly worthy of a lot of respect. Not many such left anymore.
This is sad but I am glad he had a good run.
Very astute of him, I agree. And as you note, his decency was a hallmark.
There really hasn’t been anyone else with his blend of intelligence, clear-communication skills, and humanity—at least no one regularly given time on television to talk to people.
We’re really missing that whole generation of real journalists. These four but not just these four.
Mr. Moyers, left, covered the 1976 Republican National Convention in Kansas City, Mo., for CBS, along with, clockwise, Morton Dean, Mike Wallace and Walter Cronkite.Credit…CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images
At one time Walter Cronkite was the most trusted man in America. Can you imagine any TV commentator deserving of that title today?
No, obviously not. And that might be true even if we could control for the difference in the media landscape (four channels in Cronkite’s heyday versus the thousands available now).
It’s not solely the fault of today’s journalists (or “journalists”)—they are asked to make money for their corporate owners. Back when that photo was taken there was still an expectation that news operations were for the prestige of the network rather than for profits.
Still, I struggle to think of anyone working in “news” today that has anything like the dedication to truth and clarity that Moyers (and the others) demonstrated. Even well-respected people like Rachel Maddow are always on the hustle–that’s the job, now.
I don’t know what to think of the fact that in 2025, the closest we have to Morrow’s boys is Jon Stewart’s Daily Show alumni
The other thing that killed real journalism is the “modern” 24/7 news cycle that really took off with CNN during the first Gulf war ~1990. You could get up in the middle of the night, turn on CNN, and see what was happening live in the Middle East. That did not happen in the past-- or rarely, like with a moon walk or something. News wasn’t on ALL the time. Now there’s no TIME to research a story, make sure of your facts and sources. You just have to get it on the air or on the internet before some other organization does.
Not to mention that now anyone with a phone can film something and post it with no explanatory commentary. If it’s a big enough story, the mainstream media are covering it, too, along with all the fringe media. And everyone has their pundits who sit and blahblahblah endlessly, gumming a story to death without adding any insight, background, or common sense.
