Bill Moyers embarked on his journalism
career as a cub reporter for his hometown paper in Marshall, Texas at the age
of sixteen. He began his college education at North Texas State College and
went on to receive a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of
Texas at Austin in 1956.
While in college, he interned for
then-Senator Lyndon B. Johnson and would later work as an assistant news editor
for KTBC radio and television, owned by Johnson’s wife Lady Bird. Moyers went
on to serve as a top aide to Johnson during his unsuccessful bid for the
democratic presidential nomination in 1960 and then assume the role of liaison
between vice presidential candidate Johnson and presidential nominee John F.
Kennedy.
Under Kennedy, Moyers was appointed
Associate Director of Public Affairs of the Peace Corps and later served as
Deputy Director. After Kennedy’s assassination, Moyers served as a special
assistant and informal chief of staff to Johnson before being appointed White
House press secretary.
He resumed his career in journalism
after Johnson’s presidency, amassing a four- decade career in broadcasting at
CBS, PBS and later his own Public Affairs Television. He has accumulated no
shortage of accolades, including more than 30 Emmy’s, two Alfred I.
Dupont-Columbia University Awards, nine Peabody’s, three George Polk Awards, an
honorary Doctor of Fine Arts by the American Film Institute, the Career
Achievement Award from the International Documentary Associate, an election to
the Television Hall of Fame and the National Academy of Television Arts &
Sciences’ Lifetime Achievement Award.
The award that most speaks to his role
as a public intellectual, however, may be the 2005 PEN USA Courageous Advocacy
Award, given for his passionate, outspoken commitment to freedom of speech and
his dedication to journalistic integrity.
In the 80’s, his public dissatisfaction with what he saw as declining news standards at CBS initiated changes in uppermanagement. In 2003, he accused the corporate media of executing a “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.”
Today, at 82 years old, Moyers combines
his perspectives as a former press secretary and veteran journalist to continue
his commentary on issues of race, class and gender. In the last year, he has
called on the people to assume their role in sustaining democracy, called on President Obama to make federal contractors disclose their political spending,
and called out Chelsea Clinton for bashing Bernie Sanders without anunderstanding of his stance on healthcare.
Perhaps the most unique element of
Moyers’ perspective is the many years he dedicated to religious education. A
Rotary International Fellow who studied issues of church and state at the
University of Edinburgh, Moyers completed a Master of Divinity degree at
Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth and became an ordained
minister. And yet, he has positioned himself well within the debate of the cleric as a public intellectual as discussed by Stephen Mack. He is, arguably, one
of the “intellectuals of a special
kind—people whose religious training and experience shaped their vision of a
just society and required them to work for it,” as Mack describes.
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