Bill Moyers' Departure From TV Is a Huge Loss for Independent Journalism

Bill Moyers' Departure From TV Is a Huge Loss for Independent Journalism

By Peter Dreier / The Huffington Post
January 2, 2015

This week PBS stations around the country will broadcast the final segment of Moyers & Company, Bill Moyers' provocative, groundbreaking interview show. Moyers, who came to PBS in 1971, is retiring the show, but not retiring from the world of public affairs. He will continue to write, speak out, and produce his remarkable website, filled each day with insightful articles by Bill and others about dangers to our democracy and battles for social justice. But the end of Moyers' regular presence on television will leave a huge hole in America's broadcast landscape. No other program has journalistic breadth and depth, as well as the progressive viewpoint, that Moyers' show has provided views for over four decades. Will PBS -- which has been under increasing pressure from Congress and funders to move to the right -- even try to fill that gap?

Moyers, who turned 80 in June, has been one of the most prolific and influential figures in American journalism. Not content just to diagnose and document corporate and political malpractice, Moyers has regularly taken his cameras and microphones to cities and towns where unions, community organizations, environmental groups, tenants rights activists, and others were waging grassroots campaigns for change. Moyers has given them a voice. He has used TV as a tool to expose political and corporate wrongdoing and to tell stories about ordinary people working together for justice.

He has introduced America to great thinkers, activists, and everyday heroes typically ignored by mainstream media. He has produced dozens of hard-hitting investigative documentaries uncovering corporate abuse of workers and consumers, the corrupting influence of money in politics, the dangers of the Religious Right, conservatives' attacks on scientists over global warming, and many other topics. A gifted storyteller, Moyers' TV shows, speeches, and magazine articles have roared with a combination of outrage and decency, exposing abuse and celebrating the country's history of activism.

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