Happy 80th Birthday, Bill Moyers

by Peter Dreier
"Bill Moyers, who turned 80 on Thursday, 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.

Moyers has spent most of his broadcast career on public television, whose audience is considerably smaller than that of the major networks. But his influence -- through his documentaries, interviews, books, magazine articles, and speeches, and because of the ripple effects of his calls to conscience -- has been great nonetheless. He has received over thirty-five Emmy Awards (including a Lifetime Emmy), a lifetime Peabody Award, an Alfred I. DuPont-Columbia University award, a George Polk Career Award (his third Polk award), induction into the Television Hall of Fame, and many other honors for his contributions to journalistic integrity and investigative reporting.

Last October, Bill Moyers announced that he was retiring and that his weekly show, Moyers & Company, would end January 3. Three weeks later, in response to an outpouring of e-mails, letters, and Facebook comments urging him to reconsider, Moyers recanted. He has continued to host the show. His only pushback was to recast the show from an hour to a half-hour format. Keeping up with modern technology, Moyers now has a website that includes not only videos of his TV interviews but also many articles (by Moyers and others) about contemporary politics and activism."

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Please read the entire and well stated article...
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/06/08

Happy Birthday Bill! And a wish for Many more to come!