| 1 | Name: | Mr. Bill D. Moyers | |
| Institution: | Public Affairs TV, Inc | ||
| Year Elected: | 1995 | ||
| Class: | 5. The Arts, Professions, and Leaders in Public & Private Affairs | ||
| Subdivision: | 503. Administrators, Bankers and Opinion Leaders from the Public or Private Sectors | ||
| Residency: | Resident | ||
| Living? : | Living | ||
| Birth Date: | 1934 | ||
One of the chief inheritors of the Edward R. Murrow tradition of "deep-think" journalism, Bill Moyers has been involved in broadcast journalism for more than 40 years, principally in the areas of investigative documentary and long-form conversations with some of the world's leading thinkers. Formerly a print journalist, ordained Baptist minister, press secretary to President Lyndon Johnson, and newspaper publisher, Mr. Moyers came to television in 1970, delivering elegantly written and deceptively soft-spoken narrations that came out of the story-telling traditions of his East Texas upbringing. Examining the failings of constitutional democracy in his 1974 Essay on Watergate and exposing governmental illegalities and cover-ups during the Iran Contra scandal, he repeatedly explored countless important issues of of our time, from race, class and gender to the power media images held for a nation of "consumers," not citizens. Mr. Moyers could be said to have explored virtually every aspect of American political, economic and social life in his documentaries. Equally influential was Mr. Moyers' World of Ideas series, in which he used his soft, probing style to talk to a remarkable range of articulate intellectuals on his two foundation-supported interview series on PBS. In discussions that ranged from an hour to, in the case of mythology scholar Joseph Campbell, six hours on the air, Moyers brought to television what he called the "conversation of democracy." He spoke with social critics such as Noam Chomsky and Cornel West, writers such as Nigerian novelist Chinua Achebe, Mexican poet and novelist Carlos Fuentes and American novelist Toni Morrison, and social analysts like philosopher Mortimer Adler and University of Chicago sociologist William Julius Wilson. Mr. Moyers engaged voices and ideas that had been seldom, if ever, heard on television, and transcribed versions of many of his series often became best selling books as well (Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth, 1988; The Secret Government, 1988; A World of Ideas, 1989; A World of Ideas II, 1990, Healing the Mind, 1992). Mr. Moyers' television work is as prolific as his publishing record. In all he produced over 600 hours of programming (filmed and videotaped conversations and documentaries) between 1971 and 1989, and he broadcast another 125 programs between 1989 and 1992. In 1986 he formed his own company, Public Affairs Television, to distribute many of his own shows, and by the early 1990s he had established himself as a significant figure of television talk. Upon receiving the prestigious Gold Baton Award in 1991, Mr. Moyers was referred to as "a unique voice, still seeking new frontiers in television, daring to assume that viewing audiences are willing to think and learn." He was honored with the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences' Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006. After a brief hiatus, Moyers returned to public television in 2012 with "Moyers & Company," continuing in the tradition of his earlier work. | |||