Bill Moyers was a hero for me, going way back to his Peace Corps days and then his break with LbJ over Vietnam. I studied him as a young Journalism student and attempted to emulate not just his work but his attitude about what a journalist’s job is. It is now up to us — and the younger generations behind us — to be carry on his work.
Your subject line brought immediate tears, because I knew that you, Bill, would want to share your admiration for the other Bill. Especially poignant as public broadcasting is under attack. My favorite conversation of Bill Moyers was his incredible interview with Wendell Berry. I think I'll watch it again today and continue to weep for all we are losing.
Dear Bill, I can't imagine a more moving and beautifully expressed tribute to Bill Moyers than yours. My husband David Grubin produced and directed many documentaries for PBS with Bill in the 80's and 90's, including the one on Lyndon Johnson, and we knew him well. I so appreciate your mention of his quality of curiosity and good listening - so wonderful and rare. Bill was a kind of moral compass for us all, as are you.
Bill, your tribute to Bill Moyers brought tears. My most memorable year as an investigative reporter was working for "NOW With Bill Moyers." Bill got a grant for me to produce six investigations on his iconic news magazine program. It was a magical year. Six reports morphed into eleven because Bill was infectiously enthusiastic and inspiring. He used that broadcast to shed light on America's problems and hopes. Even after I finished the year, Bill asked me to cover COP9 in Milan to report on how the American delegation and fossil fuel industry were doing everything in their power to ensure no progress there. That experience ignited my commitment to supporting climate solutions. When I left the program to lead The Center for Public Integrity, I asked Bill for connections to funders. Bill generously provided support through the Schumann Foundation with an unexpected $500,000 check. His curiosity, generosity, and wisdom made him A Great and Good Man.
As you mentioned, Bill Moyer was top-shelf. And he influenced and enhanced my view of life in extraordinary ways. He was a gentleman and a scholar who raised expectations and values and hope. Yet he was a humble, kind, gracious soul who has left a gaping hole in his departure.
In regards to the rapid increase in climate change, I’m also left with such deep, inconsolable heartache as I grapple with the mindset, the reality of what western trends in capitalism have done. Endless consumption/consumerism is simple unsustainable. Yet indigenous peoples across the globe have always understood their primary relationship, their role, not as pillagers, but as caretakers of Mother Earth.
It’s all connected. Unfortunately what we do to this planet, to that which sustains us, we ultimately do to ourselves. Have we passed the threshold of self destruction? Or can we find the collective will to influence those who lead to grasp the obvious, at long last…?
There is no television anymore like 1980s television, let alone the war journalism of the Viet Nam era. Even 60 Minutes was put on notice for the way it talked about Gaza.
CBS cancelled “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” in 1979, after a couple years of intense, intrusive censorship that Tommy fought courageously and relentlessly. I was only 14 then, but I mourned then and I still feel its loss.
Bill, your tribute to Bill Moyers described him elegantly. You have for years been my 20th, and now 21st, – century Saint. Bill Moyers was another. Thank you.
Wonderful to see you at the firefly event the other night. What a gift!
Thinking of two monumental losses in the past year: Bernice Johnson Reagon--a great artist and teacher, and like Moyers a powerful beacon for justice-- was interviewed by Bill Moyers a while back. As Bill McKibben notes above, Moyers's greaterst gifts as an interviewer was his genuine curiosity and his ability to listen deeply-- Here is Bill listening while in the course of just a few minutes, Bernice Reagon teaches all of us about the transformative power of songs in the Civil Rights Movement-- and in times like these: https://youtu.be/YkEvaYnZ1uM?si=RaC-R9UKJIGEjWTb
I didn't know Bill Moyers and I won't miss him any more than I will miss the rest of that peaceful army of good people he was part of. They were the best of our generation. So many wonderful individuals, some widely known as was Moyers, some laboring in obscurity. I can give him no higher praise than to say he was one of the many lights that lit the America of days gone by and made all of us know our country still had in it good and honorable men and that there was something sovereign and incorruptible in the American spirit.
Bill Moyers was a hero for me, going way back to his Peace Corps days and then his break with LbJ over Vietnam. I studied him as a young Journalism student and attempted to emulate not just his work but his attitude about what a journalist’s job is. It is now up to us — and the younger generations behind us — to be carry on his work.
Your subject line brought immediate tears, because I knew that you, Bill, would want to share your admiration for the other Bill. Especially poignant as public broadcasting is under attack. My favorite conversation of Bill Moyers was his incredible interview with Wendell Berry. I think I'll watch it again today and continue to weep for all we are losing.
Thank you for leading me/us to this interview! here's a link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYxqe76_RCc
I'll get out the tissues for that interview as well.
Dear Bill, I can't imagine a more moving and beautifully expressed tribute to Bill Moyers than yours. My husband David Grubin produced and directed many documentaries for PBS with Bill in the 80's and 90's, including the one on Lyndon Johnson, and we knew him well. I so appreciate your mention of his quality of curiosity and good listening - so wonderful and rare. Bill was a kind of moral compass for us all, as are you.
Thank you for the meditation on Moyers. I never met him, but now I feel that I know him better. What a spirit.
Beautiful tribute, Bill. Thank you.
Thanks for the inside stories about Bill Moyers. I always enjoyed him.
Bill, your tribute to Bill Moyers brought tears. My most memorable year as an investigative reporter was working for "NOW With Bill Moyers." Bill got a grant for me to produce six investigations on his iconic news magazine program. It was a magical year. Six reports morphed into eleven because Bill was infectiously enthusiastic and inspiring. He used that broadcast to shed light on America's problems and hopes. Even after I finished the year, Bill asked me to cover COP9 in Milan to report on how the American delegation and fossil fuel industry were doing everything in their power to ensure no progress there. That experience ignited my commitment to supporting climate solutions. When I left the program to lead The Center for Public Integrity, I asked Bill for connections to funders. Bill generously provided support through the Schumann Foundation with an unexpected $500,000 check. His curiosity, generosity, and wisdom made him A Great and Good Man.
As you mentioned, Bill Moyer was top-shelf. And he influenced and enhanced my view of life in extraordinary ways. He was a gentleman and a scholar who raised expectations and values and hope. Yet he was a humble, kind, gracious soul who has left a gaping hole in his departure.
In regards to the rapid increase in climate change, I’m also left with such deep, inconsolable heartache as I grapple with the mindset, the reality of what western trends in capitalism have done. Endless consumption/consumerism is simple unsustainable. Yet indigenous peoples across the globe have always understood their primary relationship, their role, not as pillagers, but as caretakers of Mother Earth.
It’s all connected. Unfortunately what we do to this planet, to that which sustains us, we ultimately do to ourselves. Have we passed the threshold of self destruction? Or can we find the collective will to influence those who lead to grasp the obvious, at long last…?
There is no television anymore like 1980s television, let alone the war journalism of the Viet Nam era. Even 60 Minutes was put on notice for the way it talked about Gaza.
CBS cancelled “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” in 1979, after a couple years of intense, intrusive censorship that Tommy fought courageously and relentlessly. I was only 14 then, but I mourned then and I still feel its loss.
Correction, 24!
Moyers was a mensch.
Bill, your tribute to Bill Moyers described him elegantly. You have for years been my 20th, and now 21st, – century Saint. Bill Moyers was another. Thank you.
Wonderful to see you at the firefly event the other night. What a gift!
Catherine, East Middlebury.
Losing Bill Moyers is a sad event. His interviews of the writers Barry Lopez and Wendell Berry were deeply moving.
Thinking of two monumental losses in the past year: Bernice Johnson Reagon--a great artist and teacher, and like Moyers a powerful beacon for justice-- was interviewed by Bill Moyers a while back. As Bill McKibben notes above, Moyers's greaterst gifts as an interviewer was his genuine curiosity and his ability to listen deeply-- Here is Bill listening while in the course of just a few minutes, Bernice Reagon teaches all of us about the transformative power of songs in the Civil Rights Movement-- and in times like these: https://youtu.be/YkEvaYnZ1uM?si=RaC-R9UKJIGEjWTb
I didn't know Bill Moyers and I won't miss him any more than I will miss the rest of that peaceful army of good people he was part of. They were the best of our generation. So many wonderful individuals, some widely known as was Moyers, some laboring in obscurity. I can give him no higher praise than to say he was one of the many lights that lit the America of days gone by and made all of us know our country still had in it good and honorable men and that there was something sovereign and incorruptible in the American spirit.
Adore Bill Moyers!
The voice, the values, the person. The stories. Thank you for sharing this wonderful tribute