A remembrance of Bill Moyers, the former White House press secretary for President Lyndon B. Johnson, who became one of television’s most honored journalists. He died Thursday at age 91.
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Broadcaster Bill Moyers has died. Moyers’ journalism career spanned four decades. He was known for his mild-mannered and probing interviews on issues ranging from money in politics to racial inequality.
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DAVID BRANCACCIO, BYLINE: I think Bill Moyers is the greatest journalist of my lifetime.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah, you know that voice. It belongs to Marketplace Morning Report host, David Brancaccio. He co-hosted one of Moyers’ programs on PBS in the 2000s and said what you saw on screen was not an act.
BRANCACCIO: I remember Bill as the person who taught me very clearly that we think of our audience as engaged members of our communities and society, not as necessarily consumers.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
He was an engaged member of the audience of this program. He wrote me a letter once about something he didn’t like. Bill Moyers grew up in…
MARTÍNEZ: (Laughter).
INSKEEP: …It’s true. It’s true. I was happy to hear from him. Moyers grew up in Marshall, Texas. He’d wanted to play football but was too small, so he settled for writing about sports in the school paper. He graduated from the University of Texas. He got a master’s degree in divinity. He preached part time at two churches but later decided his calling to the ministry was, quote, “a wrong number.” He was 30 years old when he became White House press secretary to President Lyndon Johnson. He resigned two years later in 1967 as the U.S. grew more involved in the Vietnam War. He talked about this with Fresh Air.
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BILL MOYERS: If you want to make creative policy, it was not a good time. And to be in government – because of the war – was consuming everybody’s energy, everybody’s passion and everybody’s time. And it was very hard to be constructive in such a destructive era.
MARTÍNEZ: In his later years, Moyers often offered sobering reflections on U.S. society, especially what he saw as the causes of corruption and of rising inequality.
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MOYERS: We are so close to losing our democracy to the mercenary class, it’s as if we’re leaning way over the rim of the Grand Canyon, and all that’s needed is a swift kick in the pants – look out below. The predators in Washington are only this far from monopoly control over a government. They’ve bought the political system lock, stock and pork barrel, making change from within impossible.
MARTÍNEZ: Veteran broadcaster, Bill Moyers. He died yesterday at the age of 91. And it’s good that he kept you in check, Steve.
INSKEEP: Absolutely.
MARTÍNEZ: Gave you that swift kick in the pants.
INSKEEP: (Laughter) I’m always happy to hear from the audience, so it was kind of flattering. Anyway, amazing, amazing historical figure.
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