Moyers made two significant detours in his journalistic journey: an early stint at a Baptist seminary, and several years working in the White House for the man who'd given him his first broadcast journalism job at a tiny Texas station, Lyndon Johnson. The impulse that led to each, and the experience gained, gave his journalism a rare richness. Viewers responded to his integrity and authenticity, and the courage behind the smile---also rare. All of these are on display in this collection taken from talks and commentaries, along with historical perspective and informal reminiscence too informative and entertaining for prime time.

Moyers'words in this book on the dangerous trends of celebrity journalism and conglomerate control should be required reading for young journalists, if not all citizens. His evaluations of his private and public past will be equally useful and inspiring to readers who have grown up with him. This is a penetrating yet companionable volume, from an exemplary journalist who says he still believes, and still doubts.


I Wish Moyers Had Written More!   September 6, 2004
 44 out of 49 found this review helpful

Historians will be kind to the gentle but passsionate Bill Moyers and will rank him as one of our best journalists, both for his skill and integrity. Here he has collected some of his speeches and commentaries--they range in time from the 1970's to the present--about some of the things he cares about deeply: democracy, politics corrupted by money, the costs of war, the possibility of people with diverse religions living in harmony, integrity in journalism. Mr. Moyers also writes about growing up in the Southwest and gets personal about friendship, growing old and dying. He is right-- though not to the right-- on a lot of things here. His essay on why he has worn the flag in his label is one that someone needed to write. He is totally correcct. How about his description of Baptists when he compares them to jalapeno peppers? ". . .one or two make for a tasty dish, but a whole bunch of them together in one place brings tears to your eyes." And that slaveholder Thomas Jefferson wrote it right but "lived it wrong."

Mr. Moyers also includes an insightful chapter on President Johnson, reminding us of all the good things he did for this country-- Medicare, Medicaid, federal aid to education, the right of blacks to citizenship-- before he slipped into the great hole called the Vietnam War. I was so touched by Mr. Moyers' chapter "Where The Jackrabbits Were", that I read it twice. When the author was born in 1934 his father was earning $2 a day working on the construction of a highway from the Texas border to Oklahoma City. He describes the difficulties that the Moyers family and their neighbors had with little money and no doctors. Moyers makes it clear that he is not trying to idealize his past. About his father Moyers writes: ". . .a seventy-year old man who has buried four of his five children doesn't extol the good old days. . ." For me, that's the most poignant sentence in the entire book. Is there any question why Mr. Moyers is unhappy about the way our country is currently going?

If you have ever caught Mr. Moyers on PBS-- and if you haven't, you probably won't be reading this-- you can hear his voice with that accent he never completely lost coming through, one of the pleasures of reading this book. I often find books of this nature repetitious and too long. That is not the case here. I wish Mr. Moyers had written more.


A Man of Our Times   July 12, 2006
 35 out of 36 found this review helpful

One thing when you get when you read Bill Moyers is a man who speaks from his soul. This journalist and minister laments the disappearance of a free and diverse press being taken over by conglomerates that filter our information with a singular point of view.

He is a populist who believes that our elected representatives are supposed to represent the people who vote for them, not the corporations who give contributions to them. In any other place that is called bribery. In Congress, it is called a contribution.

Equally disconcerting to Moyers is his perception that Americans no longer thirst for the news and the political decisions that affect their lives on a daily basis. Americans care less even about the information that is filtered to them.

I was unable to connect some of the experiences he wrote here to his central theme, but I was always able to imagine the words on the page being spoken by the man with a calm, reassuring voice, the same man who received more than thirty years of Emmy and other awards for outstanding journalism.

Naturally, there is always someone like Bernie Goldberg who saw fit to place this patriotic American and gentleman on his list of 100 people who are ruining America. But, it took no time to feel good again. All I had to do was consider the source. (You don't make comparisons between a Goldberg and a Moyers.)

Read Moyers, watch Moyers every time you can. National treasures are hard to come by.


A man who loves his country and his craft   January 5, 2005
 26 out of 27 found this review helpful

Whether or not one agrees with his conclusions, it's hard to deny that Bill Moyers loves his country and his craft. This volume is a series of his speeches, pieces for television, and other writings, which have been edited for the book. Nearly every page sparkles with his love of democracy and the people who depend upon it.

The book is divided into four parts, the first two concentrating on the nation and the questions America faces in a new era. While the author devotes a lot of time to the war in Iraq, especially in Part One, he also writes passionately about the loss of good jobs and the lack of aid available for families who fall on hard times.

His critique of the media is solid, as Moyers has worked in the field since the 1950s. His essay "Making of a Journalist" traces his beginnings as a cub reporter at a small Texas newspaper. Elsewhere the author condemns the mega-mergers and vested interest of the modern corporate media, noting their silence during the reforms of the Telecommunications Act in 1996.

But while the author decries the trend toward corporate media domination, he isn't overly sentimental about the past. During his days as a cub, there was virtually no coverage of blacks in the paper, even though they represented half of the town: "Only white people counted in those days," he writes, "only their doings were considered newsworthy. What blacks did, felt, and thought never made the paper."

His final chapter, "Looking Back," is most revealing. Here we get a sense of the influences that have shaped the man. His piece "Where the Jackrabbits Were" tells of going home to East Texas to spend time with his father. Life was very rough there, especially during the Depression years. The essay gets its title from his uncle's story about eating rabbits when there is nothing else. The author's father wants to be a farmer but has to give it up because he simply can't make enough money. He has to take construction jobs, or whatever work he can find. His family has no ready access to health care in the early days, and lose two of their five children to illnesses.

Clearly, it is life experiences like these that have informed Moyer's passions, from his role in the creation, and later production, of public television, to his calls for campaign finance reform. In his piece "Wearing the Flag," he recalls his decision to put a flag pin on his lapel. In blasting the proponents of the Iraq war, he asserts that the flag "belongs to the country, not to the government."

At the very least, one has to agree that he's consistent. Moyer's is a progressive message that's all about returning power to the people.


Should be required reading   July 9, 2004
 25 out of 29 found this review helpful

This book is a damning summation of the path that democracy is on right now. A path towards oligarchy. The world would be a better place with more people like Bill Moyers.