Bill Moyers

Measured Moyers I am a 66-year-old lifelong Republican who always enjoyed listening to Bill Moyers. ("A Thoughtful Voice Amid the Din," by Neal Gabler, Dec. 13.) With his unique personal style and calming voice he had the ability to discuss both sides of a political issue in a calm measured way that enabled you to understand his point of view and what the real issues were. The shrill, vitriolic ranting of talking heads like Bill O'Reilly or Donna Brazile regardless of party affiliation only serve to polarize every critical issue we face as a nation and leave a scorched earth landscape behind them where no rational discussion can take place in the middle.

Measured Moyers I am a 66-year-old lifelong Republican who always enjoyed listening to Bill Moyers. ("A Thoughtful Voice Amid the Din," by Neal Gabler, Dec. 13.) With his unique personal style and calming voice he had the ability to discuss both sides of a political issue in a calm measured way that enabled you to understand his point of view and what the real issues were. The shrill, vitriolic ranting of talking heads like Bill O'Reilly or Donna Brazile regardless of party affiliation only serve to polarize every critical issue we face as a nation and leave a scorched earth landscape behind them where no rational discussion can take place in the middle.

As host of public radio's award-winning "Marketplace," David Brancaccio demonstrated that a West Coast news show can air more serious concerns than botox injections and box-office grosses. He also hosted the statewide newsmagazine "California Connected" on public television. Last year, the 44-year-old Maine native left our shores to join PBS' newsmagazine show, "Now with Bill Moyers."

It is a testament to how much Bill Moyers matters that this quiet, humble man can still stir passions. When he announced late last month he would be leaving his award-winning weekly PBS series, "Bill Moyers Journal," in April, some of us felt as if we were losing a sacred American institution, a repository of the nation's conscience, while others cheered. Right-wing bloviator Bill O'Reilly went so far as to boast that he had forced Moyers from the air -- a claim that was not only patently false but also a misconception of who Moyers is and what he does.

It's depressing to think of Bill Moyers as a dinosaur, slowly sinking into the tar pits of network journalism. But, according to Moyers, that's exactly what he is. "People like me are increasingly out of date at networks," Moyers said from New York on Thursday, "because we want to take the time to craft journalism, and there is no premium on craftsmanship. There is a perception that the audience wants the kind of editing that George Lucas made famous in 'Star Wars.'

Beginning tonight, Bill Moyers will spend 13 weeks looking back at some of his previous documentaries for CBS and PBS. But fans need not worry: He hasn't retired to a rocking chair to ponder things that once were. Moyers will return in the fall with two new series and a special for PBS. The retrospective, "Moyers: A Second Look" (which will air at 10 p.m. on KCET Channel 28), consists of 3 of his "CBS Reports" and 10 of the various shows he has done for PBS, spanning 18 years of his work.

Bill Moyers' series on PBS about the Bible's opening book might be remembered best years from now as the time many Jews and Christians first heard that Muslims also trace their religious self-definitions from those ancient stories, especially about Abraham's family.

PBS launches its first new weekly public affairs series in more than a decade tonight, with respected public broadcasting veteran Bill Moyers taking on such topics as the complexities facing American Muslims and energy industry lobbying. The one-hour "Now With Bill Moyers," airing locally Fridays at 9 p.m. on KCET, has come together only in the last couple of months.

"Deep Throats were talking, but few in the press were listening," Bill Moyers says in "Buying the War," a cold-eyed look at how lock-step with the Bush administration the mainstream news media became in the months leading up to the Iraq war. Airing tonight on PBS, the documentary marks Moyers' return as a regular PBS presence.

In the fall of 1986, Bill Moyers, after thinking things over, quit CBS News. If he ever wants to return, his boss said then, quoting a Welsh saying, "We'll keep a welcome in the hillside." That boss, Howard Stringer, now heads the CBS Broadcast Group. David Burke, a former ABC News executive, now heads CBS News. But Moyers remains in the hillside of public TV, professing no thoughts of a return to CBS.

THERE'S A Jeremiah among us and his name is Bill Moyers. He is a product of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, having worked for the president and witnessed firsthand many of that administration's achievements, including the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the Higher Education Act, the Public Broadcasting Act and the Freedom of Information Act. Earlier, he was deputy director of the Peace Corps.

"Deep Throats were talking, but few in the press were listening," Bill Moyers says in "Buying the War," a cold-eyed look at how lock-step with the Bush administration the mainstream news media became in the months leading up to the Iraq war. Airing tonight on PBS, the documentary marks Moyers' return as a regular PBS presence.

"Faith & Reason," the new Bill Moyers effort for PBS, is not for everyone. It's difficult to imagine channel surfers choosing it over Animal Planet or a Kathy Griffin rerun. But for that slice of the populace interested in heavy questions of rationality versus religious belief and/or the clash between modern life and ancient belief -- this is the one to pick.

Yes, you love Big Bird. When the Republicans threatened to cut $200 million from the PBS budget, you wrote so many letters to your representatives that they changed their minds. In polls you always say you want the government to give PBS all the money it can. I get it. You're good, smart people. Not good or smart enough to actually watch public television, but good and smart enough to vaguely want it to be there, like libraries and churches and democracy in the Middle East.

A consultant hired by the Republican chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to monitor the political leanings of guests on PBS' "NOW with Bill Moyers" last year also tracked the content of programs hosted by NPR's Diane Rehm and public broadcaster Tavis Smiley, according to a Democratic senator who obtained a copy of the analysis. The consultant, Fred Mann, provided Kenneth Y.

When Bill Moyers retired from the PBS newsmagazine "Now" last month, the program lost a little bit of star power and a lot of intellectual muscle. Since Moyers' departure, the program has reduced its length from one hour to a half-hour slot weekly and has abandoned its cushy New York studios to go on the road with new host David Brancaccio. On tonight's broadcast, "Now" introduces its latest change in the form of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the third child of the late Sen. Robert F.

Reporting events and political rhetoric without examining underlying trends and ideas, nonfiction programming on television is not renowned for its subtlety of thought. For a few months beginning last September, however, Bill Moyers managed to imbue the airwaves with a more reflective spirit in the PBS series, "A World of Ideas." Regular readers of literature will be familiar with many of Moyers' subjects--from Isaac Asimov to Derek Walcott--but this book, based on edited transcripts of the show, should still be of interest, for Moyers doesn't lower the level of dialogue for TV. On the contrary, he consistently focuses these conversations through thoughtful comments and enlivens them by playing provocateur.

THERE'S A Jeremiah among us and his name is Bill Moyers. He is a product of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, having worked for the president and witnessed firsthand many of that administration's achievements, including the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, the Higher Education Act, the Public Broadcasting Act and the Freedom of Information Act. Earlier, he was deputy director of the Peace Corps.

As host of public radio's award-winning "Marketplace," David Brancaccio demonstrated that a West Coast news show can air more serious concerns than botox injections and box-office grosses. He also hosted the statewide newsmagazine "California Connected" on public television. Last year, the 44-year-old Maine native left our shores to join PBS' newsmagazine show, "Now with Bill Moyers."

Judging from the way the Bush political machine has allowed only people who sign affidavits of support to attend his campaign events, it seems unlikely that George W. Bush would ever subject himself to being interrogated by Bill Moyers, one of his most persistent and persuasive critics. But if the unthinkable happened, what would the host of PBS' "Now With Bill Moyers" ask him?