The Poet's Eye
commentary by Lightning
Rod
the Poets' Eye is skeptical
without being cynical, innocent
without being naive and
critical without being
judgmental
The
Right Questions
for release 12-13-04
We are asking the wrong questions.
How can we expect to get the right answers?
In the mean time the world of American journalism is losing one its most
resonant voices. Bill Moyers is retiring. I met Bill Moyers once, when
he was a youngster and I was even more of a youngster. He was Lyndon Johnson's
press secretary at the time. I was a high-school journalism student attending
a contest/conference in Ft. Worth. The guest speakers were Dan Rather
and Bill Moyers, because they were both rising stars in journalism and
native Texans. I fear I'm dating myself here.
As a young journalist, I was impressed by both men. Rather was the more
passionate of the two and he was an early inspiration to me, but Moyers
was more intriguing because he seemed to want to penetrate more than merely
report. He was already moving from reportage to analysis.
In his post White House journalistic career he built one of the finest
documents of American life that exists. He tackled every issue with a
thoughtful and religiously journalistic approach. He is an ordained Baptist
minister, after all, but he has scrupulously kept his beliefs out of his
journalism. His classic series with Joseph Campbell is evidence of this.
He searches below the surface. That is the duty of the journalist, and
Bill Moyers always fulfilled his duty. A journalist is first a writer,
and a writer is first a thinker. Moyers wrote and thought with the best
of them. I respect him immensely. I also respect his words as he announced
his retirement:
"I'm going out telling the story that I think is the biggest story of our time: how the right-wing media has become a partisan propaganda arm of the Republican National Committee."
Moyers was a rare journalist because he owned himself. He wasn't kissing
the ass of Viacom or Disney or Time-Warner or Clear Channel.
In 1986 he and his wife, Judith Davidson Moyers, formed Public Affairs
Television, an independent shop that has not only produced documentaries
such as "A Walk Through the 20th Century," "Healing and
the Mind" and "A Gathering of Men with Robert Bly," but
also paid for them through its own fund-raising efforts.
"I've just been doing the kind of journalism that ought to be done, IF you had the opportunity to do it."
Moyers has been in the business for awhile. He knows the ins and outs.
When he says that the mainstream media is being controlled by the powers
that be, I have to take his word for it. Not that it isn't an obvious
fact. Every time I hear the flippant talk about the "Liberal Press"
I have to laugh. Just look at the process of consolidation going on in
our mass media. Five media conglomerates dominate the communication industry
(Viacom, Disney, Time-Warner, News Corp., and NBC/GE.) Between them they
control 70 percent of the prime time television market share, most cable
stations, majority holdings in radio, publishing, movie studios, music,
Internet, and other sectors.
It's the difference between a democracy and an oligarchy. What has become
the Republican creed, through 'deregulation' and the dismantling of the
welfare system and imperial wars, is that government is for the benefit
of the few, not the many. But their public relations department is great.
They can make you believe that they are doing the nation's work when they
are really only lining their pockets.
Now, back to the wrong questions. The question of whether our soldiers
have enough armor on their Humvees is the wrong question. The more pertinent
question is: Why are our young servicemen being fired upon in the first
place? We were supposed to walk into Baghdad on a carpet of rose petals,
and now our soldiers are having to tape tin cans on their vehicles to
avoid civil assassination. What is wrong with this picture? It's a question
Bill Moyers might have asked.
The Poet's Eye notices that since it is political heresy these days to
mention that we are in Iraq for illegitimate reasons, it is no surprise
that the right-wing media that Moyers mentions is trying to focus attention
on the more trivial questions like whether or not some soldier's mom back
in Georgia has to buy her son a flack jacket for Christmas. Her son shouldn't
be there in the first place.
•
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