The Right Questions

[Lightning Rod]

We are asking the wrong question. 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 just have to laugh. Look at the process of consolidation of our mass media. Five media conglomerates dominate (Viacom, Disney, Time-Warner, News Corp., and NBC/GE 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, is that government is for the benefit of the few, not the many. But their public relations department is good. 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 Hummvees 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.