Bill Moyers

Journalist

• Born: June 5, 1934
• Place of Birth: Hugo, Oklahoma

Biography

Bill Moyers, the youngest son of Henry and Ruby Johnson Moyers, was born in Hugo, Oklahoma, in 1934. Growing up during World War II, young Moyers became intrigued listening to the overseas broadcasts of journalist Edward R. Murrow. It inspired him to one day be a prominent journalist. He embarked on that career in 1949 when he worked as a junior reporter for the News Messenger newspaper in Marshall, Texas.

From 1952 to 1954, Moyers studied journalism at North Texas State University. During the summer of 1954, he was hired as an intern by then-senator Lyndon B. Johnson. Later that year, he married Judith Suzanne Davidson. They raised two sons and a daughter. While working for KTBC Radio and Television in Austin, Texas, Moyers earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 1956. He then studied for one year as a Rotary International Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. In 1959, Moyers received a bachelor of divinity degree from the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.

During Senator Lyndon Johnson’s presidential campaign in 1960, Moyers was hired as Johnson’s executive assistant. When John F. Kennedy was elected as president of the United States, Moyers was appointed as the associate director of public affairs of the Peace Corps in 1961 and served as the deputy director of that organization from 1962 to 1963. When Johnson became President of the U.S. after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Moyers was named as an advisor on domestic affairs, overseeing the Great Society legislation. He was appointed by President Johnson as the White House Chief of Staff in 1964 and served as Johnson’s press secretary in 1965.

In 1967, Moyers accepted the position as publisher of Newsday, a Long Island, New York, daily newspaper. Under his direction, the newspaper won two Pulitzer Prizes. In 1971, Moyers joined the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) as host of Bill Moyers’ Journal. That same year, he published his first book, Listening to America: A Traveler Rediscovers His Country, which became a best seller. For his well- documented coverage of political and social issues of the 1970s on Bill Moyers’ Journal, Moyers won five Emmy Awards. Moyers retired from the show in 2010.

From 1981 until 1986, Moyers served as senior news analyst and commentator with Dan Rather on the (CBS) Evening News. In 1986, Moyers and his wife established Public Affairs Television. They produced a number of popular series, including Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth, A World of Ideas, The Arab World, and The Language of Life: A Festival of Poets. Moyers published the transcripts of these programs in book form to serve as a permanent record of his television series. A World of Ideas contains more than forty of his interviews with a variety of individuals from various countries and walks of life. The interviews explore contemporary values and concerns in the world.

Moyers was awarded the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Grand Prize in 1978 and again in 1988. He received George Peabody Awards in 1976, 1980, 1985, and each of the years from 1986 through 1989. In 1992, he was awarded two Alfred I. du Pont- Columbia University awards, the Gold Baton for the whole of his comprehensive works, and the Silver Baton for his documentaries. In 1995, Moyers worked as a senior analyst and commentator for the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) News. While hosting NOW with Bill Moyers on PBS from 2001 to 2004, Moyers hosted Wide Angle on PBS.

In 2011 following his retirement from Bill Moyers' Journal, Moyers announced a new one-hour weekly interview program, Moyers & Company, which was launched in January 2012 and produced by Public Affairs Television. The show was later reduced to thirty minutes and ended in January 2015. Moyers started his own website in January 2012, BillMoyers.com, which remained accessible as an archive file in 2024. A podcast entitled Moyers on Democracy began in 2020 and ended in early 2021.

In September 2024, Moyers published his second book, Broken Open: What Painkillers Taught Me About Life and Recovery. It describes his second battle with addiction that came after a prescription for opiod painkillers following dental surgery in 2012. The prescription demolished the sobriety he had maintained after an early addiction to crack cocaine, as noted in his 2006 book, Broken: My Story of Addiction and Redemption, and his struggles when none of the techniques he used during his decades-long recovery worked against the painkiller addiction.

Bibliography

"Bill Moyers." HuffingtonPost. TheHuffingtonPost.com, n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2016.

Farhi, Paul. "Bill Moyers Signs Off: For the Final Time, He Swears." Washington Post. Washington Post, 1 Jan 2015. Web. 31 Mar. 2016.

Harris, Jeffrey A. "Bill Moyers." Americans Who Tell the Truth. Robert Shetterly/Americans Who Tell the Truth, n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2016.

Medved, Michael. The Shadow Presidents: The Secret History of the Chief Executives and Their Top Aides. New York: New York Times Books, 2007. Print.

Moyers & Company, billmoyers.com/. Accessed 2 Oct. 2024.

Moyers, Bill D. Bill Moyers Journal: The Conversation Continues. New York: New Press, 2011. Print.

Richtel, Matt. "Broken Again. A National Advocate for Drug Recovery Relapses." New York Times, 7 Sept. 2024, www.nytimes.com/2024/09/07/health/addiction-opiates-moyers.html#. Accessed 2 Oct. 2024.