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Bill Moyers On Democracy (2000)

by Bill Moyers(Favorite Author)

4.26 of 5 Votes: 4

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English

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review 1: Each essay is a stand-alone gem, but taken together, the whole does skirt repetitiveness - not an uncommon problem for collections such as this. I suggest reading each chapter, then allowing some time to pass before indulging in the next, to mitigate the effect. Moyers raises excellent points, and does so from the perspective of a wise and seasoned journalist and public servant. His insights into the administration of Lyndon Johnson, the Peace Corps, Hubert Humphrey's political career, Fred Friendly's influence on both CBS news and the Corporation for Public Broadcast offer the reader a rare look into the metamorphosis of news into history through first-hand report and subsequent analysis by the same author.Convincing though his passionate arguments are, I can't quite b... morering myself to embrace the alarm and pessimism he sometimes conveys. It's difficult for me to accept the decline of the printed newspaper and media of the 20th century as a harbinger of the fall of America, so much as a natural environmental evolution in response to the rise of competition from emerging electronic forms through the new media of the internet. He doesn't demure from the fact that he's made a living at the very industry who's decline he mourns. To be fair, I also worry when confronted with the absurd bias and erosion of standards, but I find myself wondering how hard core news and reporting ever managed to survive in the early 20th century in the first place. Some blame should probably fall on the consumers of such yellow journalism as well as on the producers, and the real danger and price of freedom is the danger of mass consumption of garbage, and the freedom to choose to be more entertained than informed. Consumers' ability to learn and understand has been undermined by the breadth available through new media, coming at the sacrifice of depth. Moyers seems to assert that some code of standards upheld by a knightly order of media leaders has been broken and may be irreparable. I'm not convince that it was ever more than an illusion or pure circumstance that it ever found a place at all.Still, the man has seen and thought much about the experiment of America, and that has to be respected. The collection is worth reading and debate, and I suspect will join a pantheon of writings considered by generations to come... if they continue to take the time to read more than 140 characters before moving on to the next tweet.
review 2: I adore Bill Moyers. I think he's a wonderful interviewer, a clear thinker, and a bit of a renaissance man. His politics also jibe with mine, so I suppose it's to be expected that I would like this book.Yet this is the book that caused my doctor to tell me to read more fiction. Actually she told me to keep some Harlequin Romances on my nightstand to read when I'm awake and staring at the ceiling at 2:37 a.m. I told her my eyeballs would bleed if I read those.This book was not relaxing. There were certainly some pieces that were lovely, like his eulogy for Barbara Jordan, but many addressed some very outrage-inducing political and economic issues. I couldn't quite finish it before it was recalled to the library, but I look forward to owning a copy that I can read more leisurely, with enough time between pieces to calm down a bit. less

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