Talk:Bill Moyers

Education, etc

I came to this page looking for his education, degrees, etc. I'm surprised that it lacks the typical biographical information. Or is that too controversial? ;-) -- Mulp 19:43, 3 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, I've added two links with his own personal retrospective and have added to his education in rough and incomplete form. If a biographical wikitekii can do some template magic, I'll try to get back and fill in the detail in the near future (like I promised on some other articles, grrr too little time). --Mulp 20:57, 3 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Anti-Moyers?

This page has more content of anti-Moyers POV than it does much of any facts of his public service, his journalism career, etc.

AMEN!

Yeah there is more text in the criticism than the rest of the page.

I agree, the criticism is getting out of hand. Go to a right wing blog if you want scandalous hearsay. I deleted the references to the Wall Street Journal Silberman op-ed because (1) an opinion piece from the WSJ cannot be reported as fact, (2) I can find no reference online to Silberman's accusations (which he claims originally were revealed to the public in 1975) outside of people referening the Silberman piece itself, and (3) the criticism section is far longer than the rest of the article. If the Silberman claims are true, fine, provide another source to confirm it and then why not add them to a page like Right Wing criticism of Bill Moyers and add a link in the Moyers page to it? Otherwise, I think a POV tag might be the way to go.--Osbojos 17:16, 24 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The best thing to do is balance the criticism with postive thing about Moyers, not try to hide criticism. Bill Mpyers is a very successful man, I find it hard to believe that there is not enough good things to say about him to balance out the bad. In the mean time I'm adding this article to my own POV attention list. -JCarriker 17:23, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I like Bill Moyers, but I don't think he's a particularly significant figure. He was a white house press secretary 30 years ago and a journalist for a few publications and programs most people have never heard of. The far right's fetish for attacking him is completely disproportionate to his actual power or accomplishments. I think having to fill the entry with a bunch of superfluous positive biographical information to balance out partisan attacks is the wrong way to go and will hurt the article overall—unless you want a wiki entry consisting mostly of irrelevant information and right-wing rage. --Osbojos 15:39, 25 July 2005 (UTC)[reply]

POV

I don't believe the criticism section has the tone or sound of an encyclopedia. It would appear that the only noteworthy thing about Moyers is his politial views. Of course my second statement is actually true from the standpoint of adults who would be doing a search for Moyers - if not for his criticism, would anyone know who he is at all? That said, I think Google is a better venue for locating that kind of info, and wiki should be more historical/biographical in my opinion. I would reduce the criticism section to links as well - it wouldn't (the wiki page) be nearly as controversial in that case, and the criticism would not appear to outsize the bio.

Reverted Page

I just reverted the page to the Apr 8 version. An anonymous person had added "Moyers has lately been accused of fanatic liberalism as his independance has recently come into question." If this is true, fine, include it, but you need to back it up. Who made the accusation? Why? When? His independence from what has been called into question? Without any supporting evidence it just sounds like slander. The term "fanatic liberal" may have some NPOV problems as well... --Osbojos 21:25, 6 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Birthday

This page is linked to from June 5 as well as June 6, both of which list those days as his birthday. Does anyone know for sure which it is? I've seen it listed as both all over the Internet.

--Gjking

He was born June 5, 1934. (By the way, the most famous June 5/6 confusion is, sadly, the assassination of RFK. He was shot on June 5 and died on June 6. When the assassination happened, Bill Moyers went to Bobby Kennedy's headquarters in NY or DC -- I'm not sure which -- and said, "I'll do anything -- make coffee, anything...")

Image Copyright?

What's the copyright status of the recently-added Bill Moyers image? The user who added the image has very few edits and may be unaware of the copyright policy. --Osbojos 20:28, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Note:I found a public domain image Dec 27, 2005 --Osbojos 23:25, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Link not working properly

The first external link, Marshall News Messenger - http://www.marshallnewsmessenger.com/ - does not work properly so I will remove it.

The term "left-wing" is pejorative--try "progressive"

I object to the use of the term "left-wing" to describe Bill Moyers. He was born a Southern Baptist and is still, by all accounts, a devout and conservative Christian. He worked for Lyndon Johnson, who was a moderate to conservative Democrat, selected as VP to balance the liberal views of J. F. Kennedy. As Johnson's press secretary, Moyers took a lot of heat from liberals for the Vietnam war policy. As a television journalist, he has often explored issues from a populist point of view, but that does not make him "left-wing" in the usual sense of espousing larger, more centralized government. I think "progressive" would describe him more fairly. Let's keep polarizing terms like "left-wing" out of Wikipedia! --WLH

"Progressive" implies progress. A2Kafir 02:01, 2 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Liberal

WLH, I agree with you re the term "liberal" having been turned into a pejorative (apparently for political reasons) which was why I added the qualification indicating it was so "by US standards". Politics aside, I would like to see Wikipedia carrying an international flavour and perspective - avoiding any national overlays. Because of its cultural/economic dominance this cccurs most frequently from a U.S. perspective.

cariboo 02:04, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Modifications by 24.130.117.205

This IP seems to keep editing the article with nonNPOV statements about Moyers' journalistic activities as well as adding lots of links to anti-moyer articles. I think the second is okay as Moyers is a somewhat controversial figure, but if articles are being linked there should be a balance between pro and anti Moyers opinion peices. Tombride 19:15, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I just reverted a revert (a wikipedia first for me), and actually find myself in the awkward position of defending ip 24.130.117.205. I disagree with ip 67.40.0.28 that his last edit constituted vandalism. The Moyers quotes 24.130.117.205 provides seem accurate, and providing quotes where Moyers presents an admittedly "left-wing" perspective seems better than his previous edits, which consisted mostly of hearsay and name calling. I suggest that instead of deleting his comments someone provides a bit of balance by expanding on some of Moyers less controversial accomplishments. I'd be happy to do some of this myself, but I want to make sure there's a consensus that 24.130.117.205's most recent edit is appropriate and relatively npov. A problem I can see with my suggestion, however, is that this article could turn from focusing on Moyers to a lengthy series of attacks and defenses of Moyers' credibility. What do others think? --Osbojos 21:03, 18 Jun 2005 (UTC)

This is 24.130.117.205. There are links provided where Bill Moyers speaks for himself and the NOW link comes from his (and now David Brancaccio's) view of what the show offers its viewers. I don't see how providing exact quotes from Moyers' is in any way inappropriate. Nearly every conservative commentator has criticized Moyers for promoting his personal ideology at taxpayer expense, while railing against those on the Right who do so free of charge to the taxpayer. FAIR is as clearly a left-wing group as Accuracy in Media is a right-wing one. All the attendees at Take Back America were left of center. I certainly wouldn't erase any links providing pro-Moyers commentary. John Stossel's page includes a link to FAIR's criticism of him (FAIR only criticizes non-liberal journalists, as AIM only criticizes non-conservative ones), and he's far less conservative than Moyers is liberal. David Horowitz's page is filled with anti-Horowitz links, and don't intend to erase any of them. --Cryptico 19 June 2005

minor date issue

Not a huge deal, but the article says Bill Moyers was Press Secretary from 1965–1967. The box at the bottom, though, as well as the White_House_Press_Secretary page have his term as 1965–1966. I don't know which is correct, but I thought I should bring it up.

Bill Moyers was press secretary from July 1965 to February 1967.

Anti-Moyers bias typical of right-wing liberal hatred

This page is typical of many other Wikipedia articles on liberal politicians and journalists. The old saying goes that the victors write the (revisionist) history, and this is precisely what is happening. The entry on Lyndon Johnson is enough to turn your stomach, and it, as well as this entry, is enough for me to conclude that Wikipedia is basically worthless as a source of unbiased historical information.

What the hell are you yapping about? Bill Moyers is a liberal activist who has tried to masquerade as an unbiased journalist for decades now, but there is quote after quote after quote that show him to be nothing more than a left-wing hack, no different from right-wingers he berates on a regular basis (except that those right-wingers are honest enough to call themselves conservatives, and they don't bilk the taxpayers to subsidize their shows). His alliance with FAIR, Al Franken, Eric Alterman, Take Back America and numerous other left-wing organizations is proof enough that he is no journalist. Name one quote or piece of information on this page that is untrue.

If Moyers has ever done anything worthy of being called "objective journalism," then stop whining like a sissy and add something about it to this page. Maybe conservatives are just better readers and writers and are just all-around more computer literate... otherwise, how to explain your contention that right-wingers control things at this site?

Anyone who is concerned about a coup in America after a close election is either a) a crazy conspiracy theorist who barely lives up to the journalistic standards of blogs, let alone NPR or b) trying to stoke the partisan fires. Which do you think Moyers was trying to do? He's not stupid or crazy, just biased. It's clear from even a basic sampling of his work. I'm not saying I agree or disagree with his views, or that he's any more or less biased than, say, Bill O'Reilly, but he's clearly more of a liberal commentator than an objective journalist. To argue otherwise is to deny the facts. The problem we have here is in assuming that labelling him a liberal commentator automatically invalidates his decades of work or career in journalism. It doesn't - it is just a new, and probably more accurate, way of looking at his work.--Xinoph 03:52, 3 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It is outrageous that the entry for the most honored person in broadcast journalism should including not a single one of his honors, but only a long "Criticism" section (much of it hearsay.)

FAIR

FAIR is clearly a "liberal" group; it describes itself as "progressive" on its website (a popular euphemism for liberal, if technically inaccurate) and produces liberal shows and writing to balance what it sees as a "conservative bias" in the mainstream media. FAIR does not come within striking distance of, say, Wikipedia's own NPOV policy. If I wrote articles from the viewpoint that FAIR produced media, then claimed to be objective, all my edits would get a "not-NPOV" tag. --Xinoph 03:46, 3 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]