Bill Moyers: "Is this race about the country, or is it about the Clintons?"

[kpete]

Bill Moyers: "The Media Doesn't Allow Complicated Thought To Be Articulated"

(some snippets)

AMY GOODMAN: What did you think of the ABC debate in Pennsylvania with the news anchors going for the first forty-five minutes—really going at Obama around issues, everything from pastors to pins, lapel pins?

BILL MOYERS: I thought it was a great exercise in irrelevance. Going back to one of your earlier questions, we never really—we rarely probe these candidates on what they would do about the fundamental systemic issues facing America. It has become a horse race in the media and on the campaign. That’s inevitable in some respects. But I was really sad to see our craft reduced to that kind of petty and parochial concerns. These debates, moderated and mediated by the press, have really become about the press. The Sunday morning talk shows are all about themselves. They’re not really about what’s happening—they’re not trying to help the people in Dubuque or Dallas or Des Moines get an understanding of the candidates.

....................

AMY GOODMAN: Why do you think these candidates, the leading candidates of the Democratic supposedly opposition party, do not call for an immediate end to the war, do not call for single-payer healthcare?

BILL MOYERS: Because the media doesn’t allow complicated thought to be articulated in ways that enlighten instead of misinform people.

AMY GOODMAN: Is it money in politics?

BILL MOYERS: Oh, it’s who, the big winners in all this money that’s being spent? Obama outspent Clinton three-to-one, and that was all in television ads. It’s the industry that doesn’t want to reform that benefits from the ads. Yes, it’s money in politics, and it’s the triumph of ambition for self over ambition for the country. You know, Mrs. Clinton has a very serious issue to wrestle with in the next seventy-two hours. Is this race about the country, or is it about the Clintons? And ambition and power and particularly the appetite to see the first woman, who happens to be the first wife of a former president, the Adams tradition, the Roosevelt tradition—I mean, that takes over.

much more at:
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/7/broadcasting_legend_bill_moyers_on_the

[saltpoint]

1. Amy Goodman and Bill Moyers. Jesus. I hate it when breath-takingly

insightful people get together and have a dialogue about our country.

I mean, why should we tolerate Amy Goodman and Bill Moyers when we have the infinitely more entertaining FOX and Limbaugh et al? Limbaugh feeds the unspecified anger of a lot of people, and it's a valuable service to have. Thank god he isn't so drug-riddled that he can still come on the air every day and spew distortion and subvert our democracy.

And not only are Goodman and Moyers biased in favor of insightful journalism, they almost never do Anna Nicole and OJ perspective pieces.

Who needs 'em?

[TahitiNut]

2. Indeed! I mean ... where's Matt Drudge and Jeff Gannon when we need them?

:rofl:

[saltpoint]

5. LOL! Yes! Jeff Gannon. He's a jack of many trades, that Jeff Gannon.

With a hall pass into the White House, no less.

Now THAT'S journalism!

[WA98296]

3. I am hoping it is the undoing of the DLC (repubs in hiding)

[Aloha Spirit]

4. This reinforces my bias against MSM, but I'm okay with that.

[QueenOfCalifornia]

6. K&R!

Hey this needs to be K&R'd as much as possible.

Moyers is an American who gets it.

I loves me some Moyers.

[invictus]

7. K & R