Bill Moyers is a gentleman. At one time I lived in his neighborhood. I enjoy watching his shows immensely. I am looking forward to seeing a video of his show with Matt Taibbi and Chrystia Rreeland discussing her new book Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else. I will almost surely feature it here when it does.
There is a link after Bill Moyers video to a short piece by Matt Taibbi. As Matt points out:
1) Bill Moyers doesn't work for NPR, and never has. He appears on television which is PBS. NPR is radio.This sort of flagrant abuse of the facts is nothing new for some of the major figures at Fox. I will watch some of their network shows, but I could not bear to listen to their news programs. I did at one time, but when the US entered into the Iraq war it become clearer to me that I was watching something that reassured me in a mythology that was growing increasingly foul.
2) More significantly, Bill Moyers does not receive any money from PBS, or NPR from that matter. His show is entirely self-supported by donors as is stated at every broadcast.
If anything, Moyers supports public television.
I can only echo Moyers, that they create a dangerous bubble of misinformation, a "an alternate reality, where the truth is as elusive as a moonbeam and facts as alien as little green men with bug eyes."
No single source of news is good, but some are worse than others. And Fox has taken broadcast journalism to new lows, and encourages the other news departments to sacrifice their integrity in pursuit of corporate sponsors and ideology. MSNBC is to some degree their counterpart to the left. And the three major US financial networks are becoming little more than extended infomercials and political mouthpieces for the financial industry.
Money is power, and the corrupting influence of the monied interests is something that history warns us about again and again.
Some of this is due to the concentration of media ownership in corporate hands, and part is due to the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine and the downsizing of the FCC. I am no fan of censorship, because that is a two edged sword that always bites back.
Besides, it is fun to watch Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert parody the corporate media with their own words, and Fox in particular. As long as speech remains free, we will have the ability to learn what is and what is not, if we wish.
Matt Taibbi on the Moyers - O'Reilly Dust Up
