Bill Moyers Was the Face of Taxpayer-Funded Propaganda!

Tim Graham on Jul 2, 2025

Liberal journalists dumped a barrel of glorifying adjectives upon the news Bill Moyers died at age 91. The Washington Post headline was "Bill Moyers, eminence of public affairs broadcasting, dies at 91."

AP's Frazier Moore gushed, "the former White House press secretary who became one of television's most honored journalists, masterfully using a visual medium to illuminate a world of ideas." Some also used "legendary."

CNN's Brian Stelter oozed, "His career can and should serve as a model for younger generations." Ugh.

NPR anchor Scott Simon hailed Moyers as "one of the signature figures, along with Big Bird and Susan Stamberg, who helped build public broadcasting in the United States." Simon added, "He won the most prestigious awards of our profession, some in bunches -- more than 30 Emmys, 11 Peabodys, two Columbia-duPonts, plus many other honors for his PBS documentaries and interviews."

Moyers was acclaimed by other leftists because he was a die-hard leftist. Objectivity was never observed. He crusaded on the public dime against those villainous conservatives. He won Emmy awards just like the latest prizes to "60 Minutes" -- for hating Donald Trump and laboring to elect Kamala Harris. They award having your "heart in the right place."

Moyers was the "signature figure" of everything wrong with "public" broadcasting. He savaged conservatives and also lined his own pockets with revenues of his programs being sold on PBS Home Video. He used his PBS fame to sell expensive coffee-table books, just as Ken Burns does today. But the notable quotes were outrageous.

In 1987, Moyers oozed over paintings glorifying the Marxist revolutionaries dominating Nicaragua: "The white dove of freedom soars with the Sandinista revolution, whose heroes included Jesus Christ, George Washington and the nationalist hero Augusto Sandino."

After the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, Moyers blamed conservative talk radio on NBC: "Talk radio in that part of the world is more anti-government today than ever. The airwaves are saturated with hostility. It's just an unremitting vilification of government."

On his PBS show "Now" in 2003, Moyers ripped Republicans who wore flag pins, which was somehow reminiscent of communism: "When I see flags sprouting on official lapels, I think of the time in China when I saw Mao's Little Red Book on every official's desk, omnipresent and unread."

Later that year, Moyers came unglued over a press conference with President George W. Bush before the invasion of Iraq that was insufficiently vicious: "Matt Taibbi wrote in The New York Press at the time that it was like a mini-Alamo for American journalism. I'd say it was more a collective Jonestown-like suicide. At least the defenders of the Alamo put up a fight."

In 2007, Moyers compared Bush-Cheney to an "arsonist" and a "burglar in the basement." He suggested the press was in cahoots with the "arsonist."

In 2011, Moyers ranted that Republicans want "to feed red meat to Fox News and the partisan talk radio hosts who have turned the public airwaves ... into a right-wing romper room." He quoted from yellow dog Democrat Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas, that "My constituents turn to (NPR) because they want fact-based, not Fox-based coverage." The attacks, he continued, are "an ideological crusade against balanced news and educational programs."

NPR is balanced and non-ideological? How delusional can you be?

But to Moyers, a crusading leftist press was the model, and a mildly liberal media were basically in cahoots with evil Republicans. This is why he's "acclaimed" by people who still pretend their ideological screeds are "fact-based." Their opinions aren't opinions, they're "truth," and that "truth" should be eternally supported by all taxpayers.

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Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Tim Graham and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.