Bill Moyers Quotes
Our job is to get as close to the verified truth as is possible.
Bill Moyers, Journalist, Special Assistant to President Lyndon B. Johnson, White House Press Secretary, On the Job of a Journalist, Maryland Public Television, January 2, 2009
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The issue under discussion was the fact that the United States Military does not, unlike all civilian courts, maintain a docket of court martials. An interested citizen or a reporter, who usually has a right to attend and observe the proceeding has no way of finding out where and when the proceeding will take place unless the military chooses to inform people or make it public. Courts Martial are legally open to observers except for special circumstances—like civilian criminal trials. However, the military wants as little coverage as possible.
Husayn Ali Nuri
This is a notable quotation illustrating the state of relations between the press and the government under Theodore Roosevelt. Baker was one of the most muckraking of the investigative reports. And previously there were no accommodations for the press in government agencies. Roosevelt and most of his reformist appointees believed that public opinion was crucial to achieving their political objectives and that transparency would do them much more good than harm. Roosevelt and his colleagues had so much success with the press, that every administration since has made accommodations for the press and tried to use the press to promote their agenda. Most Presidents did not have the thick skin of Theodore Roosevelt who had been disrespected by some of the press since Abraham Lincoln. See {640476} for an example. Most Presidential administrations wanted the good press but also wanted to control the bad.
Billy Don Moyers is an American journalist and political commentator. He served as the ninth White House Press Secretary under the Johnson administration from 1965 to 1967. He also worked as a network TV news commentator for ten years. Moyers has been extensively involved with public broadcasting, producing documentaries and news journal programs. He has won numerous awards and honorary degrees for his investigative journalism and civic activities. He has become well known as a trenchant critic of the corporately structured U.S. news media.
