Remembering Renowned Broadcaster Bill Moyers

Fresh Air

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4.4 • 34.4K Ratings

🗓️ 1 July 2025

⏱️ 48 minutes

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Summary

Longtime TV correspondent and commentator Bill Moyers died last week at age 91. Before he began his long career in broadcasting, he was presidential aide to Lyndon B. Johnson and later became White House press secretary. In a compilation of archival interviews with Terry Gross, we hear Moyers reflect on his career, his upbringing, and the polarization of American politics.

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0:00.0	This message is brought to you by the Happiness Lab.
0:03.2	How do you cope with life's ups and downs?
0:06.0	In her podcast, Yale professor Dr. Lori Santos explores how people turn to things like music, nature, and hobbies to cope when life gets hard.
0:14.4	Listen to the Happiness Lab wherever you get podcasts.
0:17.6	This is Fresh Air. I'm TV critic David Being Cooley.
0:23.4	Bill Moyers, who made significant contributions to presidential politics and policies, newspapers and network TV news, and was an early
0:29.4	proponent of public television, where he did much of his best work, died Thursday. He was 91 years
0:35.2	old. On today's show, we'll listen back to excerpts of the many
0:39.1	interviews he did with Terry Gross, but we'll begin with this appreciation. Bill Moyers was
0:45.4	born in 34 in Hugo, Oklahoma, and raised in Marshall, Texas. By age 16, he was a cub reporter
0:52.9	for the Marshall News Messenger.
0:55.3	In 1954, while attending Texas State College and majoring in journalism,
1:00.3	he got a summer job interning for his state senator, Lyndon Baines Johnson.
1:05.2	He got the job by writing LBJ a letter that said, quote,
1:09.1	I can tell you something about young people in Texas,
1:12.0	if you can tell me something about politics, unquote.
1:16.7	Moyers became an ordained minister in 1959
1:19.2	and crossed paths with LBJ again
1:21.7	when Johnson was running as vice president
1:23.8	on the Democratic ticket with John F. Kennedy.
1:26.9	Moyers stuck around to help design Kennedy's
1:29.2	Peace Corps program, and after Kennedy was assassinated, was on Air Force One to witness LBJ be sworn in
	...

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