Bill Moyers keynote address to the AEJMC

I just finished watching a CSPAN webcast of Bill Moyer's keynote address to the Association for Education in Journalism in Mass Communications which he gave Thursday and was aired on CSPAN last night. You can find the webcast at this link.

I wrote down a few of the high points as I watched. Here they are:

"News is what people [in power] want to keep hidden."

Moyers pointed out that a recent poll found more than fifty percent of the respondents believed free speech should be prohibited if it sounded unpatriotic. To that Moyers said, "Imagine that, free speech is sedition." He paused, his words hanging pregnant in the air, and then continued, almost whispering into the microphone, "My friends, silence is sedition."

Moyers also noted that he went to the news stand last Sunday to buy the NY Times and discovered that the price of the paper had gone up 50 cents. As he opened the paper, he saw the announcement that the Times was shrinking the width of the paper by 2.5 inches to save money. The announcement said there would be some reduction in the number of words printed. Moyer's comment, "It's a sign of the times, more money, less news."

And, finally on a lighter note Moyer's quipped that as they were leaving the Garden of Eden, Adam turned to Eve and said, "My dear, we live in a time of transition."

The speech runs about an hour and is well worth watching if you have any interest in journalism.