Bill Moyers (left–and leftist) has long been regarded as one of the worst journalistic shills for the Democratic Party, pretending neutrality but in reality viciously slanting his coverage in favor of liberal causes.
And with good reason. As his Wikipedia entry notes:
Moyers’ frequent criticism of conservative policy has led conservative commentators like Brent Bozell to label him a liberal commentator rather than an objective journalist.
Moyers has drawn further allegations of bias in his role as president of the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy. In 2003 the center gave money to a variety of establishments which have been described as "left leaning," such as Sojourners magazine ($500,000), Salon.com ($277,785) and The Nation magazine ($115,000). After reviewing these donations David Horowitz’s conservative Discover the Network website has asserted that "Bill Moyers has dropped any pretense of objectivity". He has also been involved with the group Take Back America, an organization that seeks to help elect liberal political candidates.
I was interested, therefore, when E. Calvin Beisner of the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance told me that he would be on a recent episode of Moyers’ program "Moyers on America" that was devoted to environmentalism and titled "Is God Green?"
I was not surprised that he tried to smear Cal by selectively disclosing facts and selectively editing the interview he did with him. That’s par for the course with the MSM. What did surprise me was just how open Moyers was about his use of his journalism as a political tool to benefit liberal causes. In a recent ISA newsletter (not yet online, unfortunately), Cal writes (EXCERPTS):
The bias of Moyers’s program is not
surprising. He forthrightly told me before our interviews that he, as a
liberal Democrat, hoped to use this program to divide the evangelical
vote and return control of Congress to the Democrats in November’s
elections. The timing of the program’s release, therefore, is not
surprising.The PBS program aired Wednesday, October 11. The full program, which included excerpts from an interview Moyers did with yours truly, can be viewed on PBS’s web site; the transcript is also available, as is the full transcript of his interview with me. Comparing the full transcript of his interview with me with what actually got into the program is an education in how to misrepresent someone by editing his on-camera comments.
What kind of selective presentation of information did Moyers make?
While Moyers mentioned that some think tanks that oppose the popular view receive some funding from fossil fuel industry sources (and, by the way, he did not mention that I received no compensation for my association with the Acton Institute or any other think tank–he just let the association of ideas do its job of making viewers think my views are bought off), he did not mention that the Evangelical Climate Initiative’s initial funding was a $475,000 grant from the Hewlett Foundation, which is a major supporter of abortion as a method of population control around the world, or the reasons why Hewlett links those concerns with global warming concerns.
[H]e left the appearance that this lonely little professor of historical theology and social ethics [Beisner] holds this view, along with a handful of contrarian scientists, all bought off by industry money, when in fact, as we document in our “Call to Truth,” the scientific community is quite divided on the issue.
You will also have noticed that Moyers very carefully avoided all discussion of the actual scientific evidence, asserting instead simply that a 2004 study of 928 scientific articles found unanimous consensus in favor of the manmade catastrophic warming hypothesis. What he didn’t tell viewers was that an attempt to replicate that study discovered very significant methodological errors in it that improperly excluded over 90 percent of the relevant literature and that even within the articles the study did survey,
* only 1 percent explicitly endorsed what study author Naomi Oreskes called the “consensus view”;
* 29 percent implicitly accepted it “but mainly focus[ed] on impact assessments of envisaged global climate change”;
* 8 percent focused on “mitigation”;
* 6 percent focused on methodological questions;
* 8 percent dealt “exclusively with paleo-climatological research unrelated to recent climate change”;
* 3 percent “reject[ed] or doubt[ed] the view that human activities are the main drivers of the ‘the [sic] observed warming over the last 50 years’”;
* 4 percent focused “on natural factors of global climate change”; and
* 42 percent did “not include any direct or indirect link or reference to human activities, CO2 or greenhouse gas emissions, let alone anthropogenic forcing of recent climate change.” {Benny J. Peiser, Letter to Science, January 4, 2005, submission ID: 56001.Science Associate Letters Editor Etta Kavanagh eventually decided against publishing the letter, or the shortened version of it provided at her request by Peiser, not because it was flawed but because “the basic points of your letter have already been widely dispersed over the internet” (e-mail from Etta Kavanagh to Benny Peiser, April 13, 2005). Peiser, a scientist at Liverpool John Moores University, replied: “As far as I am aware, neither the details nor the results of my analysis have been cited anywhere. In any case, don’t you feel that SCIENCE has an obligation to your readers to correct manifest errors? After all, these errors continue to be employed by activists, journalists and science organizations . . . . Are you not aware that most observers know only too well that there is absolutely *no* consensus within the scientific community about global warming science?” He went on to cite a survey of “some 500 climatologists [that] found that ‘a quarter of respondents still question whether human activity is responsible for the most recent climatic changes,” and other evidence. Peiser, e-mail to Kavanagh, April 14, 2005. The whole correspondence, including much more evidence of the lack of scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming, and refutation of some attempts to debunk Peiser’s critique of Oreskes’s study, is online at www.staff.livjm.ac.uk/spsbpeis/Scienceletter.htm.}
When you think the data are on your side, you argue the data. When you don’t, you attack the person. That is what Moyers did, and that is what the supporters of the Evangelical Climate Initiative have done, consistently.
UPDATE: Mr. Moyers disputes Dr. Beisner’s account; PLEASE SEE THIS LINK.
Mr. Moyers sent an e-mail to Dr. Beisner stating the following:
From: Moyers, Bill
Sent: Tuesday, October 17, 2006 12:47 PM
To: [Dr. E. Calvin Beisner]
Subject: What has come over you?You are not telling the truth. In fact, what you wrote in the ISA
newsletter is an outright lie. You claim that "When Moyers interviewed
me for the documentary last spring, he very candidly told me that he is
a liberal Democrat and intended for the documentary to influence the
November elections to bring control of Congress back to the Democrats."
I said nothing of the sort — nothing. To the contrary, I told you that
I am an independent – members of the crew remember my saying that to
you specifically (there were, remember, three other people in the
room.) You yourself taped the entire session with your own recorder;
show me where in the transcript such a conversation occurred. I also
told you, as I told everyone interviewed, that we of course could not
usethe entire interview but that I would post it on our Website when
the broadcast aired, as was done. If I had said anything approaching
what you claim I said, if you perceived any bias on my part. you could
have — and should have refused to participate. But you did participate
freely, you were treated fairly and honestly, and for you now to bear
false witness is not only unChristian but astonishing. What am I to
make of the many friendly emails you have sent over these months,
signed: "In Christ, Cal"? Or our exchange on how much I have enjoyed
your daughter’s CD that you sent? Your conservative evangelical
brothers who were also interviewed in the documentary – from Richard
Cizik to Tri Robinson to Allan Johnson (not a liberal among them) have
written in praise of how they were treated. You and you alone have
chosen to bear false witness to our conversation and to defame – in
your own words –the ethics and journalistic balance of the documentary.
You owe me arid my team an apology and a public retraction.Bill
Try to pinpoint the moment you realized 90% of mainstream journalism is junk. Mine was years ago with the infamous exploding truck piece. Can’t remember the brand or even the context, but I will never forget video of those estes rockets rigged up to the truck to make it explode after it failed to do so in regular test crashes.
“All the news that fits, we print.”
Wasn’t Bill Moyers the Chuck Colson of the LBJ administration. (No, that can’t be right: Moyers was a Baptist minister before he became LBJ’s press secretary, meaning that he went from religious figure to White House hatchet man, while Colson went exactly the other way.)
So, Bill Moyers is doing what?
He’s not exactly acting as a mole within say a “no spin zone.”
Just a thought.
Scott W asks just the right qq in just the right way. there comes a time, no doubt about it. Bill M was one of the creepies that made face the facts, 25 years ago now, that the msm was poisoned. his day is over. the internet, for all its flaws, has broken the monopoly is the msm. from here on out, there will stil be bill moyers out there, but they will be known for what they are. pr mananers for the Left.
…the internet, for all its flaws, has broken the monopoly is the msm. from here on out…
I remember watching a call-in on C-span in which one caller said blogs and internet news needed to be regulated and taxed. The guest (I can’t remember) quipped, “Well, I’m glad you were not around in Thomas Paine’s time.” 🙂
He’s not exactly acting as a mole within say a “no spin zone.”
While I am not a fan of Bill O., I think many people are under the misapprehension that “no spin” equals no bias. It don’t.
It is interesting to note that the two main views of the blogosphere from the left seem to be;
1) It’s impact on the MSM and American politics is overated… it’s really not that big a deal.
2) It should be regulated and taxed immediately.
Moyers helped me to realize that some people really can look you in the eye, shake your hand and smile warmly while planning to, say, garrote you in your sleep.
Metaphorically speaking.
Like a warm, folksy, homespun mob boss.
My moment of realizing that the media cannot be trusted came even earlier than the exploding truck. I was watching the televised Iran-Contra hearings. Col North said something like “You people keep saying that I did …something or other… but it’s not true”. I don’t remember what he identified in the sentence as not being true but later that day I was at my parents’ house and saw the NBC nightly news. The lede that night was “Oliver North admits wrong doing” and they played a very carefully edited tape of Col North saying “I did….” They left out the part where he said “you people keep saying…. but it’s not true.” I have not volutarily watched network news since that day. The exploding truck, the planting of outdated food in inner-city grocery stores, none of that surprises me. People who don’t believe that there is objective Truth, will invariably lie to you.
“All the news that fits, we print.”
Wrong, Bill. It should be “all the news that fits our liberal agenda, we print.”
I think that’s what Bill meant.
Well, that’s what I meant: “fits our templet.”
Jimmy, we passed in the ether.
Jimmy and Bill,
I guess I was being a little too over-accurate, if you know what I mean.
Well, if Moyers did a hatchet job through bad-faith editing, then shame on him. I haven’t seen this series yet, but a word to the wise is appreciated.
Having said that, however, Moyers is very open about his opinions and point of view. He can’t really be criticized in general for harboring a hidden agenda. I found his “Faith and Reason” series, which is also available online, very worthwhile. I like anybody who can really make you think. Like Bill Moyers and Jimmy Akin.
(With the opening caveat, of course.)
Oh, and re: 90% of mainstream journalism is junk:
Alas, 90% of everything is junk. Babies and bathwater, etc.
Jealous much?
Bill Moyers has had his statements read on the floor of the Senate, has a journalism degree, and is author of the New York Times Best Selling Book “How Would A Journalist Crush Dissent?” His comments often lead to front-page stories on most major newspapers in the country. And he has one of the most-read blogs on the Interent, after just 9 months of blogging. I love how all you super-important rightwing bloggers attack me, I mean him, just to get traffic.
I bid you GOOD DAY, sir.
“Jealous much?
Bill Moyers has had his statements read on the floor of the Senate, has a journalism degree, and is author of the New York Times Best Selling Book “How Would A Journalist Crush Dissent?” His comments often lead to front-page stories on most major newspapers in the country. And he has one of the most-read blogs on the Interent, after just 9 months of blogging. I love how all you super-important rightwing bloggers attack me, I mean him, just to get traffic.
I bid you GOOD DAY, sir.”
Qua?
Ellsberg has no clue where (s)he has landed. Jimmy Akin’s blog is about as much fueled by a desire and interest to create traffic (in the google.com sense) as my FDR Demacrat grandma is when she calls for a return to the “New Deal” with her friends when playing bridge.
“McWilson’s” post was a satire (and quite funny). Some people create fake identities online and post comments defending themselves. It’s called creating a “sock puppet.” The post was very similar to things posted by a fellow named Glenn Greenwald under other names, boasting about and defending himself, ending with “I bid you GOOD DAY, sir.” He was caught out when site operators examined traffic logs and determined that the source of these comments was the same IP address in Brazil (I think it was Brazil) Glenn Greenwald posts from.
So What? Mr. Moyers’ left-leaning or liberal bias is a big improvement over what passes for “commentary” or analysis in most channels. His stories are meticiously researched and usually well ahead of the pack.
I find these criticisms of him to be a warm endorsement, and will continue to watch/read Mr. Moyers at any opportunity.
I also find all this bashing of liberalism to be quite pointless. Liberalism is the foundation of our Nation–just read the Declaration of Independence. Liberalism, as the basis for a Constitutional Republic, such as the USA, is quite a borad umbrella, and has lots of room for both “liberals” and “conservatives.”
Much of what passes today as “conservative” is actullly extreme right-wing radicalism–e.g. tossing out Habeus Corpus, torture, lack of fiscal or judiciary oversight, etc. and draws disturbing parallels to another 20th century republic which was overthrown by fascists in the mid-30s.
Savvy?
“Liberalism, as the basis for a Constitutional Republic, such as the USA, is quite a borad umbrella, and has lots of room for both “liberals” and “conservatives.”
Really? Then why are liberals currently the very definition of political intolerance? They support free speech, but only for themselves, and can not tolerate open debate.
Tsk, tsk, tsk. Looks like it’s time to shut down operations, isn’t it? Maybe the Simpering Imbecile should have started by getting rid of the libel laws first, instead of trashing habeous corpus and the Bill of Rights. Just goes to show that facts do, indeed, have a liberal bias. If only you had controlled yourself, you could have babbled on with whatever slimy, dishonest opinion you wanted. But that wasn’t good enough; nope, you had to come up with specific, false, libelous accusations of FACT. What a dummy!!
UncleBestraffe wrote: “Liberalism is the foundation of our Nation–just read the Declaration of Independence. Liberalism, as the basis for a Constitutional Republic, such as the USA, is quite a borad umbrella, and has lots of room for both “liberals” and “conservatives.” ”
Modern Conservatism is the effort to conserve the liberalism of the time of the Founding. Liberalism at that time meant individual rights as opposed to an all-powerful monarchy. Liberalism nowadays means something more like taking the individual’s money so that the group (or rather the elites of the group) can do what it thinks best with it, such as give it to other people — which to me sounds similar to what the all-powerful monarchy used to do. On the other hand, Conservativism nowadays means letting the individual keep his own money and do what he thinks best with it. I’ll let the reader decide which is more like the philosophy of the Founders.