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The quality of democracy and the quality of journalism are deeply entwined.

Bill Moyers

There are honest journalists like there are honest politicians – they stay bought.
BILL MOYERS

Honest Journalist Politician
Lyndon Johnson believed the poor deserved a better life than the economy was providing them. He thought private power and greed had to be checked by a vibrant democracy.
BILL MOYERS

Democracy Economy Greed
Ideas are great arrows, but there has to be a bow.
BILL MOYERS

Arrows Ideas Motivational
Witness the coupling of news and entertainment. See everyday people cast overboard as the pirates and predators of Wall Street seized the ship of state. I didn’t drift; I moved left just by standing still.
BILL MOYERS

Moving Overboard Predator Standing
I was not a public – I was not a thinker. I was a doer.
BILL MOYERS

Doers Public Thinkers
Secrecy is the freedom tyrants dream of.
BILL MOYERS

Dream Freedom Tyrants
Standing up to your government can mean standing up for your country.
BILL MOYERS

Country Government Mean
If the watchdog doesn’t bark, how do you know there’s a burglar in the basement? And the press is supposed to be a watchdog.
BILL MOYERS

Bark Basements Supposed
Freedom begins the moment you realize someone else has been writing your story and it’s time you took the pen from his hand and started writing it yourself.
BILL MOYERS

Freedom Hands Writing
We don’t care really about children as a society and television reflects that indifference to children as human beings.
BILL MOYERS

Care Children Television
America is the longest argument in the world.
BILL MOYERS

Argument Country World
Big money and big business, corporations and commerce, are again the undisputed overlords of politics and government.
BILL MOYERS

Government Running White
In uniform patriotism can salute one flag only, embrace but the first circle of life – one’s own land and tribe. In war that is necessary, in peace it is not enough.
BILL MOYERS

Circles Enough Land Tribe War
What’s right and good doesn’t come naturally. You have to stand up and fight for it – as if the cause depends on you, because it does.
BILL MOYERS

Causes Doe Fighting
You do it because there’s a story to be told. I can tell you that the job of trying to tell the truth about people whose job it is to hide the truth is about as complicated and difficult as trying to hide it in the first place.
BILL MOYERS

Complicated Job People Told Truth Trying
Democracy doesn’t begin at the top; it begins at the bottom, when flesh-and-blood human beings fight to rekindle what Arlo Guthrie calls ‘The Patriot’s Dream.
BILL MOYERS

Blood Dream Fighting

The quality of democracy and the quality of journalism are deeply entwined.

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The quality of democracy and the quality of journalism are deeply entwined.

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Popular Authors

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