Bill Moyers: 'Journalism in Profound Crisis' (Video)

By Bill Moyers, Free Press. Posted June 7, 2008.

On Saturday, Bill Moyers electrified an audience of more than 3,500 at the National Conference for Media Reform in Minneapolis. Addressing the packed auditorium, Moyers said the work of the media reform movement has "challenged the stranglehold of mega-media corporations over our press" and fostered "alternative and independent sources of news and information that people can trust."

Watch the video of Moyers' speech to the right

Moyers cited the recent exposés about government propaganda in mainstream media as a symptom of "journalism in profound crisis."

"You couldn't find a more revealing measure of the state of the dominant media today than the continuing ubiquitous presence -- on the air and in print -- of the very pundits and experts, self-selected 'message multipliers' of a disastrous foreign policy, who got it all wrong in the first place," he said.

At the root of this crisis, Moyers said, is media consolidation.

"As conglomerates swallow up newspapers, magazines, publishing houses and broadcast outlets, news organizations are folded into entertainment divisions. The news hole in the print media shrinks to make room for ads, celebrities, nonsense and propaganda, and the news we need to know slips from sight."

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Bill Moyers is the host of Bill Moyers Journal on PBS.

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