DEPARTING WORDS

A video of roughly half the speech, which Moyers gave a year ago (Nov. 18, 2003), was posted last spring by Democracy Now!, but it's worth hearing every last word of what he had to say. You can also read the transcript. (It includes policy recommendations he decided to skip in his speech.) If you prefer a summary, here's mine.

Moyers's eloquence was tasty stuff:

In earlier times our governing bodies tried to squelch journalistic freedom with the blunt instruments of the law: padlocks for the presses and jail cells for outspoken editors and writers. Over time, with spectacular wartime exceptions, the courts and the Constitution struck those weapons out of their hands. But they've found new ones now, in the name of "national security." ...

Never has there been an administration so disciplined in secrecy, so precisely in lockstep in keeping information from the people at large and -- in defiance of the Constitution -- from their representatives in Congress. Never has so powerful a media oligopoly -- the word is Barry Diller's, not mine -- been so unabashed in reaching like Caesar for still more wealth and power. Never have hand and glove fitted together so comfortably to manipulate free political debate, sow contempt for the idea of government itself, and trivialize the people's need to know.

One other thing. When Moyers retired from broadcast journalism, appearing eight days ago for the last time on his weekly PBS program "Now," he said it would continue with David Brancaccio as host. And it will. But "without Moyers's influence at PBS," I was concerned that "you have to wonder how long the show will last." Well, the signs are already lousy. "Now" will be cut down from 60 minutes to 30 minutes, Amy Goodman reports.