Bill Moyers hits back

Bill Moyers, the target of unremitting partisan criticism by CPB chair Kenneth Tomlinson, has hit back in a speech to the National Conference for Media Reform in St Louis. Although focused on Tomlinson's grossly partisan right-wing agenda (I've talked about this in previous blogs here and here) Moyers' speech also struck at the core of the problem facing American democracy and its media freedoms today.

An unconscious people, an indoctrinated people, a people fed only partisan information and opinion that confirm their own bias, a people made morbidly obese in mind and spirit by the junk food of propaganda, is less inclined to put up a fight, ask questions and be skeptical. And just as a democracy can die of too many lies, that kind of orthodoxy can kill us, too.

This would be why the speech was titled "A democracy can die of too many lies".

A full transcript of Moyers' speech is available on Salon here