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IN MEMORIAM
Bill Moyers, Acclaimed TV Journalist, Dead at 91
By Matt Webb Mitovich
June 26, 2025 2:26 pm
Bill Moyers, a onetime White House Press Secretary (for Lyndon B. Johnson) who then segued into journalism, died on Thursday. He was 91.
Moyers died at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York after a “long illness,” his son William, a producer for CNN, told the Associated Press.
Moyers began his journalism career at age 16 as a cub reporter for a hometown newspaper in Marshall, Texas. In 1963, at age 29, he served as special assistant to President Johnson, and was White House Press Secretary from 1965 to 1967.
As publisher of Newsday from 1967 to 1970, Moyers led the paper to two Pulitzer Prizes. In 1976, he was the senior correspondent for the documentary series CBS Reports and later was a senior news analyst for CBS Evening News.
During his multiple stints at PBS, Moyers headlined This Week With Bill Moyers and then Bill Moyers Journal; he produced and hosted some 70 documentaries; he produced/hosted several episodes of Frontline; and he hosted NOW With Bill Moyers and Wide Angle.
When he briefly retired at the end of 2004, Moyers said, “I’m going out telling the story that I think is the biggest story of our time: how the right-wing media has become a partisan propaganda arm of the Republican National Committee. We have an ideological press that’s interested in the election of Republicans, and a mainstream press that’s interested in the bottom line. Therefore, we don’t have a vigilant, independent press whose interest is the American people.”
Most recently, Moyers hosted the Moyers on Democracy podcast, from 2020 to 2021.
Across his career, Bill received more than 30 Emmys, two Alfred I. Dupont-Columbia University Awards, nine Peabodys, and three George Polk Awards. He also has been honored by the Television Critics Association for Outstanding Career Achievement.
Moyers was elected to the Television Hall of Fame in 1995; a year laterm he received the Charles Frankel Prize (now called the National Humanities Medal) from the National Endowment for the Humanities “for outstanding contributions to American cultural life.”
He has also been honored with the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences’ Lifetime Achievement Award.
Bill Moyers, Acclaimed TV Journalist, Dead at 91
By Matt Webb Mitovich
June 26, 2025 2:26 pm
Bill Moyers, a onetime White House Press Secretary (for Lyndon B. Johnson) who then segued into journalism, died on Thursday. He was 91.
Moyers died at Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York after a “long illness,” his son William, a producer for CNN, told the Associated Press.
Moyers began his journalism career at age 16 as a cub reporter for a hometown newspaper in Marshall, Texas. In 1963, at age 29, he served as special assistant to President Johnson, and was White House Press Secretary from 1965 to 1967.
As publisher of Newsday from 1967 to 1970, Moyers led the paper to two Pulitzer Prizes. In 1976, he was the senior correspondent for the documentary series CBS Reports and later was a senior news analyst for CBS Evening News.
During his multiple stints at PBS, Moyers headlined This Week With Bill Moyers and then Bill Moyers Journal; he produced and hosted some 70 documentaries; he produced/hosted several episodes of Frontline; and he hosted NOW With Bill Moyers and Wide Angle.
When he briefly retired at the end of 2004, Moyers said, “I’m going out telling the story that I think is the biggest story of our time: how the right-wing media has become a partisan propaganda arm of the Republican National Committee. We have an ideological press that’s interested in the election of Republicans, and a mainstream press that’s interested in the bottom line. Therefore, we don’t have a vigilant, independent press whose interest is the American people.”
Most recently, Moyers hosted the Moyers on Democracy podcast, from 2020 to 2021.
Across his career, Bill received more than 30 Emmys, two Alfred I. Dupont-Columbia University Awards, nine Peabodys, and three George Polk Awards. He also has been honored by the Television Critics Association for Outstanding Career Achievement.
Moyers was elected to the Television Hall of Fame in 1995; a year laterm he received the Charles Frankel Prize (now called the National Humanities Medal) from the National Endowment for the Humanities “for outstanding contributions to American cultural life.”
He has also been honored with the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences’ Lifetime Achievement Award.
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