1992 duPont Award Ceremony

Thank you, Peter. Now it is my privilege, my distinct honor to introduce Michael Soberd, the president of Columbia University who will present our highest award, the Gold Baton. Thank you, Ed. We are, as always, delighted to have you and your distinguished colleagues at Columbia. One of those colleagues, the winner of the Gold Baton, is responsible for an extraordinary body of work, exemplified by a number of fine broadcasts during the past year alone. In many respects, he embodies values brought to broadcast journalism by Edward Armero. But he is a unique voice, still seeking new frontiers and television, daring to assume that viewing audiences are willing to think and to learn. He has been our surrogate in fascinating conversations with the thoughtful and the powerful, and he has enlightened us with his interpretive essays

and investigative reports. He brings to his work a sense of wonder and of outrage and a profound respect for history and the wisdom of the ages for his singular independent contributions to broadcast journalism, covering a vast agenda and including this year such distinguished works as high crimes and misdemeanors, the home front, beyond hate, amazing grace, and after the war, the Gold Baton goes to Bill Moyers. APPLAUSE Walking to work every morning during the Gulf War and following its progress like millions of other Americans, it was impossible to miss the paradox. While from thousands of miles away, came reports of impressive military success all around us were reminders of the battles we are losing at home. At 0400 hours local this morning, coalition forces

began a major ground, naval, and air offensive to eject Iraqi forces from Kuwait. 7, 2, 3, 4, 2, 1. As I look at what's happening in America, and I see that the pride, the rebirth and pride, I feel saddened that we don't understand that in New York City, over the average two nights that it took us to go in and launch that land war, we probably lost more citizens of this city for murder than were lost in fighting the whole Iraqi army. By all accounts, the Iraqi army is being routed all across the world's own. The faithful said about a quarter of million Iraqi soldiers have been rendered combat ineffective. I am pleased to announce that at midnight tonight, Eastern Standard Time, exactly 100 hours since ground operations commenced,

all United States and coalition forces will suspend offensive combat operations. The war overseas might be over, or it might be overseen, but here we'll be battling for one. These men were here before the war started, and they are still here. So are poverty, crime, and unemployment. The war didn't create these conditions, but it didn't solve them either. As it ended, we wondered, when will we find the same will and resources to win the war here on the home front? I'm Bill Moyer. In coping with hatred, there are no miracles. This world is hard on believers, and even the faith in progress that greeted our sentry has itself fallen victim to hatred, armed with modern weapons, and sent marching in the service of the state. Even when nations are at peace with one another,

we're too often reminded of what hate can do in a single mind possessed by. We've seen hate born a fear. Hate speaking in the name of God and truth. Hate, holding up a distorting mirror to our fellow human being. We have seen too that hatred is easier learned than relinquished. Still, by looking at hatred, honestly, by thinking and talking about it, and sometimes, just by acknowledging our own capacity for it, we open the possibility of a moral response. There is a road beyond hate. It leads not to utopia, but to civilization. One step at a time, one person to another. Oh, please, in grace, oh, sweet, the sound. Does it surprise you that this song, which you say naturally

in church years ago, has now become so universally popular? Yes. And recognized and received. Yes. I am surprised by that. And I was surprised at the popularity that this song seemed to gain in the 60s. I was very surprised by that. Up until then, it was pretty well in the province of your church and my church, religious folk country. But somehow the genie got out of the bottle. Yeah, it really did. And it stayed there. I didn't know that the melody that we know is an American one, an American folk melody. We don't know how this came to be. But it's interesting, the life of John Newton, I find this quite unbelievable that he'd been aboard ships where slaves were transported from West Africa to England and United States. And then he found grace. It is only now that official censorship has been lifted. And eyewitness reports are coming in that we can look at the whole experience.

Now we can learn the truth and see the consequences of the war. 80,500 tons of bombs were dropped. But only 7% were precision-guided smart bombs. 70% of all bombs missed their targets. Oh, I just went to baby. 70% not even the patriot missile turned out to work all the miracles claimed for it. As the Iraqi army retreated from Kuwait in chaos, there was a rebellion inside Iraq. Several thousands, Shiite Muslims in the South, took up arms against Saddam Hussein and looked to America for help. But President Bush ordered the Allied army to stop fighting, allowing at least 20,000 of Hussein's cracked troops, the Republican Guard, to escape. The terms of the truth between Iraq and the U.S. call for the grounding of Saddam Hussein's airplanes, but not as helicopters.

I think I was suckered, because I think they intended right then when they asked that question to use those helicopters against the insurrection, so we're going on. In the north of Iraq, the Kurds, like the Shiites in the South, rose up against Hussein. He crushed them, too, with troops spared by the cease fire. Nearly two million Kurds led to makeshift water camps in Iran and here in Turkey. Americans rejoice that their troops are coming home. For these returning soldiers and their loved ones, this war has a happy ending. But for the victims of Saddam's cruelty and the American policy, the suffering continues. For us, the war is over. For millions, it isn't. Only by remembering them can our celebration be tempered by the truth.

No war is clean. Every victory is someone's horror. The least we owe them is our grief. I'm Bill Moyers. Ladies and gentlemen, here to accept the Dupont, Columbia Goldbeton, is Bill Moyers. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you. I first have to thank Michael and Columbia and the Dupont jurors for this award for this reason.

Before Christmas, I was with our younger son in the Antarctic. He knows a lot about those places. And I don't. We were coming back in the ship at night through the fog. And as the first light of morning at 230 arrived, there was a strange new bird on the bow of the ship. And I said to John, what is that? And he said, I don't know, but it indicates that somewhere out there in the fog is land. And these awards keep reminding me that in the fog and the ice, there is land. And those of you who work this way are responsible for it. I've been scrambling notes over here because I didn't know, frankly. I had hints and rumors of this or that, but I didn't know what this was about. So I wasn't prepared fully in what I would say. But I hope you know that if all the world's a megaphone, as it seems to be these days, then surely the applause you gave me a second ago, is reaching the hearts of all those people who have been my collaborators for 20 years

in this business, the producers, the associate producers, the directors, the cameramen and women, the sound technicians, the editors, the engineers, the researchers, all those people for whom for two decades I have been a moving front. I love this craft. I scold it sometimes, primarily because it doesn't always demand the best of us or the people who only don't know the wonder of the medium that they control. But I love it, despite the fact that I scold it. I love it for the collaboration that it makes possible. If you were to take apart any frame of any film that I've been a part of or any part of any tape, you would see over at the fingerprints of hundreds of men and women who have been my collaborators in this work. And I hope that you know that they are hearing this applause. That goes from my mentor, Fred Friendley, who at this very hour fights in the hospital after a severe stroke, who's not a presence here tonight, except in our lives and in our work.

It goes for my first executive producer, Jerry Tuben, who even now sits in that great music room in the sky and listens to Vivaldi. He taught me that public affairs is more than politics. It includes music. It reaches your applause, Jack Sammuth, who retired last year after 40 years in this business, always searching for excellence. To executive producers like Howard Stringer and Andy Lyck at CBS, where I've had the best of both worlds, commercial and non-commercial. To Judy Dr. All, who runs our company, she's half my age and twice as blessed. And through it all, my partner and my wife, Judith Davidson, an educator by training, a business woman by choice, and a television executive by summons. My life with Judith has been a running conversation, sometimes at decibel levels that would drown an atomic explosion. But I've learned so much from our dialogue together. She's the toughest critic I've had and the least intimidated, because in her book,

truth is the first obligation in love and the editing room. She's president of PAT, my creative collaborator, the executive producer of four of those shows you just saw. She's here with so many of our team, and I'd like for you to stand up, Judith, and the others. I have to take a minute, and we have just such little time. I have to take a minute to name the people, though, because it's important for the honesty of our own acknowledgement that we are not the producers of these shows. We, who are respondents, it's these people. All right, high crimes and misdemeanors. As we mentioned, David Fanning and his team and I did three broadcasts together last year. This one, one called Springfield Goes to War, and another called Global Dumping Ground. All three of them were a joy for me to work with.

There's not a better group of professional men and women in this business than David. The home front, Kevin, I call Mark and Los Angeles, and we'll come up early in the morning and said, Mark, what are you doing? He said, I'm trying to come awake. And I said, let's do a show. And three months later, the home front was on the air. The producer of Beyond Hate, a wonderful couple, Katherine Taji and Dominic Lissur, who also the producers of Next Wednesday night's show called Hate on Trial about a trial of two skinheads that we out in Oregon. Amazing grace. I don't know, man, as many of you know her. She's not here tonight, but she produced that show. And after the war, Howard Weinberg, Tom Peshato, Kathleen Hughes, so many people, I want to thank them and tell you, you make journalism the happiest home I've ever had. Thank you. Thank you, Bill. On behalf of President Sovereign Dean Connor,

the Alfred Eidupon jurors, thank you here at Columbia and all of you at home for joining us. Good night. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This is PBS.