Bill Moyers Collection
Collection Summary
Bill Moyers has been a broadcast journalist for more than five decades and is recognized as a unique voice of our times, one that resonates with multiple generations. The Museum of Broadcast Communications calls Moyers "one of the few broadcast journalists who might be said to approach the stature of Edward R. Murrow. If Murrow founded broadcast journalism, Moyers significantly extended its traditions."
With his wife and creative partner, Judith Davidson Moyers, he produced such groundbreaking public affairs series as NOW with Bill Moyers (2002-05), Bill Moyers Journal (three installments between 1972-2010) and Moyers & Company (2012-15). Other notable productions have included the landmark Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth (1988), as well as Healing and the Mind (1993), The Language of Life (1995), Genesis: A Living Conversation (1996), On Our Own Terms: Moyers on Dying (2000), Moyers on Addiction: Close to Home (1998), America’s First River (2002), Becoming American: The Chinese Experience (2003), and Moyers on America (2006).
All of this work, along with other broadcasts Moyers produced for public television, can be found in The Bill Moyers Collection, which is made up of over 1,000 programs produced from 1970 through 2021. Much of that work was produced by Public Affairs Television and is currently managed and distributed by Doctoroff Media Group.
Programs in the collection that are not available online can be accessed via Limited Research Access. To request limited research access, please contact us at aapb_notifications@wgbh.org.
Collection Background
At age 16, Moyers began his journalism career as a cub reporter for his hometown newspaper in Marshall, Texas. After graduate school he was a founding organizer of the Peace Corps and its deputy director for three years, before becoming special assistant and then press secretary to President Lyndon B. Johnson through the days of the Great Society - including the enactment of the Civil and Voting Rights Acts, the creation of Medicaid and Medicare, and the War on Poverty. Moyers went on to leadership positions at Newsday, CBS Reports, and CBS Evening News before beginning his career in public television in 1971.
As publisher of Newsday from 1967 to 1970, Moyers brought to the newspaper such writers as Pete Hamill, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and Saul Bellow, leading the paper to two Pulitzer Prizes. In 1976, he was the senior correspondent for the distinguished documentary series CBS Reports and later a senior news analyst for the CBS Evening News.
In 1986, when Bill Moyers left CBS News, he founded Public Affairs Television (PAT) with the veteran broadcast journalist Joan Konner and was soon joined by his wife and creative partner Judith Davidson Moyers.
PAT remains widely acclaimed for its innovative and courageous exploration of subjects ranging from capitalism's role in democracy and the world of ideas and the arts, as well as notable and impactful investigative documentaries. PAT also was a leader within public television in extending the reach of its broadcasts through the creative use of multimedia campaigns aimed at informing Americans of critical issues and involving them in cooperative efforts for the renewing of democracy.
Over the years, Bill Moyers worked with numerous talented producers, editors, art directors, writers, production assistants, camera operators, sound engineers, makeup artists, and others, including long-time collaborators Executive Producer Sally Roy, Senior Writer Michael Winship, Executive Assistant Karen Kimball, Comptroller Diana Warner, President and COO Judy Doctoroff, and Executive Producer Judith Davidson Moyers.
For his work, Bill Moyers has received more than 35 Emmys, nine prestigious Alfred I. Dupont-Columbia University Awards, four Peabodys, and three George Polk Awards. In the first year it was bestowed, Moyers received the prestigious Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from the American Film Institute. A Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he also received the Career Achievement Award from the International Documentary Association and 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 later he received the Charles Frankel Prize (now the National Humanities Medal) from the National Endowment for the Humanities "for outstanding contributions to American cultural life." In 2005, Moyers received the PEN USA Courageous Advocacy Award for his passionate, outspoken commitment to freedom of speech and his dedication to journalistic integrity. He has also been honored with the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences' Lifetime Achievement Award.
In 2015 Public Affairs Television began digitizing Moyers' work, which was submitted to the American Archive of Public Broadcasting in 2020.
