Bill Moyers' Address to PBS Annual Meeting

BILL MOYERS' ADDRESS TO PBS ANNUAL MEETING
[SOURCE: Working for Change, AUTHOR: Bill Moyers]
Bill Moyers is optimistic about the future of public TV. "The telecommunications revolution is upon us and special interests are counting on controlling it from inside the Beltway while no one is looking. Let’s not let it happen this time. Let’s make the telecommunications revolution our story. Let’s tell the public how the decisions are getting made, who’s making them and why, who will win and who will lose. Let’s own this story with reporting, hearings, commentary, talking heads. Let’s get the country involved in the debate about where the Internet is going, where our digital revolution is headed, how our media can foster civic participation, make government more accountable, give low-income people a place at the table. We have it in our power to bring the country into the story. We are public broadcasting, right? We’re not congressional broadcasting ­ that’s C-SPAN. We’re not the White House network ­ that’s Fox News. We’re the only broadcasting operation in the country with the words “public” and “service” in our name. That’s our constituency ­ not the politicians and Washington officials ­ but the public. The theologian H. Richard Niebuhr once said the most important question a society can ask is: “What’s going on?” Well, that’s what we can do now ­ tell the American people what’s going on with this digital revolution. Inform them and awaken them. They'll do the rest. I've been around a long time now. What great company all of you have been. But I really think the best is yet to come. We’ve never been more needed. Democracy is troubled. Our two parties are wholly owned subsidiaries of Big Money and subservient to Big Media. The majority of the American people don't know where to turn, who to trust. Here we are -- with a mandate to put the public first. A new leader who is the right person in the right place at the right time, and with roots in communities around the country that constitutes the building blocks of hope. We have it in our reach truly to be the Public Broadcasting Service ­ a force of democracy."
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=20889