“When he makes up his mind, he lands hard on his conclusions,” a New York Times reporter once wrote about Bill Moyers, the 81-year-old, award-gobbling elder statesman of progressive journalism. It’s true that, via his PBS programs, Moyers has been waging a soft-spoken jeremiad against powerful interests and sold-out politicians for decades. It’s tempting to describe Moyers, a graduate of Baptist seminary, as a preacher. Or to get downright biblical and call him a prodigal son who had his come-to-Jesus moment during a press briefing when he was President Johnson’s spin doctor-in-chief. A reporter was pressing him with a question, the answer to which might tank the stock market. Recalling his father’s admonition not to lie, Moyers said that right then, “I decided I belonged on the other side of the desk, asking the questions.”
Those narratives may be accurate as far as they go. But in conversation, Moyers revealed himself to be neither righteous nor all-consumed with speaking truth to power. He showed great willingness to question his own approach to the craft of journalism. The most important thing, he said, that he learned from one of his favorite interview subjects, mythologist Joseph Campbell, is, “If you want to change the world, change the metaphor. Change the story.” Below is a condensed version of the story Moyers shared in an interview conducted via email and telephone. On Wednesday, May 18, he will give a talk entitled “Coming in November: Armageddon, Apocalypse, or Rapture?” at the Granada Theatre as a guest of the Walter H. Capps Center for the Study of Ethics, Religion, and Public Life at UCSB.
One way to describe you is as a professional conversationalist. Can you offer a couple of tips for nurturing a productive conversation? Listen closely. My challenge as a journalist is not to produce a “gotcha moment” but to help my guests get over the fear of saying what they really want to say.