A CLASSIC ABOUT OUR PROFESSION

Bill Moyers, the PBS host who is three months away from retiring after a long and distinguished career, has given what is already being called a classic speech on the pride and perils of journalism.

The speech, given to the Society of Professional Journalists' convention on Sept. 11, 2004, has been reprinted in full at Tompaine.com and it is a must-read.

To give you a taste of this extraordinary speech, here are some pullquotes. There many, many others I could have chosen.

First is Moyers describing himself as:

...just one more of those vagrant journalistic souls who, intoxicated with the moment is always looking for the next high: the lead not yet written, the picture not yet taken, the story not yet told.

..and later on journalism itself:

Our job remains essentially the same: to gather, weigh, organize, analyze and present information people need to know in order to make sense of the world.  You will hear it said this is not a professional task[~]John Carroll of the Los Angeles Times recently reminded us there are [base "]no qualification tests, no boards to censure misconduct, no universally accepted set of standards.[per thou]  Maybe so.  But I think that what makes journalism a profession is the deep ethical imperative of which the public is aware only when we violate it[~]think Jayson Blair, Stephen Glass, Jim Kelly.

...and on journalism in the U.S. over the past year or so:

As deplorable as was the  betrayal of their craft by Jayson Blair,  Stephen Glass and Jim Kelly,  the greater offense was the seduction of  mainstream media into helping the government dupe the public to support  a war to disarm a dictator who was already disarmed.  Now we are buying into the very paradigm of a [base "]war on terror[per thou] that our government[~]with staggering banality, soaring hubris, and stunning bravado[~]employs to elicit public acquiescence while offering no criterion of success or failure, no knowledge of the cost, and no measure of democratic accountability.

...and...

Few days pass now that I do not remind myself that the greatest moments in the history of the press came not when journalists made common cause with the state, but when they stood fearlessly independent of it.

And there is more, much more. This is required reading for anyone who feels deeply about the importance of journalism and the need to fight for it. Go read it.

4:16:43 PM