Moyers: An Entrepreneur Will Save Journalism
Here is a lovely quote by Bill Moyers in an interview posted at TomPaine.com:
When I left Washington 40 years ago, it took me a while to realize that what’s important is not how close you are to power but how close you are to the truth.
And then this when talking about the monopolistic powers that now rule the news media:
What encourages me is the Internet. Freedom begins the moment you realize someone else has been writing your story and it’s time you took the pen from his hand and started writing it yourself….What also gives me hope is that in a market society, sooner or later some entrepreneur is going to figure out how to make a fortune by offering people news they can trust. Millions of Americans care about our democracy, they want high-quality information because they know freedom dies of too many lies, and surely in this new age of innovation someone’s going to figure out that good journalism can be profitable.
Why stop here, when we have this:
We talk about problems, issues, policy solutions, but we don’t talk about what democracy means-what it bestows on us, the power it gives us-the astonishing opportunity to shape our destiny. I mean the revolutionary idea that democracy isn’t merely a means of government, it’s a means of dignifying people so that they have a chance to become fully human. Every day I find myself asking, Why is America forsaking its own revolution?
