Veteran TV journalist, former White House aide was 91

Bill Moyers, former press secretary of President Lyndon B. Johnson and a long -standing broadcast journalist and champion of the Free Press, died. He was 91 years old.

Moyers’ son William reported that his father died at the Memorial Sloan Kettering in New York after a “long illness”, according to the Associated Press.

Born Billy Don Moyers, in Hugo, Oklahoma, on June 5, 1934, Moyers was the son of an earth farmer’s driver. He grew up in Marshall, Texas, where he originally wanted to play football but discovered that he was not the right stature. Instead, he turned to writing for his secondary newspaper, which would lead him into the world of journalism.

He first established a relationship with Johnson as a student at the University of Texas in Austin, when he wrote the senator of the time in search of work in his 1954 re -election campaign. This won him a summer job with Johnson, for whom he would pursue many jobs over the years, including the personal assistant and possibly the press secretary of the White House.

As a press secretary, Moyers sought to repair the president’s relations with the media, but the stress of the Vietnam War led to his resignation in December 1966.

Subsequently, in 1967, Moyers became publisher of the exit from Long Island, based in Long Island, Newsday. During his visit, Newspaper won two pulitzers, but after three years, he left when the property changed and turned his attention to his best -selling travel book, Listen to America: a traveler rediscovers his country.

In the 1970s, and even later in the 2000s, Moyers led Journal Bill MoyersA series of current events that aimed to enrich the conversation of democracy and democracy. He was chief correspondent CBS reports From 1976 to 1978, before moving to PBS for three years. He returned as an analyst of principal news at CBS from 1981 to 1986.

He returned to PBS a little before training his own production house, public affairs television, alongside his wife, Judith Davidson Moyers, in 1986. There, they produced programs such as the 11 -game series in 11 games In search of the Constitution. In 1995, he briefly joined NBC News as an analyst and principal commentator.

In recent years, Moyers has worked on PBS ‘ Front line; NOWA weekly PBS public affairs program; one -hour weekly interview show, Moyers & Company; and a podcast, Moyers on democracy.

Throughout his long career, Moyers has obtained many honors, including 35 Emmy Awards, two Alfred I. Dupont-Columbia University prizes, 11 Peabody Awards and three George Polk Awards. He was also inducted into the Television Fame Temple in 1995.

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Moyers was often frank on his opinions on the importance of a free press and was often critical of the structured American media system. He offered a wise warning in 2019, telling CNN that “for the first time in my long life,” he feared for America.

“I was born in depression, experienced the Second World War, I was part of politics and the government during all these years,” he said at the point of sale, before observing that “a society, a democracy can die of too many lies. And we are getting closer to this terminal moment unless we overthrow with lies that are nourished through the country”.

But, he added, “are the facts more important? I think they do it.”