Bill Moyers: Why I am Returning to the Air!

You already may have heard that I'd be coming back in January with a new series on the public television station nearest you, but you may not have heard exactly why. It's not just that I lack retirement skills, as my wife and co-editor, Judith, keeps reminding me. Or that the squeaky rocking chair on the front porch got on my nerves. I'm coming back because in tumultuous times like these, I relish the company of people who try to make sense of the tumult. These are the people I'll bring to our new broadcast, Moyers & Company. Journalism has long been for me a continuing course in adult education. Given what's happening in this country, it's time to sign up for more classes. The lack of civility and common sense that has paralyzed our democracy, the vast economic and social inequality that sends both left and right raging in the streets, the corrosive influence of money in politics, we're in a tailspin with little hope for a course correction from our elected leadership or corporate-dominated media. The need for voices of reason, simple and eloquent, has rarely been stronger. Those voices, whether they be from artist or social critic, philosopher or poet, historian or physicist, can bring us truth, inspiration, even hope.