Discovering What Democracy Means

Bill Moyers

February 12, 2007

Bill Moyers is chairman of the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy andan independent journalist with his own production company. On February 7, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation presented Judith and Bill Moyers the first Frank E. Taplin, Jr. Public Intellectual Award for “extraordinary contributions to public cultural, civic and intellectual life.” This is an excerpt of his remarks.

We are often asked whether our kind of journalism matters. People are curious about why we give so much time to novelists, playwrights, artists, historians, philosophers, composers, scholars, teachers—all of whom we consider public thinkers. The answer is simple: They are worth listening to.