Heron Island, Australia

A cay ( /ˈkiː/ or /ˈkeɪ/), also spelled caye or key, is a small, low-elevation, sandy island formed on the surface of a coral reef. Cays occur in tropical environments throughout the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans (including in the Caribbean and on the Great Barrier Reef and Belize Barrier Reef), where they provide habitable and agricultural land for hundreds of thousands of people. Their surrounding reef ecosystems also provide food and building materials for island inhabitants.

Formation and composition[link]

Cay sand under a microscope

A cay is formed when ocean currents transport loose sediment across the surface of a reef to a depositional node, where the current slows or converges with another current, releasing its sediment load. Gradually, layers of deposited sediment build up on the reef surface (Hopley 1981, Gorlay 1998). Such nodes occur in windward or leeward areas of reef surfaces and sometimes occur around an emergent outcrop of old reef or beach rock.

The island resulting from sediment accumulation is made up almost entirely of biogenic sediment – the skeletal remains of plants and animals – from the surrounding reef ecosystems (Hopley 1982). If the accumulated sediments are predominantly sand, then the island is called a cay; if they are predominantly gravel, the island is called a motu.

Cay sediments are largely composed of calcium carbonate (CaCO₃), primarily of aragonite, calcite, and high magnesium calcite. They are produced by myriad plants (e.g., coralline algae, species of the green algae Halimeda) and animals (e.g., coral, molluscs, foraminifera). Small amounts of silicate sediment are also contributed by sponges and other creatures (Chave 1964, Folk and Robles 1964, Scoffin 1987, Yamano 2000). Over time, soil and vegetation may develop on a cay surface, assisted by the deposition of sea bird guano.

Development and stability[link]

A range of physical, biological and chemical influences determines the ongoing development or erosion of cay environments. These influences include: the extent of reef surface sand accumulations, changes in ocean waves, currents, tides, sea levels and weather conditions, the shape of the underlying reef, the types and abundance of carbonate producing biota and other organisms such as binders, bioeroders and bioturbators (creatures which bind, erode and mix sediments) living in surrounding reef ecosystems (Harney and Fletcher 2003, Hart and Kench 2007).

Significant changes in cays and their surrounding ecosystems can result from natural phenomena such as severe El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycles. Also, tropical cyclones can help build or destroy these islands (Scoffin 1993, Woodroffe 2003).

There is much debate and concern over the future stability of cays in the face of growing human populations and pressures on reef ecosystems, and predicted climate changes and sea level rise (Kench and Cowell 2003, Hart 2003). There is also debate around whether these islands are relict features which effectively stopped expanding two thousand years ago during the late Holocene or, as recent research suggests, they are currently still growing with significant new additions of reef sediments (Woodroffe et al. 2007).

Understanding the potential for change in the sediment sources and supply of cay beaches with environmental change is an important key to predicting their present and future stability. Despite, or perhaps because of all the debate around the future of cays, there is consensus that these island environments are very complex and somewhat fragile.

Examples[link]

Warraber Island, Torres Strait

Examples of cays include:

• Heron Island, a coral cay on the southern Great Barrier Reef
• Warraber Island in central Torres Strait (10°12' S, 142°49' E), Australia, a small ‘vegetated sand cay’ according to the classification schemes of McLean and Stoddart (1978) and Hopley (1982). Approximately 750 by 1500 m wide, this island is situated on the leeward surface of a large 11 km² emergent reef platform. This cay and the surrounding reef flat are Holocene in origin, having formed over an antecedent Pleistocene platform (Woodroffe et al. 2000).
• The Florida Keys are composed primarily of exposed ancient coral reefs and oolite beds formed behind reefs. A few of the Florida Keys, such as Sand Key, are "cays" as defined above.
• Tobacco Caye, Dangriga, Belize
• Prickly Pear Cays

See also[link]

• Quay
• Archipelago

References[link]

v t e Corals and coral reefs Stony corals Scleractinia Blue coral Brain coral Elkhorn coral Hermatypic coral Pillar coral Staghorn coral Table coral Soft corals Alcyonacea Black coral Bamboo coral Organ pipe coral Sea fans Sea pens Coral reefs Atoll reef Cay Fringing reef Microatoll Coral reef fish Census of Coral Reefs The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs Coral regions Deep-water coral Andros, Bahamas Belize Barrier Reef Coral Sea Islands Coral Triangle Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary Great Barrier Reef Maldives Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System New Caledonia Barrier Reef Pulley Ridge Raja Ampat Islands Red Sea Southeast Asian coral reefs Coral diseases Coral bleaching Black band disease Skeletal eroding band White band disease White pox disease Protection Coral reef protection Project AWARE Reef Check Reef Ball Coral Reef Alliance International Society for Reef Studies Other Artificial reef Coral aquaculture Coral dermatitis Coral (precious) Coral rag Coral reef organizations Coral sand Coralline algae Human impact Fire coral Reef resilience Rugosa (extinct) Tabulate (extinct) Zooxanthella

Coordinates: 10°12′S 142°49′E / 10.2°S 142.817°E / -10.2; 142.817

Bill Moyers
Bill Moyers, 2005
13th White House Press Secretary
In office July 8, 1965 – January 1967
President	Lyndon B. Johnson
Preceded by	George Reedy
Succeeded by	George Christian
Personal details
Born	(1934-06-05) June 5, 1934 (age 78) Hugo, Oklahoma, United States
Political party	Independent
Spouse(s)	Judith Suzanne Moyers (née Davidson)
Children	William Cope, Alice Suzanne, and John Davidson
Residence	New York City, United States
Occupation	Journalist
Religion	United Church of Christ

Bill Moyers (born June 5, 1934) is an American journalist and public commentator. He served as White House Press Secretary in the Johnson administration from 1965 to 1967. He worked as a news commentator on television for ten years. Moyers has had an extensive involvement with public television, producing documentaries and news journal programs. He has won numerous awards and honorary degrees. He has become well known as a trenchant critic of the U.S. media. Since 1990, Moyers has been President of the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy. He lives in New York City, United States.

Life and career[link]

Early years and education[link]

President Johnson (right) meets with special assistant Moyers in the White House Oval Office, 1963

Born in Hugo, Oklahoma, to father John Henry Moyers, a laborer, and mother Ruby Moyers (née Johnson), he was raised in Texas.^[1]

He started his journalism career at sixteen as a cub reporter at the Marshall News Messenger in Marshall, Texas. In college, he studied journalism at the North Texas State College in Denton, Texas. In 1954, then U.S. Senator Lyndon B. Johnson employed him as a summer intern and eventually promoted him to manage Johnson's personal mail. Soon after, Moyers transferred to the University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, where he wrote for The Daily Texan newspaper. In 1956, he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism. While in Austin, Moyers served as assistant news editor for KTBC radio and television stations – owned by Lady Bird Johnson, wife of then U.S. Senator Johnson. During the academic year 1956–1957, he studied issues of church and state at the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom, as a Rotary International Fellow. In 1959, he completed a Master of Divinity degree at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.^[1] Moyers served as Director of Information while attending SWBTS. He was also a Baptist pastor in Weir, Texas.

Moyers was ordained in 1954. Moyers planned to enter a doctor of philosophy program in American Studies at the University of Texas. During Senator Johnson's unsuccessful bid for the 1960 Democratic U.S. presidential nomination, Moyers served as a top aide, and in the general campaign he acted as liaison between Democratic vice-presidential candidate Johnson and the Democratic presidential nominee, U.S. Senator John F. Kennedy.^[2]

Kennedy and Johnson administrations[link]

Moyers giving a press conference at the White House in 1965

During the Kennedy Administration, Moyers was first appointed as associate director of public affairs for the newly created Peace Corps in 1961. He served as Deputy Director from 1962 to 1963. When Lyndon B. Johnson took office after the Kennedy assassination, Moyers became a special assistant to Johnson, serving from 1963 to 1967. He played a key role in organizing and supervising the 1964 Great Society legislative task forces and was a principal architect of Johnson's 1964 presidential campaign. Moyers acted as the President's informal chief of staff from October 1964 until 1966. From July 1965 to February 1967, he also served as White House press secretary.^[2]

After the resignation of White House Chief of Staff Walter Jenkins because of a sexual misdemeanor in the run up to the 1964 election, President Lyndon B. Johnson, alarmed that the opposition was framing the issue as a security breach,^[3] ordered Moyers to request FBI name checks on 15 members of Goldwater's staff to find "derogatory" material on their personal lives.^[4][5] Goldwater himself only referred to the Jenkins incident off the record.^[6] The Church Committee stated in 1975 that "Moyers has publicly recounted his role in the incident, and his account is confirmed by FBI documents."^[7] In 2005, Laurence Silberman claimed that Moyers denied writing the memo in a 1975 phone call.^[8] Moyers said he had a different recollection of the telephone conversation.^[9]

Moyers also sought information from the FBI on the sexual preferences of White House staff members, most notably Jack Valenti.^[10] Moyers indicated his memory was unclear on why Johnson directed him to request such information, "but that he may have been simply looking for details of allegations first brought to the president by Hoover." ^[11]

Moyers approved (but had nothing to do with the production) of the infamous "Daisy Ad" against Barry Goldwater in the 1964 presidential campaign.^[12] That ad is regarded to be the starting point of the modern-day harshly negative campaign ad.^[13]

Journalist Morley Safer in 1990 wrote that Moyers and President Johnson met with and "harangued" Safer's boss, CBS president Frank Stanton, about Safer's coverage of the behaviour of U.S. troops in Vietnam (Safer had filmed them burning down a village).^[14] During the meeting, Safer alleges, Johnson threatened to expose Safer's "communist ties". This was a bluff, according to Safer. Safer says that Moyers was "if not a key player, certainly a key bystander" in the incident.^[15] Moyers stated that his hard-hitting coverage of conservative presidents Reagan and Bush were behind Safer's 1990 allegations.^[16]

In The New York Times on April 3, 1966, Moyers offered this insight on his stint as press secretary to President Johnson: "I work for him despite his faults and he lets me work for him despite my deficiencies."^[17][18] On October 17, 1967, he told an audience in Cambridge that Johnson saw the war in Vietnam as his major legacy and, as a result, was insisting on victory at all costs, even in the face of public opposition. Moyers felt such a continuation of the conflict would tear the country apart. "I never thought the situation could arise when I would wish for the defeat of LBJ, and that makes my current state of mind all the more painful to me," he told them. "I would have to say now: It would depend on who his opponent is."^[19]

The full details of his rift with Johnson have not been made public but may be discussed in a forthcoming memoir.^[20]

Journalism[link]

[edit] Newsday

Moyers served as publisher for the Long Island, New York daily newspaper Newsday from 1967 to 1970. The conservative^[21] publication had been unsuccessful,^[21] but Moyers led the paper in a progressive direction,^[22] bringing in leading writers such as Pete Hamill, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, and Saul Bellow, and adding new features and more investigative reporting and analysis. Circulation increased and the publication won 33 major journalism awards, including two Pulitzer Prizes.^[21][23][24] But the owner of the paper, Harry Guggenheim, a conservative, was disappointed by the liberal drift of the newspaper under Moyers, criticizing the "left-wing" coverage of Vietnam War protests.^[25][26] The two split over the 1968 presidential election, with Guggenheim signing an editorial supporting Richard Nixon, when Moyers supported Hubert Humphrey.^[27] Guggenheim sold his majority share to the then-conservative Times-Mirror Company over the attempt of newspaper employees to block the sale, even though Moyers offered $10 million more than the Times-Mirror purchase price; Moyers resigned a few days later.^{[20][25][28][29]}

[edit] PBS — Bill Moyers' Journal

In 1971 he began working for the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), hosting a news program called Bill Moyers Journal, which ran until 1981 with a hiatus from 1976 to 1977.^[30]

CBS News[link]

In 1976 he moved to CBS, where he worked as editor and chief correspondent for CBS Reports until 1980, then as senior news analyst and commentator for the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather from 1981 to 1986. He was the last regular commentator for the network broadcast.^[31] During his last year at CBS, Moyers made public statements about declining news standards at the network and declined to renew his contract with CBS, citing commitments with PBS.

[edit] The Power of Myth series

In 1986 Moyers and his wife, Judith Davidson Moyers, formed Public Affairs Television. Among their first productions was the popular PBS 1988 documentary series Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth, consisting of six one-hour interviews between Moyers and mythologist Joseph Campbell. The documentary covers Campbell's exploration of the monomyth and the hero cycle, or the story of the hero, as it manifests itself in various cultures. Campbell's influence is clearly seen in the work of George Lucas's Star Wars saga. In the first interview, filmed at George Lucas' "Skywalker Ranch",^[32] Moyers and Campbell discuss the relationship between Campbell's theories and Lucas's creative work. Twelve years after the making of The Power of Myth, Moyers and Lucas met again for the 1999 interview, the Mythology of Star Wars with George Lucas & Bill Moyers, to further discuss the impact of Campbell's work on Lucas's films.^[33]

[edit] The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis

In 1987 Moyers produced and hosted a scathing documentary, The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis, covering the infringement on the limitations on government and the executive branch provided by the Constitution. It considered U.S. foreign policy and militarism historically and recently, centering on the Iran–Contra affair. It was harshly rebuked by conservatives and continuing into the 1990s was used by Republicans as a reason to threaten the funding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS.

[edit] In Search of the Constitution

Also in 1987 Moyers produced a 11-part mini-series documentary celebrating the bicentennial of the signing of the U.S. Constitution and critically analyzing the state of affairs of the present and the intervening 200 years. Four episodes of In Search of the Constitution were interviews of sitting Supreme Court justices and the remainder contained discussions with prominent scholars.

NBC News[link]

Moyers briefly joined NBC News in 1995 as a senior analyst and commentator, and the following year he became the first host of sister cable network MSNBC's Insight program. He was the last regular commentator on the NBC Nightly News.^[31]

[edit] NOW with Bill Moyers

Moyers hosted the TV news journal NOW with Bill Moyers on PBS for three years, starting in January 2002. He retired from the program on December 17, 2004, but returned to PBS soon after to host Wide Angle in 2005. When he left NOW, he announced that he wished to finish writing a biography of Lyndon B. Johnson.^[34]

[edit] Faith and Reason

In 2006, he presented two public television series. Faith and Reason, a series of conversations with esteemed writers of various faiths and of no faith, explored the question "In a world in which religion is poison to some and salvation to others, how do we live together?"

[edit] Bill Moyers on America

The series, Moyers on America, analyzed in depth the ramifications of three important issues: the Jack Abramoff scandal, evangelical religion and environmentalism (Evangelical environmentalism), and threats to open public access of the Internet.

[edit] Bill Moyers Journal

On April 25, 2007, Moyers returned to PBS with Bill Moyers Journal. In the first episode, "Buying the War", Moyers investigated what he called the general media's shortcomings in the runup to the War in Iraq.^[35]

On November 20, 2009, Moyers announced that he would be retiring from his weekly show on April 30, 2010.^[36]

[edit] Moyers & Company

In August 2011 Moyers announced a new hour-long weekly interview show, Moyers & Company, which premiered in January 2012.^[37] It is produced by WNET and distributed by American Public Television^[38] with funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York^[39]. The new show was heralded as a renewed fulfillment of public media's stated mission to air news and views unrepresented or underrepresented in commercial media.^[40]

Awards[link]

Recipient of the 2006 Lifetime Emmy Award, "Bill Moyers has devoted his lifetime to the exploration of the major issues and ideas of our time and our country, giving television viewers an informed perspective on political and societal concerns," according to the official announcement, which also noted that "the scope of and quality of his broadcasts have been honored time and again. It is fitting that the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences honor him with our highest honor—the Lifetime Achievement Award."^[41] He has received well over thirty Emmys and virtually every other major television journalism prize, including a gold baton from the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Awards, a lifetime Peabody Award, and a George Polk Career Award (his third George Polk Award) for contributions to journalistic integrity and investigative reporting. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and has been the recipient of numerous honorary degrees, including a doctorate from the American Film Institute.^[1]

Commentary[link]

Regarding the U.S. media[link]

On the media and class warfare[link]

In a 2003 interview with BuzzFlash.com,^[42] Moyers said, "The corporate right and the political right declared class warfare on working people a quarter of a century ago and they've won." He noted, "The rich are getting richer, which arguably wouldn't matter if the rising tide lifted all boats." Instead, however, "[t]he inequality gap is the widest it's been since 1929; the middle class is besieged and the working poor are barely keeping their heads above water." He added that as "the corporate and governing elites are helping themselves to the spoils of victory," access to political power has become "who gets what and who pays for it."

Meanwhile, the public has failed to react because it is, in his words, "distracted by the media circus and news has been neutered or politicized for partisan purposes." In support of this, he referred to "the paradox of Rush Limbaugh, ensconced in a Palm Beach mansion massaging the resentments across the country of white-knuckled wage earners, who are barely making ends meet in no small part because of the corporate and ideological forces for whom Rush has been a hero.... As Eric Alterman reports in his recent book—a book that I'm proud to have helped make happen—part of the red meat strategy is to attack mainstream media relentlessly, knowing that if the press is effectively intimidated, either by the accusation of liberal bias or by a reporter's own mistaken belief in the charge's validity, the institutions that conservatives revere—corporate America, the military, organized religion, and their own ideological bastions of influence—will be able to escape scrutiny and increase their influence over American public life with relatively no challenge."^[42]

On media bias[link]

When he retired in December 2004, the AP News Service quoted Moyers as saying, "I'm going out telling the story that I think is the biggest story of our time: how the right-wing media has become a partisan propaganda arm of the Republican National Committee. We have an ideological press that's interested in the election of Republicans, and a mainstream press that's interested in the bottom line. Therefore, we don't have a vigilant, independent press whose interest is the American people."^[43]

On Karl Rove and U.S. politics[link]

"The Progressive Story of America" speech

On June 4, 2003, Moyers gave a speech at the "Take Back America" conference. In it, Moyers defined what he considered to be Karl Rove's influence on George W. Bush's administration. Moyers asserted that, from his reading of Rove, the mid-to-late 19th century were to Rove a "cherished period of American history." He further stated, "From his own public comments and my reading of the record, it is apparent that Karl Rove has modeled the Bush presidency on that of William McKinley...and modeled himself on Mark Hanna, the man who virtually manufactured McKinley",^[44][45][46] a man whose primary "passion" was attending to corporate and imperial power.

Furthermore, Moyers indicated that Hanna gathered support for McKinley's presidential campaign from "the corporate interests of the day" and was responsible for Ohio and Washington coming under the rule of "bankers, railroads and public utility corporations." He submitted that political opponents of this transfer of power were "smeared as disturbers of the peace, socialists, anarchists, or worse."^[45][46]

Moyers also referred to what historian Clinton Rossiter called the period of "the great train robbery of American intellectual history," when "conservatives—or better, pro-corporate apologists" began using terms such as "progress", "opportunity", and "individualism" in order to make "the plunder of America sound like divine right." He added that Charles Darwin's theory of evolution was also used by conservative politicians, judges, and publicists to justify the idea of a "natural order of things" as well as "the notion that progress resulted from the elimination of the weak and the 'survival of the fittest.'"^[45][46][47]

He concludes, "This 'degenerate and unlovely age', as one historian calls it, exists in the mind of Karl Rove, the reputed brain of George W. Bush, as the seminal age of inspiration for the politics and governance of America today."^[45][46]

Presidential draft initiative[link]

On July 24, 2006, liberal political commentator Molly Ivins published an article entitled Run Bill Moyers for President, Seriously on the progressive website Truthdig.^[48][49][50] Then in October 2006 Ralph Nader wrote an article supporting a Moyers candidacy.^[51] There was no effect from the op-eds, and Moyers did not run.

Allegations of bias[link]

Bush-appointee Corporation for Public Broadcasting chairman Kenneth Tomlinson was a regular critic of Moyers; in 2003, he wrote to Pat Mitchell, the president of PBS, that "[NOW with Bill Moyers] does not contain anything approaching the balance the law requires for public broadcasting."^[52] In 2005, Tomlinson commissioned a study of the show, without informing or getting authorization from the CPB board.^[53] Tomlinson said that the study supported what he characterized as "the image of the left-wing bias of NOW".^[54] George Neumayr, the executive editor of The American Spectator, a conservative magazine, told the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer that "PBS looks like a liberal monopoly to me, and Bill Moyers is Exhibit A of that very strident left-wing bias... [Moyers] uses his show as a platform from which to attack conservatives and Republicans."^[52]

Moyers, who left the show in 2004 before returning in 2007, replied to this by saying that his journalism showed "the actual experience of regular people is the missing link in a nation wired for everything but the truth." Moyers characterized Tomlinson as "an ally of Karl Rove and the right-wing monopoly's point man to keep tabs on public broadcasting." Tomlinson, he said, "found kindred spirits at the right-wing editorial board of The Wall Street Journal where the 'animal spirits of business' are routinely celebrated."^[54] Moyers also responded to these accusations in a speech given to The National Conference for Media Reform, saying that he had repeatedly invited Tomlinson to debate him on the subject but had repeatedly been ignored.^[55]

Personal life[link]

Moyers married Judith Suzanne Davidson (a producer) on December 18, 1954. They have three children and five grandchildren. His son William Cope Moyers (CNN producer, Hazelden Foundation spokesman) struggled to overcome alcoholism as detailed in the book Broken: My Story of Addiction and Redemption. He includes letters from Bill Moyers in his book, which he says are "a testament to a father's love for his son, a father's confusion with his son, and ultimately, a father's satisfaction with his son."^[56] His other son, John Moyers, assisted in the foundation of TomPaine.com, "an online public affairs journal of progressive analysis and commentary."^[57]

He and his wife live in Bernardsville, New Jersey.^[58]

Works[link]

• Listening to America: A Traveler Rediscovers His Country (1971), Harper's Magazine press, ISBN 0-06-126400-8
• The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis : With Excerpts from an Essay on Watergate (1988), coauthor Henry Steele Commager, Seven Locks Press, hardcover: ISBN 0-932020-61-5, 1990 reprint: ISBN 0-932020-85-2, 2000 paperback: ISBN 0-932020-60-7; examines the Iran-Contra affair
• The Power of Myth (1988), host: Bill Moyers, author: Joseph Campbell, Doubleday, ISBN 0-385-24773-7
• A World of Ideas : Conversations With Thoughtful Men and Women About American Life Today and the Ideas Shaping Our Future (1989), Doubleday, hardcover: ISBN 0-385-26278-7, paperback: ISBN 0-385-26346-5
• A World of Ideas II: Public Opinions from Private Citizens (1990), Doubleday, hardcover: ISBN 0-385-41664-4, paperback: ISBN 0-385-41665-2, 1994 Random House values edition: ISBN 0-517-11470-4
• Healing and the Mind (1993), Doubleday hardcover: ISBN 0-385-46870-9, 1995 paperback: ISBN 0-385-47687-6
• The Language of Life (1995), Doubleday hardcover: ISBN 0-385-47917-4, 1996 paperback: ISBN 0-385-48410-0, conversations with 34 poets
• Genesis: A Living Conversation (1996), Doubleday hardcover: ISBN 0-385-48345-7, 1997 paperback: ISBN 0-385-49043-7
• Sister Wendy in Conversation With Bill Moyers: The Complete Conversation (1997), WGBH Educational Foundation, ISBN 1-57807-077-5
• Fooling with Words: A Celebration of Poets and Their Craft (1999), William Morrow, hardcover: ISBN 0-688-17346-2, 2000 Harper paperback: ISBN 0-688-17792-1
• Moyers on America: A Journalist and His Times (2004), New Press, ISBN 1-56584-892-6, 2005 Anchor paperback: ISBN 1-4000-9536-0; twenty selected speeches and commentaries
• Moyers on Democracy (2008), Doubleday, ISBN 978-0-385-52380-6
• Bill Moyers Journal: The Conversation Continues (2011), Publisher: New Press

Notes[link]

External links[link]

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (January 2011)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Bill Moyers

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Bill Moyers

• Bill Moyers at The Internet Movie Database
• Bill Moyers Awarded Lifetime Emmy
• Bill Moyers on Inequality in America
• Moyers's retirement from NOW announced
• The Moral Core of Bill Moyers, by Eve Berliner
• Bill Moyers January 2007 Address to the National Conference for Media, Memphis, Tennessee 'Life on the Plantation'
• Moyers Speech at 2008 National Conference for Media Reform (video)
• Works by or about Bill Moyers in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• After Four Decades In TV News, Bill Moyers Retires – audio report by NPR
• Bill Moyers: "The Radical Right Wing is Very Close to Achieving a Longtime Goal of Undermining the Independence of Public Broadcasting" – interview on Democracy Now!
• Latest PBS programs
• Bill Moyers Howard Zinn Lecture Bill Moyers lecture at Boston University
• Bill Moyers on Charlie Rose

Television productions[link]

• The Secret Government (1987) two Windows Media Video clips from the PBS documentary on the Iran-Contra affair
• The Public Mind (1989) A four part series examining image and reality in America
• Genesis: A Living Conversation (1996)
• Fooling with Words (1999) poetry brought to life
• On Our Own Terms: Moyers on Dying (2000)
• Trade Secrets (2001) about chemical industry pollution
• Earth on Edge (2001)
• America Responds: Moyers in Conversation In the wake of September 11, Moyers interviews with experts from various fields (Sept. 12–20, 2001)
• Becoming American: The Chinese Experience (2003)
• NOW (weekly series, for Moyers programs see Archive, 2002–2004)
• Faith and Reason (2006)
• Moyers On America (2006)
• Moyers & Company (2012)

v t e White House Press Secretaries Akerson Joslin Early Daniels Ross Early Short Tubby Hagerty Salinger Reedy Moyers Christian Ziegler terHorst Nessen Powell Brady Speakes Fitzwater Myers McCurry Lockhart Siewert Fleischer McClellan Snow Perino Gibbs Carney

David Cay Boyle Johnston^[1] (born December 24, 1948) is an investigative journalist and author, a specialist in economics and tax issues, and winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting.

Since 2009 he has been a Distinguished Visiting Lecturer who teaches the tax, property and regulatory law of the ancient world at Syracuse University College of Law and Whitman School of Management.'^[2] In July 2011 he became a columnist for Reuters, writing, and producing video commentaries, on worldwide issues of tax, accounting, economics, public finance and business.

Reporting[link]

In 1968, at age 19, Johnston began his career at the San Jose Mercury News. In 1973, he left the Mercury News to study at the University of Chicago under a five-month fellowship. He then took a position as an investigative reporter at the Detroit Free Press in its Lansing bureau from 1973 to 1976 and later worked as a reporter for the Los Angeles Times from 1976 to 1988. Johnston then worked as a reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer from 1988 to 1995. He joined The New York Times in February 1995.

As a reporter Johnston investigated Los Angeles Police Department political spying and other abuses, the hotelier Barron Hilton, misuse of charitable funds at United Way, news manipulation at WJIM-TV in Lansing, Michigan, and Donald Trump's net worth. He once hunted down a killer whom the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department failed to catch, resulting in an innocent man winning acquittal at his fifth trial.

From February 1995 to April 2008, he was the tax reporter with The New York Times. For the next three years, until joining Reuters, he wrote "Johnston's Take," a column on tax policy for the nonprofit journal Tax Notes and its sister website tax.com, published by Tax Analysts.^[3] In 2009 he briefly wrote, "By The Numbers," a column for The Nation.^[4]

Johnston received the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting "for his penetrating and enterprising reporting that exposed loopholes and inequities in the U.S. tax code, which was instrumental in bringing about reforms. "Johnston described how corporations were paying less in taxes, even as individuals were paying more, with even well-known companies like Colgate-Palmolive, Compaq Computer and United Parcel Service engaging in "what the courts called shams." A court found that Merrill Lynch saved AlliedSignal (now Honeywell) $180 million in "sham" money transfers among foreign companies. However, the I.R.S. is more likely to audit the poor than the rich, Johnston reported.^[5]

In 2001, Johnston investigated the claim that estate taxes, which Republicans call "death taxes," were so high that farm families were being forced to sell their family farms in order to pay the taxes. This claim was presented to prove the need to eliminate the inheritance tax. Johnston challenged those who made that claim, such as the American Farm Bureau Federation, to cite an example of a farm that was lost because of estate taxes, and they were unable to do so. Economists told Johnston that it was a myth. An Internal Revenue Service analysis of 1999 returns found that almost no working farmers owe estate taxes. Estate taxes are not assessed on the first $1.35 million net worth, and then rise from 43% to 55% after $3 million. But most wealthy people use legal ways to reduce their estate taxes to 25% for the largest estates.^[6]

He was a Pulitzer finalist in 2003 "for his stories that displayed exquisite command of complicated U.S. tax laws and of how corporations and individuals twist them to their advantage." He was also a finalist in 2000 "for his lucid coverage of problems resulting from the reorganization of the Internal Revenue Service." Like columnist Steven Pearlstein, Johnston has won praise for his writings even though he has no degree in economics. Johnston studied economics at the University of Chicago graduate school and six other colleges, earning the equivalent of six years of college credits but no awarded degree, because he took upper level and graduate level courses almost exclusively, and did not stay at any one school long enough.^[7]

Johnston has been critical of news media coverage of the 2008 $700 billion bailout of Wall Street. In a letter to American journalist and blogger Jim Romenesko, Johnston wrote, "In covering the proposed $700 billion bailout of Wall Street don't repeat the failed lapdog practices that so damaged our reputations in the rush to war in Iraq and the adoption of the Patriot Act. Don't assume that Congress must act instantly, as so many news stories state as if it was an immutable fact. Don't assume there is a case just because officials say there is."^[8] Johnston has been cited favorably by Glenn Greenwald^[9] as well as other bailout critics.^[10] On September 26, 2008, Johnston said: "If you look around, you'll notice that banks are still making ordinary loans to ordinary businesses. Your mailbox is still full of proposals to sell you credit cards and extend you debt. The Internet still has ads for these very toxic mortgages that are at the heart of this. They're being advertised all over the Internet."..."And my point is not to argue that there is or is not a crisis, but that journalists need to begin not by questioning around the edges but by going to the core question. Is this the least expensive way to do this? Are there market solutions that might be applied?"^[11]

Books[link]

Johnston is the author of best-selling books on tax and economic policy, the most recently published of which is Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense and Stick You With The Bill, about hidden subsidies, rigged markets, and corporate socialism. It follows his earlier book Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich—and Cheat Everybody Else, a New York Times bestseller^[12] on the U.S. tax system that won the Investigative Reporters and Editors 2003 Book of the Year award.

Johnston's first book, the 1992 Temples of Chance: How America Inc. Bought Out Murder Inc. to Win Control of the Casino Business is an account of how the junk-bond kings usurped mob control of the casino industry in the 1980s. The book discusses corruption in the industry and the role of the federal and state governments in that corruption.

Personal life[link]

Johnston was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Gretchen E. and Leslie Jules Johnston, a chef.^[13] Johnston is married to Jennifer Leonard,^[14][15] who is president and executive director of the Rochester Area Community Foundation. They live in Brighton, New York, a suburb of Rochester. He has eight children and five grandchildren.

Writings[link]

• Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super-Rich–and Cheat Everybody Else (2003) ISBN 1-59184-019-8
• Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense and Stick You With The Bill (2007) ISBN 978-1-59184-191-3
• Temples of Chance: How America Inc. Bought Out Murder Inc. to Win Control of the Casino Business (1992) ISBN 978-0-385-41920-8

References[link]

External links[link]

• Free Lunch author bio
• Perfectly Legal author bio
• New York Times articles by David Cay Johnston
• List of New York Times articles by David Cay Johnston
• Audio recording of Johnston speaking on the subject matter of Free Lunch
• Booknotes interview with Johnston on Perfectly Legal, April 18, 2004.
• Interview on Bill Moyers Journal, January 18, 2008
• Hype and Fear in the News, The New Republic The Plank blog, September 30, 2008
• Fiscal Therapy, Mother Jones, January-February 2009
• Who’s Undercutting Obama?, Columbia Journalism Review, January 29, 2009
• Interview on Democracy Now!, February 2, 2009
• David Cay Johnston Slams Obama-GOP Tax Deal - video report by Democracy Now!