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RedditBill Moyers is the host of the weekly public affairs program Bill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday night on PBS. This essay appears on the program aired May 18. You can post a comment on The Moyers Blog
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Here's a list of academics who have sent a letter to James C. Miller III, chairman of the Postal Board of Governors protesting the change.
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Journalists As Truth-Tellers
Bill Moyers: Journalism can still make a difference, but the truth matters more. And if you can't get to the truth through journalism, there are other ways to get there.
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Moyers & FDR
Bill Moyers: When Franklin Delano Roosevelt was President, my father knew he had a friend in the White House. We should rekindle that spirit today.
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Small Magazines, Big Ideas
Bill Moyers: An impending rate hike could silence small independent magazines of all political stripes that make a key contribution to the conversation of democracy.
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For America's Sake
Bill Moyers: It's time our leaders recognize Americans hold a set of values that contradict the conservative agenda that has dominated politics for a generation.
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For America's Sake
Bill Moyers: Its time our leaders recognize Americans hold a set of values that contradict the conservative agenda that has dominated politics for a generation.
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Media and Democracy
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Which America Will We Be Now?
Bill Moyers: September 11 showed us true American heros. Now let's build on their strength.
The Internet may be the way of the future, but for today much of what you read on the Web is generated by newspapers and small magazines. They may be devoted to a cause, a party, a worldview, an issue, an idea, or to one eccentric person's vision of what could be, but they nourish the public debate. America wouldn't be the same without them.
Our founding fathers knew this; knew that a low-cost postal incentive was crucial to giving voice to ideas from outside the main tent. So they made sure such publications would get a break in the cost of reaching their readers. That's now in jeopardy.
An impending rate hike, worked out by postal regulators, with almost no public input but plenty of corporate lobbying, would reward big publishers like Time Warner, while forcing these smaller periodicals into higher subscription fees, big cutbacks and even bankruptcy.
It's not too late. The Postal Service is a monopoly, but if its governors, and especially members of Congress, hear from enough citizens, they could have a change of heart. So, liberal or conservative, left or right, libertarian, vegetarian, communitarian or Unitarian, or simply good Samaritan, let's make ourselves heard.
