Goodnight to Bill Moyers’ Journal

The final episode of Bill Moyers’ Journal airs tonight on PBS after nearly 40 years on the air. Moyers, who is a couple weeks shy of 76, blogged that he was retiring the show because “there are some things left to do that the deadlines and demands of a weekly broadcast don’t permit.”

Over at The Daily Beast, writer and filmmaker Randy Bean reflects on how she was shaped by working under Moyer:

He taught all of us on his production staff how to write evocatively for the spoken word. Writing voiceover narration is very different from writing for print publication. The ear hears differently than the eye sees.

Plus there are pictures, always pictures, so you work hard to avoid the ever-present “see it, say it” trap. Moyers has impeccable standards when it comes to writing. Listen to one of his commentaries sometime, with your eyes closed. It’s lyrical stuff-expressive, deeply felt, personal yet globally relevant, beautifully constructed.