Politics & Power Quote by Bill Moyers

"There are honest journalists like there are honest politicians - they stay bought"

Bill Moyers, Journalist

About this Quote

Moyers lands the punch with a dirty little symmetry: “honest journalists” and “honest politicians” are framed as equally mythical species, then “honest” gets flipped into a bleak kind of consistency. The line works because it weaponizes a word we’re trained to treat as moral praise. Here, honesty isn’t integrity; it’s predictability. If you’re “bought” and you “stay bought,” at least you’re not pretending otherwise. That’s the joke, and it’s not really a joke.

The subtext is a warning about the economics of trust. Moyers isn’t only accusing individuals of taking money; he’s pointing at systems that make capture stable: advertisers, donors, corporate owners, party infrastructure, access journalism, the career incentives that reward compliance and punish disruption. “Stay bought” implies that corruption is less a one-time scandal than a long-term contract - a relationship with benefits, expectations, and escalating costs for breaking it.

Context matters because Moyers built his credibility by moving between politics and media: a former Johnson aide who became a public-minded broadcaster. He understood, intimately, how “access” is exchanged, how narratives get laundered into conventional wisdom, how newsroom caution can look like neutrality. The line is aimed at audiences who still want to believe in clean institutions. Moyers offers a colder comfort: if you’re looking for purity, you’ll be disappointed; if you’re looking for motives, follow the money - and notice who keeps cashing the same check.

Quote Details

Topic	Sarcastic
Source	Help us find the source
Cite

More Quotes by Bill Add to List

About the Author

Bill Moyers (born June 6, 1934) is a Journalist from USA.

19 more quotes available

View Profile

Similar Quotes

"Both politicians and journalists face situations which strain their honesty and humanity. My opinion is that politicians on the average stand up somewhat better than journalists"

John McCarthy, Politician

"I don't trust a lot of journalists"

Calvin Klein, Designer

Calvin Klein

"Journalists are supposed to be skeptical, that's what keeps them digging rather than simply accepting the official line, whether it comes from government or corporate bureaucrats"

Linda Chavez, Author

"I am satisfied that all politicians were meant to be journalists and all journalists meant to be politicians"

Owen Arthur, Statesman

Owen Arthur

"There aren't enough good journalists. There are too many who really weren't groomed to be reporters and, as a result, some of the reporting is shallow"

Will McDonough, Writer

"Some of our best journalists take themselves even more seriously than the politicians they write about"

R. W. Apple, Jr., Journalist

"Where journalists have gotten themselves in trouble over the last few decades is that their skepticism often extends only to American officials, the U.S. military and Republican politicians"

Linda Chavez, Author

"Journalists, who are skeptical to begin with, simply do not like to be lied to or made fools of"

Roger Mudd, Journalist

"Here in the United States, our profession is much maligned, people simply don't trust or like journalists anymore and that's sad"

Christiane Amanpour, Journalist

"Politicians are just Daily Mail journalists writ large, aren't they? They're always telling us what's going to happen, and we know they don't know!"

Tom Baker, Actor

Tom Baker

"You know it's easy here to buy journalists"

Emile Lahoud, Statesman

"The press is the hired agent of a monied system, and set up for no other purpose than to tell lies where their interests are involved. One can trust nobody and nothing"

Henry B. Adams, Historian

Henry B. Adams

"While many people think that we as reporters are whining and that this is a time of war, we are really the conveyors of truth in a very critical time and people need to know that truth"

Judd Rose, Journalist

"If we're going to live as we are in a world of supply and demand, then journalists had better find a way to create a demand for good journalism"

Bill Kovach, Journalist

"Journalists say a thing that they know isn't true, in the hope that if they keep on saying it long enough it will be true"

Arnold Bennett, Novelist

"Journalists should think of themselves as outside the Establishment, and owners can't be too worried about what they're told at their country clubs"

Rupert Murdoch, Publisher

"One of the great pressures we're facing in journalism now is it's a lot cheaper to hire thumb suckers and pundits and have talk shows on the air than actually have bureaus and reporters"

Walter Isaacson, Writer

"The critical importance of honest journalism and a free flowing, respectful national conversation needs to be had in our country. But it is being buried as collateral damage in a war whose battles include political correctness and ideological orthodoxy"

Juan Williams, Journalist

"The things journalists should pay attention to are the issues the political leadership agrees on, rather than to their supposed antagonisms"

Michael Pollan, Educator

"If you believe in journalism, you don't insult good journalists"

Sydney Schanberg, Journalist

Sydney Schanberg