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A Farewell to ‘Now’
As Bill Moyers honored journalism with his intellect and insight, PBS’s “Now” honored the journalistic mission on the road, in the field
Lost among so many tributes related to the retirement of broadcast journalist Bill Moyers is the gravity of a second “farewell” on PBS. This Friday, “Now” — the Emmy-winning weekly public affairs magazine hosted by David Brancaccio with senior correspondent Maria Hinojosa — will leave the air as well.
“Now” ran for eight years on PBS, and underwent several incarnations. Moyers hosted the original, hour-long show for three years, starting in 2002, with the intent to present “big picture” journalism in an age of crisis. And while the show (and the world) changed a great deal through the decade, the second 30-minute version of “Now” remained true to that mission statement to the end.
“Now” caught a second wind in recent years, producing some of its finest pieces in its stretch run. Part of its allure was in the way it complimented Moyers’ latest weekly show, “Bill Moyers Journal.” While Moyers worked in a world of ideas, conversation, wisdom, reflection … “Now” accentuated field work, traveling across America, traveling across the globe, to tell stories about the environment, health, war, and economic hardship.
“I have a hunch,” Brancaccio says he has told his staff each year, “that someday, when we’re no longer doing this show that all of us will look back at this as a golden moment of TV journalism … To everything there is a season. And there is something magical here in the fact that there is no public policy issue that was off limits to us. And it had an audience that was willing to rise to the occasion.”
Brancaccio’s versatility mirrored “Now’s” aspirations of reportorial breadth. He talked about the future with late author Kurt Vonnegut, traveled to Rwanda to consider a different approach to national health care, trekked to Himalayas to study accelerated glacier melt - and the frightening impact it will have on people along the Ganges River in the years to come.
Hinojosa brought a bigger heart to “Now” - making poignant connections, again and again, with those who live on the margins. She told stories about “child brides” in India and Guatamala as well as the American poor in Alabama. Remember when “death panel” became a part of the national health care conversation? Hinojosa went into the field and revealed what private “end of life” counseling looked like between seniors and doctors, between cancer patients and doctors — presenting a story of deep compassion with relevance for all of us.
Hinojosa’s 2009 portrait “Abortion Providers Under Siege” showed viewers an intensely human — and harrowing — story of two doctors stalked and threatened by anti-abortion factions in the American heartland. In an atmosphere of rage, in the aftermath of the murder of Dr. George Tiller, Hinojosa introduced America to a doctor working in an abortion clinic protected by bullet-proof glass, to a doctor whose family has to live in secret because of death threats.
“You have to be prepared as a journalist, that’s what I do,” says Hinojosa, known to many Austinites as the producer and host of “Latino USA” on National Public Radio for the last 16 years. “At the same time, I had a deep emotional investment in all those stories … a lot of my job is to be a citizen, in the moment, and to be able to ask important questions from a visceral place.”
PBS, which debuts a new public affairs program, “Need to Know,” in May, was somewhat oblique in its explaining its decision to cancel “Now” in December. Its stated intent, with “Need to Know”: “to revitalize public media in the context of today’s rapidly changing communications environment.”
Brancaccio and Hinojosa take heart in the fact that more than 14,000 Americans signed a petition launched by FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) imploring PBS to preserve a spirit of investigative integrity that was at the foundation of “Now.” They also take heart in the conviction that their work mattered.
“I became a citizen in the late 1980s, so citizenship is no joke to me,” says Hinojosa, who was born in Mexico, grew up in Chicago and lives today in Harlem. “When I lectured not long ago at a citizenship ceremony on Ellis Island, I said, ‘What you need to understand is that what I do is a journalist is to question everything. That’s what we do as American citizens - and it’s what we SHOULD do as media.’
“People coming from other countries are like, ‘No. You’re supposed to RESPECT authority.’ And I understand. But here, questioning authority is patriotism. That’s what we do.”
bbuchholz@statesman.com; 912-2967
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