When Bill Moyers gave me a shot in the early 1990’s and hired me as a fledgling producer/director, he was a couple of years younger than my parents. Yet he never treated me like a “youngster.” And he never treated me any differently than his male colleagues.

Bill figured out the secret to a good work life: create a career where one investigates and learns about things that fascinate. Or disturb. Or cause concern. In his words, “journalism has been a continuing course in adult education – my own.”

His insatiable curiosity led him to explore the roots of hatred (Beyond Hate, 1991). To bring Bishop Tutu and South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission to an American audience (Facing the Truth with Bill Moyers, 1996).

When his son Cope struggled with drugs and alcohol, Bill chose to spend a year of his life digging deeply into the journey people take when recovering from addiction, resulting in Moyers on Addiction: Close to Home (1998), for which I directed and produced a 90-minute episode. Bill was compelled to see the world through eyes other than his own. I believe that’s the very definition of compassion.

Not surprisingly, religion retained its hold on his imagination and his soul: who else would have the courage to devote eight hours of television to the first book of the Bible? (Genesis: A Living Conversation, 1996). When Bill asked me to produce and direct an hour of television about world religions, I was thrilled. Even when it mushroomed into a five-part series, as often happened with Bill’s projects. The Wisdom of Faith with Huston Smith, (1996), involved shooting a multi-day interview in a beautiful library on Fifth Avenue near Mt. Sinai Hospital. At one point, a siren bled into our makeshift television studio, and the soundman urged us to stop until it passed. Bill insisted he keep going. What the soundman and I heard as an annoying interruption, the poet in Bill heard as a cry for help.

Bill was always ahead of his time. When we made Healing and the Mind in 1992, mind-body medicine was a new idea, at least to Americans. During the voice-over session, Bill worried this far-out subject would destroy his credibility. Instead, both the series and its companion book went on to become best sellers.

After I moved on from his production company to make a film about St. Francis for the Hallmark Channel, Bill wrote and said he wished he’d thought to do it first. After it aired, he gave the DVD to friends as a gift. Particularly, to people reaching the end of their journey on this earth.

Over a dozen years passed before we worked together again. Ever the optimist, Bill put the power of his brand behind the idea that New York City could do better, could close Rikers Island and build new, humane, community-based jails. In After Rikers: Justice by Design (2019) we prosecuted the case for jail reform. Yet like so many good ideas, the initiative fell by the wayside.

Nevertheless, Bill remained dedicated to informing Americans about the dangers of the carceral state – the network of institutions that use punishment and surveillance to control and regulate people, particularly people of color. He sponsored a series of lectures at Union Theological Seminary in honor of his wife, Judith Moyers. At one of those lectures, I heard Michelle Alexander speak about the new Jim Crow for the first time. It was an unforgettable evening.

In one of our last collaborations, No Choice (2017), Bill wanted to share the stories of women who were forced to seek illegal abortions in the years before Roe v. Wade. He believed that if people were reminded of that terrible time, no one would want to go back there. Unfortunately, he was wrong. Roe was overturned five years later.

There was the public intellectual and then there was the private man. No boss was more generous in acknowledging and thanking his team. Among the letters and notes I received from Bill over the years, he once wrote, “To the extent I came to know myself better and to allow myself to go deeper, it was because of the very special people like you who have been my colleagues.”

Another time, he wrote, “I liked very much the way you stood your ground when you felt strongly about something,” and that he also appreciated my “willingness to make work some of his inexplicable intuitions.” It was a joyful collaboration for which I will be forever grateful. The work I did for Bill, helping him realize his vision, enabled me to continue my journey – even my spiritual journey – a word he made me feel comfortable using. It is life-affirming to do work we can feel proud of, and Bill set the standard and raised the bar for what constitutes meaningful television. May the next generation of media makers take inspiration from his example.

-Pamela Mason Wagner

Director, Writer, Producer, and Movie Reviewer for the Fullerton Observer

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