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It's rare these days that you hear good public speaking. But Bill Moyers gave a great speech this past September 11th to a Society of Professional Journalists conference.

Cory Doctorow remarked recently in his talk on digital rights management that:

A newspaper press is a machine for spitting out cheap and smeary newsprint at speed: if you try to make it output fine art lithos, you'll get junk. If you try to make it output newspapers, you'll get the basis for a free society.

He knows that his audience already understands this simple fact so well that he can use it as leverage to make a point about using tools.

But too many have forgotten it. I've become cynical about it. Bill Moyers reminds us that we must not resign public discourse to the hands of self-interested parties:

A profound transformation is happening here. The framers of our nation never envisioned these huge media giants; never imagined what could happen if big government, big publishing and big broadcasters ever saw eye to eye in putting the publicââ¬â¢s need for news second to their own interestsââ¬â¬ýand to the ideology of free-market economics.

Go, read the whole thing.