BILL MOYERS: ONE OF LAST CRAFTSMEN

It’s depressing to think of Bill Moyers as a dinosaur, slowly sinking into the tar pits of network journalism. But, according to Moyers, that’s exactly what he is.

“People like me are increasingly out of date at networks,” Moyers said from New York on Thursday, “because we want to take the time to craft journalism, and there is no premium on craftsmanship. There is a perception that the audience wants the kind of editing that George Lucas made famous in ‘Star Wars.’ ”

Moyers has always resisted commercial TV’s fast cuts, fast lanes and fat cats. And it’s a bit ironic that his grim assessment should come on the eve of his excellent “CBS Reports” documentary on U.S. immigration problems.

Airing at 9 p.m. Tuesday (on Channels 2 and 8), “Whose America Is It?” is a balanced, honest and eloquent account of recent immigrants and their growing impact on the nation.

The program offers no easy answers or quick fixes concerning language controversies or undocumented workers who flow into the United States, mostly from the south. “But if you put yourself in the moral intersection of this problem, you realize the difficulty in making these decisions,” Moyers said. “Should these people be free to come here? Why not? What is the justice in dealing with them? What is the justice for the people already here?”

Moyers is never dull or ordinary or superficial. This highly watchable hour surges with the fascinating human dramas and ironies that typify his best work.

He is the reporter and executive editor. And although he heaps credit on producer/director Elena Mannes, the hour feels and sounds like Moyers, an exceptional reporter and writer in a medium that usually de-emphasizes ideas and words. He also is an exceptional listener, one of those rare journalists who can visit alien turf without seeming to trespass, a populist with a remarkable gift for getting people to spontaneously share their feelings even under the intrusive eye of the TV camera.

Moyers continues to do commentaries and occasional stories on “The CBS Evening News” and is working on another “CBS Reports” about black families in inner cities.

“But I wish there were more work to do,” he said. “I used to do 26 to 39 hours a year on public TV.” He rejoined CBS after tiring of the financial limits of PBS, which begins repeats on Wednesday of Moyers’ splendid documentary series “A Walk Through the 20th Century.” The opening program, tracing Moyers’ return to his hometown of Marshall, Tex., is the kind of slow-evolving, extraordinary work that would be unacceptable on commercial TV, where snappy makes happy. Where fast is a synonym for good.

“We craft network journalism in which nothing is indelible,” he said. “You squeeze the poignancy out of stories so that they go by like sea gulls at the beach.”

He could be describing “West 57th,” CBS’ trendy, feathery new magazine series that leaves no footprints--or mindprints. Moyers won’t talk about “West 57th,” but you can read between the no comments .

Moyers is an irregular documentarian on CBS because CBS documentaries are now irregular. “Perry Wolff (executive producer for Tuesday’s program) had to fight to get this on the air this week,” he said. “The next available spot for a documentary is in November or December.” Moyers said that CBS News President Ed Joyce believes in documentaries. “But even the president of CBS News cannot get the network to set aside a regular time.”

So?

“It’s hard preparing documentaries without air dates,” Moyers said. “I had seven ideas approved in January, only two of which are coming to fruition because events overtook us. A documentary is a little bit like a pinch-hitter in a ballgame. You never know when you’re going to be called in.”

Serious documentaries or magazines are deemed unprofitable at CBS, Moyers said. “So if you’re serious about public affairs--those issues that affect our lives as opposed to the phenomenon of culture--you don’t have much access to explain things in any depth,” he said.

The final curtain may be falling. “I’m in the last act of the public-affairs documentary,” Moyers said.

ABC News occasionally has aired some superb three-hour documentaries. “Oh, I think there will be occasional documentaries,” Moyers said. “They will be tolerated, and never appreciated.”

The prevailing lust is for finger-snapping magazine series. “There isn’t a network executive brave enough or farsighted enough to let journalists tell their stories,” Moyers charged. “I’ve never seen a time when a real commitment to the public interest was so sadly missing in television. I think the hottest place in hell will be reserved for the men--and they’re all men--who control the networks and don’t appreciate the machinery of which they are possessed.”

Moyers defined the potential: Words and pictures that not only move viewers, but make them understand why they are being moved.

“But when stories are overedited and overdramatized to titillate, not to illustrate, it’s a very vulgar use of the medium,” he said.

The CBS “young crowd” contends that long-form documentaries are doomed because “they aren’t interesting,” Moyers said. “But you don’t have to be dull. A documentary is a record of our times--rich, poor, riotous, funny, sad. It should record our times they way Charles Dickens did. ‘Oliver Twist’ was a documentary. ‘Tale of Two Cities’ was a documentary. Dickens could write better than I can. But, by God, he couldn’t make a film about it like I can.”