MOYERS FORGES AHEAD WITH HIS ‘INTELLECTUAL STUFF’

Bill Moyers is back on public television, and his new 10-part series about the U.S. Constitution explains why. “Nowhere else in American broadcasting is there a forum for the mind of ideas,” he says.

The $1.5-million “In Search of the Constitution,” the first of what promises to be a succession of television series and specials marking the 1987 bicentennial of the Constitution, also marks Moyers’ first project for public television since he left CBS News last fall to pursue a brand of journalism that he believes to be rare in commercial broadcasting.

“PBS,” he said recently, “is about the last holdout of any communications medium in this country where talk matters. . . . There’s nothing more engaging than a lively mind.”

Funded by General Motors, Moyers’ series is scheduled to premiere on KCET Channel 28 in Los Angeles at 10 p.m. Tuesday with “In the Beginning.” The one-hour discussion with three historians--Forrest McDonald, Michael Kammen and Olive Taylor--will be about the roots of the Constitution and its impact over the past 200 years. (The series debuts May 2 on KOCE Channel 50.)

Moyers’ praise notwithstanding, not all PBS stations have embraced his new series enthusiastically. He acknowledged that some stations plan to broadcast the series during low-visibility daytime hours and that some officials within the system have balked at “intellectual stuff” such as this and another Moyers series on the Constitution--a series of daily three-minute reports due to premiere on PBS in May.

Moyers is forging ahead anyway. He reasons that viewers, including those of PBS, have grown accustomed to the “lowest common denominator” approach of commercial TV programming and are “diverted for the moment by an excess of entertainment.”

“We can’t escape this reality,” he said. “We have to live with it and accept the fact that any time given to intellectual pursuit (on TV) is better than no time.”

Of “In Search of the Constitution,” he said: “This is not going to be a civics lesson. It’s going to be a human encounter. The Constitution is about real people--people who wrote it, fought over it, died for it, challenged it, ignored it--and who interpret it, day to day. This is what good television is all about--the word made flesh.”

Forthcoming installments focus on the historic document’s contemporary relevance, especially as it is interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court. Appearing in rare on-camera interviews are Justices Harry Blackmun, William Brennan, Sandra Day O’Connor and Lewis Powell.

Both Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Anthony Scalia declined interview requests, Moyers said.

Others interviewed by Moyers over the course of the series include author and educator Mortimer Adler, British legal philosopher Ronald Dworkin and U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Robert Bork, a leading conservative interpreter of the Constitution, plus several American citizens whose lives have been dramatically touched by constitutional cases involving school prayer, academic freedom and sodomy.

Segments of the series also examine the Constitution as it pertains to new technologies, drug testing, the “national security state” and other societal concerns that were unknown to its framers.

“In a culture sated with leisure and wall-to-wall entertainment, our attempt was to try to make the audience realize that the freedom they’re enjoying of the moment is connected to a system set up (against) great odds 200 years ago, and constantly made better by protests and challenges,” Moyers said.

Audiences familiar with Moyers’ role as CBS News commentator or as host of previous public television series, such as the popular “Bill Moyers’ Journal,” may be struck by the absence of Moyers’ commentary on the Constitution.

“In this case, my judgments and insights can’t approximate those of the justices and others who spend their entire lives wrestling with this document,” said Moyers. “It seemed more appropriate for me to be an inquiring reporter rather than a judging angel--that will come later.”

Moyers next plans to prepare a one-hour public television special on the Iran- contras arms scandal, as well as a multipart series on “God and Politics,” both targeted for next fall.

“When it comes to broadcast journalism, there are so many ideas and stories, so little time . . . so much to be done that will never be done at CBS,” said Moyers. He said he was represented by “one to four (documentary) hours” on CBS over the past two years, in contrast to an average 20 hours yearly during his previous years on public television.

Revealing with a broad smile his pleasure at being back in public television, the veteran journalist said: “To borrow from Carl Sandburg, ‘I’m an idealist. . . . I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way.’ ”