The State of the Union and its Peoples

Canandaigua native Michael Winship is the Schumann Senior Writing Fellow at the progressive news website Common Dreams, where he writes and edits political analysis and commentary; immediate past president of the Writers Guild of America East, AFL-CIO; and immediate past chair of the International Affiliation of Writers Guilds.

Mr. Winship is a veteran television writer and producer who has created programming for America's major PBS stations, CBS, the Discovery and Learning Channels, A&E, Turner Broadcasting, the Disney Channel, Lifetime, Sesame Workshop (formerly the Children's Television Workshop) and National Geographic, among others.

In 2008, he joined his longtime friend and colleague Bill Moyers at Bill Moyers Journal on PBS and their writing collaboration has been close ever since, working together on the Journal, as well as the public TV series Moyers & Company, the book Bill Moyers: The Conversation Continues and the BillMoyers.com website. They share an Emmy and three Writers Guild Awards for writing excellence. Winship's television work also has been honored by the Christopher, Western Heritage, Genesis and CableACE Awards.

Essays and commentary by Winship, solo or in collaboration with Moyers, have appeared in Salon, Huffington Post, Common Dreams, Truthout, Alternet, Raw Story and many other publications in print and online. From 2011-2015, he was senior writing fellow at the public policy think tank, Demos. As one of the two leaders of the successful, 2007-08 Writers Guild strike against the Hollywood studios and networks, he received the Sidney Hillman Foundation Officers Award.

Bill Moyers has been a major figure in public affairs and journalism for more than five decades. He began his journalism career at 16 as a cub reporter for his daily hometown newspaper in Marshall, Texas. After graduating from the University of Texas, his career path took him from the University of Edinburgh Scotland to the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Texas where he received his Masters of Divinity degree before joining the staff of the Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Baines Johnson. Moyers was a founding organizer and deputy director of the Peace Corps (1962-63) and special assistant to President Lyndon Johnson for domestic policy before serving as his press secretary from 1965-67.

He was publisher of Newsday for three years before joining the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) in 1971, hosting Bill Moyers Journal. He served as senior correspondent for the CBS documentary series CBS Reports and for five years was senior news analyst of the CBS Evening News. He is president of the Schumann Media Center, a nonprofit organization for the support of independent journalism.

With his wife Judith Davidson Moyers, Bill was responsible for highly praised explorations of death and dying, addiction and recovery, faith and reason, as well as numerous acclaimed PBS series: Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth; America's First River: Bill Moyers on the Hudson; The Language of Life; Genesis: A Living Conversation; The Wisdom of Faith with Huston Smith; Becoming American: The Chinese Experience and Amazing Grace. Until their retirement in January of 2015, they also produced the weekly television series NOW with Bill Moyers (2002-2004), Bill Moyers Journal (2007-2010), and Moyers & Company (2012-2015).

For his work, Moyers has received more than 36 Emmys, six prestigious Alfred I. Dupont-Columbia University Awards, nine Peabodys and three George Polk Awards. In the first year it was bestowed, Moyers received the Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts by the American Film Institute. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, he received the Career Achievement Award from the International Documentary Association, the PEN USA Courageous Advocacy Award and has been honored with the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Lifetime Achievement Award. He was inducted into the Television Hall of Fame in 1995. A best-selling author, Moyers' works include Listening to America; Moyers on America: A Journalist and his Times; Moyers on Democracy; and Bill Moyers Journal: The Conversation Continues.