PBS' Jim Lehrer Urged Journalists not to Lose Sight of Their Purpose

Story by Jazmine Ulloa

In this revolutionary media culture where infotainment is often used to boost ratings and the rise of bloggers, political pundits and comedians has increased competition there is still the need for the original news report “unvarnished, unshouted, untainted, unslanted and unjoked,” said Jim Lehrer, executive editor and anchor of PBS' The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

Lehrer’s message to the panicked voices of the newsrooms: “Calm down, please.”

Addressing a packed Hogg Auditorium at The University of Texas at Austin Nov. 5, Lehrer urged journalists not to lose sight of their purpose.

“The bloggers are talkers, commentators--not reporters,” he said. “The talk show hosts are reactors, commentators--not reporters. The comedians are entertainers, commentators--not reporters. The search engines search but do not report.”

"At the end of the day, they all need the news in order to exist", Lehrer said.

Lehrer began his reporting career at the Dallas Times-Herald and The Dallas Morning News before switching to public television in Dallas, KERA-TV. He then moved to Washington D.C. as the public affairs coordinator for PBS.

He has been inducted into the Television Hall of Fame and has won numerous awards for his journalism, including two Emmys. Lehrer has also served three years in the U.S. Marine Corps and penned 17 novels, the latest of which was released in the spring.

Now 73, he was selected as the 2007 Mary Alice Davis Distinguished Lecturer. The lectureship is named after university alumna Mary Alice Davis, a columnist and editorial writer for the Austin American-Statesman. She died of cancer in 2004.

“Mary Alice was very passionate about issues but she believed in facts, not opinions,” Jim Davis, her husband, said. “She counted on Jim Lehrer and his program to give her the facts for the editorials and columns she would write.”

First launched with then partner Robert MacNeil, the program is still running after 32 years and now has a world audience of more than 2 million. That’s larger than that of comedic political pundits Stephen Colbert and John Stewart, Lehrer said. MacNeil departed from the show after the 1995-96 season.

“It’s worth putting on a coat and tie for everyday, it’s something I wake up for,” he said about The NewsHour during an interview before the lecture. “Even when we blow it, I never go home with my tail between my legs because we try to do it honorably. We try to do it professionally, we try to get it right and to do it well.”

Beginning in what Lehrer called “the worst times for newsroom television,” the program did have its early mishaps, such as doing reports on “Portuguese elections not even the Portuguese cared about,” he said at the lecture.

Lehrer also had some humorous advice from his route to becoming a journalist. Attending high school in Beaumont, he first had his hopes set out on becoming a professional baseball player. But when his coach realized he couldn’t hit, catch or throw well, the coach told Lehrer, “‘you might want to think about something else.’”

By then, Lehrer had befriended the sports writers that attended the games and began considering a career as a sports writer. His thoughts coincided with what he said was the most important thing that ever happened in his life, making the grade on an essay assignment for a literature class.

“I’ll never forget it,” he said. “It was about Charles Dickens, ‘A Tale of Two Cities,’ and the teacher gave me an A, and more importantly, on the left hand corner, he put, ‘Jimmy, you are a very good writer.’”

The next day he joined the newspaper, where he moved up the ranks from reporter to sports editor to tri-editor, or editor of all the other editors.

He’s been writing ever since and now even “thinks with his fingers,” Lehrer jokes. “I beat the hell out of that typewriter,” Lehrer laughs when remembering the days before moving up to a computer.

It’s Lehrer’s optimism and passion for his writing that she admires the most, said Soo-Hye Han, a communication graduate student studying political communication.

“A lot of people think journalists are cynics, that they are always out to get the scoops and scandals,” she said. “There may be some like that, but most at the core are optimists like Lehrer. We need that. What he said was very uplifting.”

The last question of the night’s Q&A session that followed the lecture came from 12-year-old Ruth Tipperreiter who asked Lehrer why he cared about his work.

"I really believe with all my heart and soul that there is not one problem we have in this country, this city, this world, wherever I am at any given moment, that can't be resolved by good people," Lehrer said. "That is the drive for me as a journalist."