An Evening with Jim Lehrer

Everyone knows Jim Lehrer, the correspondent who has moderated the presidential debates since 1988 and has been hailed as “the Dean of Moderators”.

However, the surprise of evening of Feb. 3, 2012 was the voice of the funny and knowledgeable Jim Lehrer, the educator. Lehrer spoke to future journalists of the Northwest in a small conference room at the elegant Heathman Hotel.

After attending the Missouri School of Journalism, Lehrer worked 30 hours on obits, cop beat, weather reports, and answered phones. Per Lehrer, “journalism is always learning. If you are not always learning, then you are not doing a good job as a journalist”.

“When you are going down the street and you hear a siren, if you don’t want to know why the siren is on, then don’t go into journalism”, said Lehrer.

Assume there is at least one other side to all stories. Never assume and carefully separate.

“Do nothing you cannot defend”, said Lehrer.

When asked about the new computer technology, Lehrer said, “new world order is the World Wide Web and should be accessible to all as there is a new crew of gatekeepers of the news. It will be a different type of journalists from his day- “no longer a bunch of old white guys running everything.” If you don’t want to read about it, don’t say it.

Even though there are no longer a few major publications, there will always be a place for the written word for the good journalist. If you see journalism as a search for the truth, you will never be a good journalist because journalism is the fact business, not the truth business.

As a journalist, we must make sure no matter how technology affects us, we must acknowledge that news is only news after legitimate news people go through it. Content must rule the day as long as it is credible.

Asked about the nastiness of the campaign, Lehrer said, “We are losing good candidates due to this invasive and intrusive nastiness. The only way to truly avoid the nastiness is to watch your step from the seventh grade and check out your date’s past also.”

90% of the voters have already decided whom they are voting for. The debates are really to weed out the field. This is not the best situation but it is the best we have.

Why should a person seeking to be a journalist listen to Mr. Lehrer? If you have not heard his name, where have you been?

When only 16, Lehrer wanted to “play ball for Boston but the coach told him to come up with a back-up plan”. Thank goodness his coach advised him to do this. He wrote a paper on Charles Dickens’s Tale of Two Cities and got an A. His teacher made the comment “Jimmy, you are a good writer.”
This thankfully started him on his present illustrious award-winning career.

Lehrer went into the Marine Corp/Infantry Officer Corp, just like dad and brother. It was a non-decision. Going in as a punk farm kid from a community where everyone was alike, Lehrer was taught that there are all types of people on whom he was dependent, eliminating all clichés. You are only as strong as the people on each side of you in the Marines. The Marine Corps taught him discipline, bearing, and leadership. “You are shown that being responsible for others is not a choice.”
“From 1959 to 1966, he was a reporter for The Dallas Morning News and then the Dallas Times-Herald. He was also a political columnist at the Times-Herald for several years and in 1968 became the city editor,” per PBS Newshour.

“Lehrer began his career in journalism at The Dallas Morning News and the Dallas Times-Herald, where he covered the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963. From 1970 to 1973, Lehrer anchored the local single-story news show, Newsroom on KERA-TV, the local Public Broadcasting affiliate station in Dallas. Lehrer began working with PBS network in 1973, and in 1975 developed and co-anchored The MacNeil/LehrerReport with Robert MacNeil” for 20 years, according to Wikipedia.
Per Mr. Lehrer, PBS News Hour is one of the fastest growing, most enhanced, and expanding news media. PBS is one of the few shows that continues to collaborate with others.

Mr. Lehrer has written 21 books, two memoirs and three plays. His latest novel is entitled Tension City: Inside the Presidential Debates, from Kennedy-Nixon to Obama-McCain, by Jim Lehrer, my view from the Middle East and is on sale now. On the jacket of his book,Tension City , “Lehrer isolates and illuminates what he calls the “Major Moments” and “killer questions” that defined the debates."