Published: May 02, 2009 10:23 am      

Acclaimed journalist Jim Lehrer to speak at East Central University Commencement

By Jomain Mckenzie

Guest Writer

Journalist, producer, author, former Marine, husband, grandfather and patriot are just some of the hats worn by Jim Lehrer, the internationally acclaimed news anchor and television personality who will speak to over 800 Tiger graduates Saturday in Kerr Activity Center.

“The most famous person [unattached to the university] to speak at a commencement service,” Lehrer shares his expectations for the anticipated event.

“What it means most to me is coming back to where I’m most comfortable and where I’m at home. Those are my people,” Lehrer said.

Lehrer has had an almost eternal attachment to Oklahoma and even Ada. When he puts pen to paper, several of his novel characters reside in a place “just like Ada.”

“That’s my home-writing country. I’ve written several books that take place in and around a fictional place that is like Ada, that I call Adabel. I spent time in Ada and Idabel so it’s a take off of those two names, but they take place around that part of Oklahoma,” Lehrer said.

“My mother was born in a place called Phillips, Okla., which is a ghost town now. It’s southeast of Ada, near Coalgate. It used to be coal-mining country,” Lehrer said. “So, I have that root there, but also in World War II, my uncle went to Oklahoma University Medical School and I went down there to see him a lot as a little boy. I’m very familiar with the territory.”

The Kansas native maintains his connections here.

“I grew up in Kansas and in Texas. Spent a lot of time in an around Oklahoma, because of relatives and it’s always appealed to me. I have a lot of friends in and from Oklahoma and I’m just comfortable there,” Lehrer said.

Lehrer is most recognized for his News Hour show on PBS, but has a myriad of other responsibilities. Where does he find the time?

“The bottom line is, I figured out a few years ago that I could have time to do all the things I want to do if I quit doing the things I did not want to do [and] that’s what I did,” he said.

“What I do is I write every day. I do a little bit of writing everyday, usually very early in the morning before I come to work or at the office because I usually get to work before everybody else gets here, and I’m talking about my News Hour office. So, it is with me all the time. I’m just fortunate enough to be able to switch from one to the other with full concentration, and though it’s taken years, I have developed the ability to do that,” he said.

Lehrer’s habits led him to complete yet another book titled “Oh Johnny,” that was released recently.

His literary talents were discovered and nurtured from as early as 16 years of age at a high school in Texas.

“I had decided that because I wasn’t making it as a baseball player I would be a sportswriter. Then I had an English teacher who told me I was a pretty good writer and at 16 I told my mother I wanted to be a writer,” Lehrer said.

The ambitions of the aspiring writer didn’t stop there.

“I found my faculty advisor at my high school newspaper and said, ‘Here I am.’ And except for three years when I was in the Marine Corps, this is all I’ve done ever since - writing and reporting. These are things I decided that I was going to do and I did them and I’m still doing them years later,” he said.

Lehrer has a reputation of being one of the most unbiased reporters in American journalism. His practice comes from his personally accepted view towards news reporting.

“It’s just the way I believe journalism should be practiced and I have been given the opportunity in public broadcasting for all these years to practice it that way and it’s a matter of function. It’s not a matter of philosophy or ideology or anything like that. I feel that there are several ways and functions of journalism,” Lehrer said.

In the Lehrer approach to journalism, the first function is to tell people what happened. The second is to analyze the story or tell them what it means, and the third function is to tell people what they should think.

Lehrer said the third function is the commentator or columnist function.

“I’m in that first function which is just, ‘Tell me what happened.’ Then we have other people do the others. I believe these functions should be separated. They should not be done by the same people,” he said.

It is this approach to journalism that makes Lehrer a repeated candidate for moderator of U.S. presidential debates. He was selected to conduct the latest debates with now President Barack Obama and Senator John McCain.

“They were all huge honors. They were all hugely exhilarating once they were over. They were also hugely treacherous while they were actually happening. It’s not like moderating a debate on our program or any other program. If you make a mistake in one of those you say you’ll do better next time. You make a mistake in a presidential debate, you can affect who the next president’s going to be,” he said with a laugh.

“This is serious work and I’m well aware of that when I’m doing it. The Obama-McCain debates were particularly difficult because it came right at the beginning of the financial crisis and there was some discussion as to whether McCain was going to come or not and all of that,” Lehrer said. “There were a lot of imponderables that made for some tension - but they’re all that way. I’ve never done a presidential debate where I could say this is a piece of cake. They are never a piece of cake but it’s never enough just to be fair. You must also be perceived as being fair and I’m aware of that all the time as well.”

As a patriot himself, Lehrer looks with great optimism at the current state of the United States.

“All serious journalists I know are always optimistic. You have to believe that these problems can be solved or else how could you ask questions about it or discuss solutions to particular problems?” Lehrer said. “Things aren’t always neat and tidy. There will always be people who disagree, who are vocal, who step over the lines but that’s the joy and wisdom of how we operate here in a democracy.”

Though it was particularly difficult for him to name the most profound moment in his career, he highlighted the assassination of President John F. Kennedy as one of these moments.

“I was a reporter for a afternoon newspaper in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963 when President Kennedy was assassinated. As a reporter I learned once and for all, in an incredibly dramatic way, what one event can do and how one event can lead to so many different changes. The death of John F. Kennedy sent off a chain of events that changed our country and changed many things about it,” he said.

Lehrer, for years, has been a supporter of national service and giving back to one’s community and country. His passion for this he attributes to his service in the United States Marines.

“My own experience, my three years in the Marine Corps in the 1950s, changed who I was. It taught me all kinds of things about the outside world. Until then I had never been on an airplane. Most of my travels had been around Texas Kansas and Oklahoma,” he said.

The people with whom he shared this experience “changed my life,” Lehrer said.

“Most of the people I talked to looked like me, talked like me and suddenly here I was, dependent on a group of people who were very different than I in all respects. It taught me a lot about responsibility and responsibility for yourself and others,” Lehrer said.

At 74 years of age, Lehrer keeps going and as he said, his priority is to do the things he wants to. In the balance of things, he attributes his motivation to his family.

“I do all kinds of things for fun. Writing fiction is fun. I also collect bus memorabilia and I have six grandchildren, three children and a wonderful wife, and I have terrific friends. I’m the happiest person you’ll ever talk to,” he said.