Posted on 11/06/2007 6:58:18 AM PST by Cat loving Texan
'In the beginning, there must be a news story' before blogs and punditry can exist, 'NewsHour' anchor says.
By Patrick George AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Although traditional journalists face declining profits and increased competition from pundits, bloggers, comedians and different types of Internet media, Jim Lehrer said, the screams of panic coming from newsrooms aren't completely merited.
"Well, I say, 'Calm down, please,' " the anchor and executive editor of the PBS show "The News
Hour with Jim Lehrer" said to a packed auditorium at the University of Texas on Monday evening. "I believe we mostly have fear itself to fear, to coin a phrase."
Lehrer, 73, who has worn the hats of reporter, anchor, editor and novelist throughout his career, said the many choices for getting information that are available to modern Americans can't replace the conventional reporters who gather and write news objectively.
"The bloggers are talkers, commentators, not reporters. The talk-show hosts are reactors, commentators, not reporters," Lehrer said. "The search engines can search but do not report. All of them, every single one of them, have to have the news in order to exist and thrive."
Lehrer was the 2007 Mary Alice Davis Distinguished Lecturer in Journalism. The lectureship was named for a UT alumna and columnist and editorial writer for the Austin American-Statesman who died of cancer in 2004.
During his speech to a crowd of bright-eyed journalism students and gray-haired "News Hour" faithful, Lehrer stuck up for traditional media.
Without the work of reporters, Lehrer said, the jokes told on "The Daily Show" and late-night TV wouldn't make sense.
He warned against the "spicing up" of news with entertainment programming and partisan commentary.
"You want to be entertained? Go to the circus, please. Do not watch 'The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,' " he said.
The typically straightforward face of "NewsHour" relayed humorous tales from his education at Victoria College and the early days at his 32-year-old show, which took a while to hit its stride.
"We did 30 minutes comparing naturally grown tomatoes to unnaturally grown tomatoes," Lehrer said. "Don't ask me why we did it.
"We did 30 minutes on the Portuguese elections that not even the Portuguese cared about."
During a question-and-answer session, 12-year-old Ruth Tipperreiter asked Lehrer why he still does what he does.
"I really believe with all my heart and soul that there is not one problem that can't be resolved by good people," Lehrer said. "That is the drive for me as a journalist."
pgeorge@statesman.com; 445-3851
Lehrer sucks at the PBS public teat.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
That’s the main argument of MSM defenders—that without them there will be no original, informational news-gathering and investigative reporting and that the blogs and talk radio just hash out the stories and issues of the day after the fact.
We can all think of the notable exceptions; Michael Yon in Iraq for instance. Many of the more notable bloggers and talk radio mavens do occasional shoe-leather reporting and researching, conduct interviews and attend events, etc. but how much does that really add up to?
Canned advertisements from the pharmaceutical industry using their own footage to report some new “breakthrough therapy” is not news.
“Slice of life” interviews with Joe Public are not news.
Reading off police reports from the daily blotter of fires, cantina shootings, and car wrecks is not news.
Reading sports scores is not news.
Making up people quoted in New York Times articles is not news.
Photoshopping images to increase the damage from Israeli missiles when returning fire is not news. It is enemy propaganda.
Jim, you’re toast. Pack your bags and tell your buddies in the Stalinist media that the game is over, YOU LOST.
No, Al Franken is a reputable Democrat running for public office.
If you don’t read/watch the MSM, you are uninformed.
If you DO read/watch the MSM, you are MISinformed.
It is one thing to be biased and wear it on your sleeve.
These CROOKS have been repeatedly caught MAKING UP FALSE NEWS AND EVIDENCE. Dan Ratherbiased anyone?
They tried to STEAL AN ELECTION TWICE ON FRAUDULENT INFORMATION (bogus exit polling numbers to depress turnout from Republicans and then with forged memos).
They collude with the DNC on news stories. Foleygate anyone? It was in their hands in the spring but they opted to sit on it until “maxiumum efficiency”. And they had the balls to blame the GOP leadership for “doing nothing”.
It is NOT a journalist's duty to RESOLVE problems. They are to only report the day's events GOOD AND BAD.
... and taxpayers' money.
Funny how he doesn’t recognize this is part and parcel of today’s “News” organizations. Guess he never watches MSM on TV.
They are faced with a double whammy, and technology is behind both.
Whammy 1 - Due to technology their decades old monopoly has been broken revealing the bias that was always there but not always all that evident.
Whammy 2 - Due to growing up with new technology young people (and many old people too) prefer to get their information in whole different ways (some of this is a function of #1 above but some of it is not). People want blogs, podcasts, newscrawls, web news perhaps viewed from a mobile device, Tivo, and the list goes on and on and on.
They are facing a perfect storm and Lehrer is out on the deck of the sinking ship saying everything is dandy. OK fine, Jim, think what you want.
Reminds me of King Knute commanding the tide to stop.
In 1993 Leher was on a show hosted by Mary Matlin and Jane Mayer. He was hawking his latest novel. Mary asked how he got the idea for the plot line. He said he was walking up the stairs to the dem /rep debate with the questions under his arm when he thought to himself “Wouldn’t the other side like to see these questions!”. He snikered when he said it.
No one batted an eye. My question would have been, who does he consider the ‘other’ side? And did he give the questions to his side before hand?
Well Lehrer is certainly right about the importance of news stories... particularly when they are fake or fraudulent... “this is Dan Rather reporting from Kinkos”.
NOT YOUR JOB!
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