Famous for both his journalism activities and his non-fiction and fiction writings, Jim Lehrer (born James Charles Lehrer) is a prominent
PBS news anchor, and a popular debate moderator during the presidential elections. Jim was born in Wichita, Kansas, in May 19th, 1934. He graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in Texas and later graduated from Victoria College and Missouri School of Journalism and then served the military for two years. His mother Lois was bank clerk, but his father, Harry Frederick Lehrer was a bus manager; buses still fascinate Lehrer and some of his activities (and even fiction writings) involve buses.
He began his rise to the top by working in Dallas Morning news in 1959 and stayed there for seven years, until 1966. He became the city editor of Dallas Times-Herald in 1968, and moved to television in 1970 with a lot of prior publishing experience acquired in his years as news reporter. In 1970 Lehrer became the anchor of the one-story news show Newsroom. It wasn't for long until he wanted to step up the career ladder and he moved to Washington, DC, where he became a
PBS news affiliate and introduced the Newshour, then called The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. He anchored the show together with Robert MacNeil.
The Newshour show was a huge success and won over thirty different awards in the following seven years. Jim Lehrer had become a nationwide celebrity; in fact, he became one of the first journalist celebrities in the United States. In 1995, MacNeil left the show and the MacNeil/Lehrer
Newshour was eventually renamed the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Lehrer became known as a very professional journalist; Lehrer is one of the few journalists who had no known scandals written to them. His exceptional professionalism became even more apparent in this decade, when he listed his famous 'journalism rules'. The last of them stated: "I am not in the entertainment business."
The quote wasn't entirely true, as Jim Lehrer actually is in the entertainment business, albeit not exactly in television - from time to time, he still publishes fiction -- and non-fiction, too. His bibliography includes over twenty novels, which include works such as "Eureka", "White Widow", and "Oh, Johnny", his most recent work. His first novel was published in 1966 and he has remained a prolific fiction writer up until now.
Besides his work as a
news anchor, Lehrer has covered eleven presidential debates during his career and is known for his passive style, allowing the candidates take all the attention. Although he is often criticized for this, he himself says that, when being the debate moderator for events of such scale, one must realize that "this [election] is historical and important for the democratic process and the American voters, and you are the least important part." For his outstanding work as the 'debate dean', as well as other journalism achievements, Lehrer received the 1999 National Humanities medal. Although Lehrer covering the next debate in 2012 is out of question, Jim has already earned his place in the history of American journalism by being an example of what a true journalist should be.
