March 11, 1998
Journalist Jim Lehrer to speak at UW commencement June 13
Jim Lehrer, executive editor and anchor of The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), will be the featured speaker at the 123rd Commencement ceremonies for the University of Washington this year.
Ceremonies, set for 2 p.m., Saturday, June 13, will be held for the first time in Husky Stadium.
Lehrer’s reporting career began in 1959 with the Dallas Morning News. Two years later, he moved to the Dallas Times Herald, where in 1968 he became the paper’s city editor. In 1971, he began working in public television in Dallas, serving as KERA-TV’s executive director of public affairs, on-air host and editor of a nightly news program.
The following year, he became public affairs coordinator for PBS in Washington, D.C., where he also became a member of the PBS Journalism Advisory Board and a fellow at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. In 1973, he joined the National Public Affairs Center for Television (NPACT) as a correspondent. At NPACT, he began his association with Robert MacNeil. They teamed up to provide NPACT’s continuous live coverage of the Senate Watergate Hearings.
In 1975, the Robert MacNeil Report, with Lehrer as Washington correspondent, premiered on WNET, New York. Over the next seven years, the MacNeil/Lehrer Report (it was renamed in 1976) won more than 30 awards for journalistic excellence. In September 1983, The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour was launched. MacNeil retired in 1995, and the program became The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.
Lehrer has served as a moderator for six nationally televised debates among presidential candidates in the last three elections. In 1996, he moderated all three debates between Clinton and Dole, and between Gore and Kemp.
Lehrer has received several Emmys, the George Foster Peabody Award, the William Allen White Foundation Award for Journalistic Merit and the University of Missouri School of Journalism’s Medal of Honor. In 1991, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Lehrer also is the author of 12 books. These include The Last Debate, a satirical novel about journalism, published in 1995, and White Widow, a novel published in 1997. His next novel, Purple Dots, will be published in October. He has published two memoirs and a series of “One-Eyed Mack” adventures. He also has written several plays. Chili Queen was produced in New York and at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C.; Church Key Charlie Blue premiered in January 1988, and The Will and Bart Show was first produced in July 1992.
