"On a daily basis there are some huge ones that are, sure, from time to time, but it is helping the reader sort through all this sort of gray stuff out there." -- Jim Lehrer
James Charles "Jim" Lehrer (; born May 19, 1934) is an American journalist and the news anchor for PBS Newshour on PBS, known for his role as a frequent debate moderator during elections. Lehrer is an author of non-fiction and fiction, drawing from his experiences and interests in history and politics.
"As I say, I'm a discourse advocate. What form it comes is less important to me than the fact that there is discourse.""Best I can do for them is to give them every piece of information I can find and let them make the judgments. That's just my basic view of my function as a journalist.""Everyone should get their news however they want to and in whatever form they want. I'm not going to sit back in judgment of other people and the way they do it.""I have great faith in the intelligence of the American viewer and reader to put two and two together and come up with four.""I started as a print reporter.""I'm a journalist and that's what I do.""I'm an expert on the NewsHour and it isn't how I practice journalism. I am not involved in the story. I serve only as a reporter or someone asking questions. I am not the story.""I'm in the civil discourse business. I think it takes all kinds. And more power to everybody.""I'm in the reporting part of journalism.""I'm not in the judgment part of journalism.""If people want bells and whistles and all of that, there are bells and whistles available. If they don't want bells and whistles there are places to go where they are not available.""If we don't have an informed electorate we don't have a democracy. So I don't care how people get the information, as long as they get it. I'm just doing it my particular way and I feel lucky I can do it the way I want to do it.""Most of the stories I have covered in 45 years have been gray stories.""My own view, there is a need for and a demonstrated need for more journalism now than there ever has been.""People can get their news any way they want. What I love about what's happened is that there are so many different avenues, there are so many different outlets, so many different ways to debate and discuss and to inquire about any given news story.""People can say anything they want to. If they don't want to get the news from me, get it from somebody else. It's not something I'm going to worry about, I'm sorry.""There are very few really stark black and white stories.""There's always a germ of truth in just about everything.""Those who know me know I won't hesitate to turn around and point someone out.""We have increasingly fewer and fewer journalists who have any military experience and understand what life is like in the military and in combat.""You want to see an angry person? Let me hear a cell phone go off."
Lehrer was born in Wichita, Kansas, the son of Lois Catherine (née Chapman), a bank clerk, and Harry Frederick Lehrer, a bus station manager. He attended middle school in Beaumont, Texas and graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in San Antonio, Texas, where he was one of the three sports editors at the Jefferson Declaration. He also graduated from Victoria College in Texas and the Missouri School of Journalism at the University of Missouri. Lehrer joined the United States Marine Corps and attributes his service and travels with helping him to look past himself and feel a connection to the world that he would not have otherwise experienced.
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/Lehrer Report with Robert MacNeil. The news show was later renamed The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, and after MacNeil's departure in 1995 was named The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and finally The PBS Newshour in 2009.
Nicknamed the "Dean of Moderators" by CNN's Bernard Shaw, Lehrer has moderated eleven presidential candidate debates, with the most recent being the presidential debate between senators Barack Obama and John McCain on September 26, 2008.
Lehrer underwent a heart valve surgery in April 2008, and, while he recuperated, Ray Suarez anchored in his stead until his return on June 28, 2008.
Lehrer is a bus enthusiast. His father was a bus driver and also briefly operated a bus company. As a college student in the 1950s, he worked as a Trailways ticket agent in Victoria, Texas. He is a supporter of the Pacific Bus Museum in Williams, California and the Museum of Bus Transportation in Hershey, Pennsylvania. He is a collector of bus memorabilia, including depot signs, driver caps, and antique toy buses.
Lehrer is married to the novelist Kate Lehrer. They have three daughters and six grandchildren.
