Jim Lehrer receives Al Neuharth journalism award
By The Associated Press,
Sioux Falls (S.D) Argus Leader
10.12.01
|
| USD audience watches Lehrer's taped remarks yesterday. |
VERMILLION, S.D. — A groundbreaking yesterday heralded the renovation of the University of South Dakota's telecommunications building, which will be called the Al Neuharth Media Center. And respected PBS anchor Jim Lehrer, receiving an award for high achievement in journalism, railed against contemporary journalism but said reporting on the war against terrorism may redeem it.
The Neuharth center will contain university and state media offices and studios and will cost more than $4 million. The center should open in early 2003. Neuharth is a 1950 USD graduate and founder of USA TODAY. He was on hand for the event, along with about 150 other people.
About half the cost of the renovation is being paid for by The Freedom Forum, a nonprofit free-press foundation Neuharth founded.
The event was the same day as a ceremony honoring Lehrer of "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" with the 13th annual Allen H. Neuharth Award for Excellence in Journalism.
The 2001 award presentation, in the Wayne S. Knutson Theater, was delayed about 40 minutes as the audience watched President Bush's news conference on the attacks on Afghanistan.
Lehrer could not attend the event in Vermillion or even go through with a planned live broadcast from Washington to USD because of news coverage of events since the Sept. 11 Muslim terrorist attacks on the East Coast. His remarks were taped at 4 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time because of uncertainty surrounding Bush's news conference.
 |
| Al Neuharth speaks at media center groundbreaking. |
"The events of that day (Sept. 11) changed the world, and they also changed plans for tonight," he said in the taped message.
Neuharth called Lehrer the most distinguished of the award recipients because of the esteem he gets from peers and the subjects of his reports.
"A year ago, he was the only person in broadcasting that Al Gore and George W. Bush trusted to moderate their debate," Neuharth said.
"I hope you will understand, Jim Lehrer, that we here in South Dakota salute you for your professionalism, your exceptional skills as a reporter, author and editor, high ethical standards, and for the fact that you have set much of the standard in this country for how a fair press should perform," Neuharth said.
Lehrer said the attacks in September affected him as had no other news story.
"I've been a practitioner of daily journalism for more than 40 years now, and I have a little button that goes off in my brain and my soul when a major news event like this takes place. Almost always it turns into adrenaline, which in turn ignites excitement and pleasure in covering the story. That has not happened with this story," he said.
Lehrer lamented the state of journalism today.
 |
| Jim Lehrer with the Allen H. Neuharth Award. |
The decline of ethics in the industry has brought the news media to the same level as "Congress, child pornographers and the lawyers," he said. "I wish I could say that in light of the events of September 11th, that has changed, that journalism has been born again and all is well. But I can't do that yet."
He said a pack mentality has journalists following the lead of cable news channels rather than making independent news judgments.
Lehrer suggested journalists follow several guidelines:
"There is a tendency for journalism to be akin to professional wrestling, something you watch rather than believe," Lehrer said in his taped speech. "Predatory stakeouts, talk-show shouting, no-source reporting" and an obscured line between news and opinion masquerade as journalism.
Looming as another complicating issue is the presence of all-news cable networks, such as CNN, he said. Journalists of every stripe watch these constantly, Lehrer said, and for such journalists these days, "news judgments of cable have replaced the … news judgments of wire services."
The way cable news networks play stories strongly influences the way those stories are played in other media, he said. Because cable news has "air time to fill, excitement to generate," its news decisions "may not always be tied to the true value and weight of a story."
"A heartening thing amidst the horror and awfulness" of Sept. 11, Lehrer said, is that journalists have come to see "there is a serious world out there that deserves serious, ongoing coverage."
In the month since the Sept. 11 attacks, Americans, through their news media, have learned about Islamic fundamentalism, the Taliban, Afghanistan and the bordering Central Asian nations, he said. They now know "what we stand for, what our power stands for and how we should exercise our power in the face of threats to our way of life," he said.
War is "God's way of teaching Americans geography." It is also "God's way of teaching journalists what journalism ought to be."