Behind the News, The Water Cooler
Jim Lehrer on Billy Bob, Reports of Rain and Stenography As Journalism
The PBS anchor discusses his upcoming special featuring Ben Bradlee, the importance of public discourse and how to handle untruths from politicians.
By Liz Cox Barrett Fri 2 Jun 2006 05:32 PM
Ben Bradlee and Jim Lehrer
Jim Lehrer is the executive editor and anchor of PBS’ The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Lehrer joined PBS in 1972, working with Robert MacNeil to cover the Senate Watergate hearings. In 1975, they began what became The MacNeil/Lehrer Report and, in 1983, The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, television’s first hour-long evening news program. When MacNeil retired in 1995, the program was renamed The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Prior to joining PBS, Lehrer worked for newspapers in Dallas. He has moderated televised candidate debates in the last five presidential elections and he has written 15 novels.
CJR Daily spoke with Lehrer about his coming PBS program, “Free Speech. Jim Lehrer with Ben Bradlee,” in which he talks to Bradlee about anonymous sources, journalistic integrity, celebrity journalists and other issues facing journalism today. “Free Speech” premieres June 19.
Liz Cox Barrett: You have sat down with Ben Bradlee before — for the NewsHour — and talked to him about Watergate and such. How was this sit-down different? What was your aim for this program and what inspired it?
Jim Lehrer: When the Deep Throat story broke a year ago — that it was Mark Felt — I did an interview with Ben on the NewsHour about that — 10, 12 minutes, in television terms a long time but in NewsHour terms not a long talk. We got into some to some of the issues of anonymous sources and my wife, Kate Lehrer, said to me, “You oughtta sit down with Ben at some length and talk about journalism, maybe for PBS or even a longer DVD for journalism students.” So I called Ben and he said,”Yeah, why not?” And then I called our folks at MacNeil/Lehrer productions and that’s how it all came about …
LCB: I was interested in your exchange with Bradlee about how, as you said, to “keep lies out of the newspaper.” At one point, Bradlee said that newspapers are obliged to report what the president says and if the president says something that isn’t true you have to “learn how to handle that.” When you asked Bradlee how one handles that, he said that “you assign a special story to it and [write]: ‘When the president said, ‘A,’ he flew in the face of (there are a lots of little euphemisms you can use-) much of opinion which says the opposite. You can highlight the controversy which seems to me to be an intelligent way to do it.”
At CJR Daily, we spent a lot of time during the 2004 presidential campaign criticizing just the sort of story that it seems Bradlee is describing — stories that “highlight the controversy,” report this claim versus these competing claims, rather than providing facts for the reader and helping them navigate toward the truth. What are your thoughts on this? How do you approach reporting what a public official has said something that is blatantly untrue?
JL: I don’t deal in terms like “blatantly untrue.” That’s for other people to decide when something’s “blatantly untrue.” There’s always a germ of truth in just about everything … My part of journalism is to present what various people say about it the best we can find out [by] reporting and let others — meaning commentators, readers, viewers, bloggers or whatever … I’m not in the judgment part of journalism. I’m in the reporting part of journalism. I have great faith in the intelligence of the American viewer and reader to put two and two together and come up with four. Sometimes they’re going to come up with five. 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.
LCB: That goes beyond presenting a claim and several counter-claims that appear to call into question the original claim?
JL: That’s part of it. Absolutely that’s part of it. I mean, if somebody says — doesn’t matter if it’s the president or who —if somebody says, “It rained on Thursday,” and you know for a fact it didn’t rain on Thursday, if the person was of a nature that you felt you should quote him, “It rained on Thursday.” Second paragraph, third paragraph — or in television terms second or third sentence — you would say, “However, according to the weather bureau it didn’t [rain Thursday].” But you don’t call the person a liar. The person who would call that person a liar would be the person who’d read that story and say, “My god, Billy Bob lied.” But I’m not doing that. I’m providing the information so that the person can make their decision. People might say, “Well the weather bureau has lied. Or I was out that day and it was raining …”
Most of the stories I have covered in 45 years have been gray stories. There are very few really stark black and white stories. 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. It’s not about, “This guy is a liar, this guy isn’t a liar.” I wish it was that simple. It seldom ever is.
LCB: Is there any place for writing, “Billy Bob said it rained Thursday. The weather bureau said it didn’t. I was out that day and I say it didn’t.”
JL: I would never do that. That’s not my function to do that.
LCB: Is it a newspaper’s function?
JL: Look, I’m just telling you what I do, ok? 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.
MRooney
Fri 2 Jun 2006 05:58 PMI see Jim has been around politicians long enough to learn to refuse any question that you don't want to answer.
jdorsey
Fri 2 Jun 2006 08:26 PMIncredibly lame. Obscenely lame. He says he's not a man who judges, but he will call a question stupid or a waste of time in a heartbeat.
His program might be awesome, but clearly he doesn't like speculation. I suppose I can understand that ... but he comes off as pretty defensive. No such thing as an innocent question as far as he's concerned.