The Whirling Lehrer
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| Also listed in: Campus Progress Blog |
Lehrer advises Medill students to give journalism "a whirl"
Daily Northwestern: PBS "NewsHour" anchor Jim Lehrer told a Northwestern University audience that despite the low pay for starting journalists, people should “give it a whirl,” both because of the public good and because of the unique experience journalism provides. "It's chasing fire engines. It's following the sirens and asking 'What happened? Why are all the sirens going off?'"
The thought that Jim Lehrer has been giving journalism “a whirl” on the PBS NewsHour actually repels me from a journalism career as much, much too boring. To paraphrase Apu, stop staring at me from behind the screen with your dead eyes!
But whether or not Lehrer's a good journalist is a whole other question. Two relevant links: Link
And, Link
From Alterman:
Jim Lehrer explained the peculiar form of "objectivity" he and his colleagues practice to CJR Daily's Liz Cox Barrett not long ago: "I don't deal in terms like 'blatantly untrue,'" he averred. "That's for other people to decide.... I'm not in the judgment part of journalism. I'm in the reporting part of journalism." ... Lehrer's interview sounded an awful lot like Rob Corddry lecturing a befuddled Jon Stewart, "I don't have 'o-pin-i-ons.' I'm a reporter, Jon, and my job is to spend half the time repeating what one side says, and half the time repeating the other. Little thing called 'objectivity'--might wanna look it up someday."