Jim Lehrer Speaks at Lafayette’s 167th Commencement

Lafayette awarded 550 bachelor’s degrees to 539 graduating seniors and honorary doctorates to three distinguished leaders, including journalist Jim Lehrer, today at the College’s 167th Commencement.

In his commencement address, Lehrer criticized journalism in America today, but found reasons for optimism post-September 11.

He said journalists had sunk to a new low in public esteem, blaming a “new blurring of the old lines between straight news, analysis, and opinion” and citing other reasons, including broadcast journalism’s tendency to “appear more like professional wrestling, something you watch rather than something you believe.” He criticized the “savagery” of predatory stake-outs and coarse invasions of privacy. And he decried the “arrogance that seems to have afflicted some of my colleagues,” conveying the message “that only journalists are pure enough to judge all others.”

But “amidst the horror and awfulness” on and after September 11, he sees signs of hope for American journalism. “It has brought home a message loud and clear to some of my sister and fellow practitioners: that there is, and has been for some time, a serious world out there that deserves to be covered seriously.”

Lehrer said, “Now when all of us have learned names like Afghanistan and Uzbekistan and the Taliban and the Al-Queda and we have begun to discuss and debate the power of the United States and how it should be exercised and the threats to our peace and to our way of life, I am now finding more and more journalists saying, ‘It has taken a tragedy of enormous proportions, but maybe, maybe we are returning to our roots, and those roots are in the business of information, not entertainment. If you want to be entertained, go to the circus, go to the movies, go to the carnival. If you want to be informed, read my newspaper, read my magazine, watch or listen to my television or radio broadcast.’”

“We’ll see how long this lasts,” he concluded. “But I am hopeful, and I must say the coverage more recently of the Middle East crisis has given me more reason for hope. I know from my own experience that no story is more difficult and incendiary to cover. And before that, I believe the coverage of the Enron story and its many parts also shows an additional glimmer of hope. Although coming to it late, I think, again, most of the press that I have observed have gone at this story with the seriousness it deserves.”

See below for more of Jim Lehrer’s remarks.

Lafayette President Arthur J. Rothkopf ’55 awarded Lehrer the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters. Margaret Farley, the Gilbert L. Stark Professor of Christian Ethics at Yale Divinity School, delivered an address at the morning’s baccalaureate service in and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity.

Robert A. Freedberg, president judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Northampton County, Pa., a member of Lafayette’s Class of 1966, received an honorary Doctor of Laws. The College also conferred an honorary bachelor of arts degree posthumously upon Aaron O. Hoff (1808-1902), a member of the Lafayette’s inaugural class in 1832 and its first African American student. The diploma was accepted on behalf of the family by Hoff’s great-great grandson, Russell Good of Easton.

Charles E. Hugel, Class of 1951, received the Lafayette Medal for Distinguished Service, the College’s highest honor. The retired chairman of Asea Brown Boveri, Inc., Hugel chaired the spectacularly successful Lafayette Leadership Campaign, which has allowed Lafayette to achieve a national reputation for academic excellence and solidify its standing among America’s top colleges and universities. The campaign concluded in October 2001 with $213 million, exceeding the goal of $143 million.

Vilas Menon of Chandigarh, India, delivered farewell remarks for the class of 2002. He is the recipient of the George Wharton Pepper Prize, awarded to the senior who most closely represents the “Lafayette Ideal.”

The first students to receive their diplomas were Daniel Connolly of Meadville, Pa., Menon, and Matthew Patton of Los Alamos, N.M., who tied for the highest cumulative grade-point average in the Class of 2002. Connolly received a B.S. in chemical engineering. Menon received a B.S. in chemical engineering and an A.B. with majors in International Studies and French. Patton received a B.S. in computer science.

Cliff Michaels of Easton, Pa., chair of the Class of 2002 gift committee, presented the class gift of $11,470, the highest dollar total in history of the senior-class fund drive.

Two retiring members of the faculty who have been elected to emeritus status were recognized by Rothkopf, Pat Fisher, instructor in the Department of Athletics and former varsity women’s basketball coach, and Bill Lawson, instructor in athletics and varsity men’s lacrosse coach.

Rothkopf conferred the degrees upon the graduates and gave farewell remarks. The degrees were presented by Gladstone A. Hutchinson, the dean of studies; and James Woolley, the Smith Professor of English and clerk of the faculty.

B. Vincent Viscomi, Simon Cameron Long Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the senior member of the faculty, led the academic procession as Bearer of the Mace. James F. Krivoski, the dean of students, marshaled the Class of 2002. The class officers are Jenna Cece of Williamstown, Mass., president; Thomas Burns of Malvern, Pa., vice president; Alison Streim of Merion Station, Pa., secretary; and Tamara Bacsik of Little Falls, N.J., treasurer.

Provost June Schlueter marched at the head of the faculty. Former trustee Edward A. Jesser Jr., Class of 1939, led the trustees and the platform party.

Gary R. Miller, College chaplain, delivered the invocation, and Farley gave the benediction. Nina Gilbert, Lafayette’s director of choral activities, led the singing of “America the Beautiful.” Members of the Lafayette Choir, led by Gilbert, led the singing of “The Alma Mater.”

167th Commencement, May 25, 2002
Address by Jim Lehrer

Thank you very much, Arthur [President Arthur J. Rothkopf ’55]. But I was just told a few moments ago as we were getting ready to walk out here how funny Bill Cosby was a few years ago when he gave the commencement address here.

So these things are always a little bit tricky, but I really do want to say how happy I am to be here today, and particularly because of the friendship that my wife, Kate, and I have with Barbara and Arthur. And as Arthur said, it began with two daughters, their daughter and our daughter, who were very good friends in high school, and because of them we all became friends. We decided that we not only shared daughters, we also were kindred spirits, the four of us, and we remain that way until today. When Arthur became the president of your college, I think the third call he made – I don’t know who the first two were – was to me. He said, “Someday I want you to come up and make the commencement address at Lafayette.” And here I am.

I was in this general neighborhood of Eastern Pennsylvania just a few days ago doing a similar thing, making a commencement address at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Any of you from the Philadelphia area? Any of you ever been to Philadelphia before? Well, Mr. Griffith [Alan R. Griffith ’64, chair of the Board of Trustees] mentioned that I have a “bus thing.” I’m going to do for you in the name of Philadelphia what I did for the Penn graduates, and point out that for two years, back in the 1950s, I announced the word Philadelphia into a microphone while I was going to a small junior college in South Texas, because at night I worked as a ticket agent in the Continental Trailways bus depot. And here’s what I did.

“May I have your attention please. This is your last call for Continental Trailways 8:10 p.m. Silversides air-conditioned thru-liner to Houston and Dallas, now leaving from lane one for Inez, Edna, Ganado, Louise, El Campo, Pierce, Wharton, Hungerford, Kendleton, Beasley, Rosenberg, Richmond, Sugarland, Stafford, Missouri City, Houston, Huntsville, Buffalo, Corsicana, and Dallas. Connecting in Dallas for Tulsa, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Columbus, Pittsburgh, and Philadelphia. All aboard! Don’t forget your baggage please!”

Proving that if you learn something early and you learn it really well and it’s totally irrelevant, you’ll never forget it. You did notice I did not read that, right?

I am well aware of the fact that the least relevant person here today is the commencement speaker. Nobody, none of you, came to hear the commencement speech. You came to graduate, or you came to honor a loved one or a friend who is graduating. I promise not to keep you long. I’ve been to hundreds of graduations in every possible capacity and I can tell you I cannot remember what any of the commencement speakers said or even what any of them looked like. So, I promise not to keep you long.

I have been honored today, as you just heard, for what I do in journalism, so I think it’s only right and proper that I say a few words about journalism, particularly about the way it is practiced in America today. Those few things, I regret to say, are not particularly good. In fact, I have in recent years made a habit of going from commencement address to commencement address, in Pennsylvania and elsewhere – and sometimes it seems like door-to-door or corner-to-corner – lamenting the fact that journalists and journalism have sunken so far in the public-esteem polls, where now it’s so bad we’re down there with the Congress, the lawyers, and now even with the accountants. No offense to any member of those groups who are present here today.

It’s no secret why journalism and journalists are so far down there. Everything that we do is there to read and there to see. And let me just go through some of the reasons we are in such bad shape in my opinion:

— A tendency at times for broadcast journalism in particular to appear more like professional wrestling than something called journalism – in other words, something you watch rather than something you believe
— The savagery of some of our current practices: predatory stake-outs, coarse invasions of privacy, talk-show shouting, no-source reporting
— The new blurring of the old lines between straight news, analysis, and opinion
— A touch of arrogance that seems to have afflicted some of my colleagues. It can be seen – you’ve seen it – in their words, in their body language, the message being only journalists are pure enough to judge all others
— And a new and growing confusion about the need to be entertaining, a tendency – a growing tendency, I’m sorry to say – to see news as an entertainment commodity, rather than as information.

And on and on the list goes

If I had been talking to you eight months ago, before September 11, I would have left it there, on a rather sour, down note. But, September 11 did come, and it brought tragedy to the lives of thousands of Americans, fears to millions, and God knows what else to us and the rest of the world before it’s over – just look at what’s happening this very weekend with the various alerts that are in effect as we gather together. Amidst the horror and the awfulness, there have been some heartening things happen, and one of them, I believe, is what it has done to American journalism.

I believe that, for the most part, the story and its many pieces and tentacles have been responsibly covered by the mainstream news organizations, electronic as well as print. But, more importantly, it has brought home a message loud and clear to some of my sister and fellow practitioners: that there is, and has been for some time, a serious world out there that deserves to be covered seriously.

Now when all of us – all of us – have learned names like Afghanistan and Uzbekistan and the Taliban and the Al-Queda, all kinds of names of people as well as places, and we have begun to discuss and debate the power of the United States and how it should be exercised and the threats to our peace and to our way of life, I am now finding more and more journalists saying, “It has taken a tragedy of enormous proportions, but maybe, maybe we are returning to our roots, and those roots are in the business of information, not entertainment. If you want to be entertained, go to the circus, go to the movies, go to the carnival. If you want to be informed, read my newspaper, read my magazine, watch or listen to my television or radio broadcast.”

We’ll see how long this lasts. But I am hopeful, and I must say the coverage more recently of the Middle East crisis has given me more reason for hope. I know from my own experience of no story that is more difficult and incendiary to cover than the crisis in the Middle East. People on all sides feel very strongly about it, and it takes great effort sometimes for journalists to keep on an even and steady course of reporting, much less the further and separate steps of offering analysis and opinion.

And before that, I believe the coverage of the Enron story and its many parts also shows an additional glimmer of hope. Although coming to it late, I think, again, most of the press that I have observed have gone at this story with the seriousness it deserves. And I also think it’s jarred a few in business journalism into realizing that cheerleading for Wall Street, as well as particular stocks and companies, isn’t going to cut it any more. Covering business and finance means covering annual reports and various deals and accounting practices as well.

As I say, I am hopeful, and we shall see.

Before I leave the subject of journalism, one last personal thing for the record. A few years ago I was asked by the sponsors of a seminar in Aspen whether I had any personal guidelines that I use in my practice of daily journalism, and if I did, would I mind sharing them with them. Here in part is what I sent them:

— Do nothing I cannot defend
Cover, write, and present every story with the care I would want if the story were about me
— Assume there is at least one other side or version to every story
— Assume the viewer is as smart and caring and as good a person as I am. Assume the same about all people on whom I report
— Assume personal lives are a private matter until a legitimate turn in the story absolutely mandates otherwise
— Carefully separate opinion and analysis from straight news stories and clearly label everything
— Do not use anonymous sources or blind quotes except on rare and monumental occasions. No one should ever be allowed to attack another anonymously.
— And, finally, I am not in the entertainment business.

Now, so much for journalism. Fellow and sister members of the Class of 2002, you knew you weren’t going to get away without a little bit of old-fashioned commencement-speaker advice. And now for that.

First and foremost, let me tell you what I tell every class at every commencement where I speak. Please do not mistake what is happening here today: you are not going to leave here educated. The fact that you are graduating from one of the great educational institutions in America – or in the world – does not mean that. Some of the dumbest people I know have degrees from great institutions of higher learning. And why? Because they got their diploma, they took it in their hot little hand, and they walked off the stage and proceeded to never read another book, never entertain another fresh idea, and to think mostly about themselves and not about their neighborhood, their community, their country, and their world.

I would urge you: please, please do not do that. This post-September 11 world and its many problems and challenges require the wisdom and the energy of us all, and for you and for me there is a special responsibility, because we did get good educations. We not only got good educations, we were encouraged by people who loved us – parents, teachers, friends, preachers, God. We are the fortunate ones, and with that fortune also comes responsibilities. So involvement and responsibility are not options for us, they are mandatory. And it’s not just for “do-gooder” reasons. Trust me, it’s for our own reasons, for our own sense of self, of who we are and what we do. I know it sounds like a cliché – most of the truths in life sound that way – but the real satisfaction when you fulfill obligations comes in what it does for yourself.

This is not a political philosophy I’m talking about, it’s a state of mind. And I urge all of you in the class of 2002 to think about it and think about it some more and then shout it for a while. And then after you’ve shouted it for a while, don’t shout any more. Just do it. Because I believe that everybody – and this is another thing about 2002 and about what happened on September 11 – I think there is a crying need in our country to be civil, to be gentle, to be fair. One of the most serious losses in our society in my opinion that we have had in the last few years has been that of civil discourse.

There is meanness of communication alive in the land now. I see it every day in the mail we get and the email we get. You can see it on television, hear it on the radio, read it in anything you want to read.

The controversies involving the Middle East in particular have definitely heightened the passion and the rhetoric and the discourse at this moment, but there will always be differences, there must be differences. That is the basis on which a democratic society is based. Differences are built into our society – that’s why it works. All I’m suggesting is, we are a civilized people and we should disagree in a civilized manner. We should acknowledge the right of others to disagree with us. We should acknowledge the possibility that sometimes, on rare occasions, we might even be wrong, and the people talking on the other side may be right. And, strange as it may seem, we can learn more from listening than from talking and more from talking than from shouting.

My second piece of advice is borrowed from Robinson Davies, the late, great Canadian writer, who gave the commencement address at Dowling College, on Long Island, New York, in 1992. And he said this to the graduates:

“Get yourself a good anthology of poetry and keep it by your bed. Read a little before you go to sleep. Read a little if you wake up before the alarm goes off. Read a little if you wake up in the middle of the night. When you are idle during the day—on public transport, or at a committee meeting—let your mind dwell on what you have read. One book will last you a long time. Indeed it may last you a lifetime.”

End quote. Amen.

And finally, let me pass on something that comes to you in the form of the ultimate recycled quote. It is what a fictional lieutenant governor of Oklahoma said in a commencement address to a fictional graduating class at a fictional state college in the fictional town of Hugotown, Oklahoma. He said, and I quote, “As you search for your place in life, I hereby advise you to take risks. Be willing to put your mind and your spirit, your time and your energy, your stomach and your emotions on the line. To search for a safe place is to search for an end to a rainbow that you will hate once you find it. Take charge of your own life. Create your own risks by setting your own standards, satisfying your own standards.

Still quoting: “Congratulations to you all. It is unlikely that any of you will have occasion to remember either me or my commencement address. I don’t blame you. But if by chance something does linger, I hope it’s just that there was a guy up here who kept saying, ‘Risk, risk! The way to happiness is to risk it, risk it.’” End quote.

Now, it is the ultimate recycled quote because it’s from a novel published in 1990 called The Sooner Spy. I wrote that novel. And I stole the lines verbatim from that real commencement address Arthur Rothkopf mentioned a moment ago that I gave at my oldest daughter’s college graduation at Vassar in 1984. So think about it. It’s a quote of a fictional quote that began as a real quote. As I say, the ultimate recycled quote. But I mean it as much today as I meant it when I first said it in 1984. The fictional lieutenant governor of Oklahoma asked me to say he does, too.

I’m delighted to be one of you as a member of the Class of 2002, along with Professor Farley, Judge Freedberg, and Mr. [Hoff]. We will see you at the college reunions.

My best to you all, and please, if you do not remember anything else, remember what I said at the very beginning: Wherever you go, whatever you do, don’t forget your baggage, please.

Thank you very much.