Jim Lehrer Quotes (31 Quotes)

I now know how Abbot felt when Costello left, how Brinkley felt when Huntley left, how Sears felt when Roebuck left, and, of course, how Dan Rather felt when Connie left.

As I say, I'm a discourse advocate. What form it comes is less important to me than the fact that there is discourse.

To ascend to the leader's position, he (Daschle) would need to leap-frog over dozens of more experienced senators and defeat Tennessee Sen. Jim Sasser, who had also announced he would seek the position,

We have increasingly fewer and fewer journalists who have any military experience and understand what life is like in the military and in combat.

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.

I started as a print reporter.

You want to see an angry person? Let me hear a cell phone go off.

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.

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'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.

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.

I'm in the reporting part of journalism.

My thing is just to do my job the best way I know how and as I say I'm very fortunate to be able to do it the way I want to do it.

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.

I'm not in the judgment part of journalism.

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.

Most of the stories I have covered in 45 years have been gray stories.

If Letterman tells a joke with a piece of information in it that you didn't know before, that's fine with me, that doesn't bother me.

But he was tripped up by a question posed by Lehrer on how he would handle the difficulties and uncertainties of the presidency. The presidency Lehrer said, is 90 percent having to deal with the unexpected. ... crisis under fire.

My own view, there is a need for and a demonstrated need for more journalism now than there ever has been.

One person who unexpectedly expressed nervousness about Wednesday's table talk ... This is the first time a conversation-type format has been used. I have to keep my wits about me, and I don't want you involved. Are we okay with that

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.

When I raise my right hand to you (just before the candidates arrive), ... that means, 'That's enough. Cool it. Let's go.'

There's always a germ of truth in just about everything.

I have great faith in the intelligence of the American viewer and reader to put two and two together and come up with four.

We thought that once we had turned the town over to the local people, that they would be able to defend their own territory and take care of themselves,

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,

Those who know me know I won't hesitate to turn around and point someone out.

There are very few really stark black and white stories.

I'm in the civil discourse business. I think it takes all kinds. And more power to everybody.