As Grads Walk, Lehrer To Talk

The Class of 2006 will soon be treated to its very own “Hour with Jim Lehrer.” The noted news anchor and novelist will be the principal speaker for Harvard’s 355th Commencement Afternoon Exercises on June 8.

The Harvard Alumni Association (HAA), responsible for choosing each year’s afternoon speaker, selected Lehrer for his “objectivity and intelligence” and the respect he inspires, according to the announcement in the Harvard Gazette yesterday.

In his over 40 years as a journalist, Lehrer has won numerous awards, including the Presidential National Humanities Medal in 1999. He has also published 15 novels and moderated 10 of the televised presidential candidate debates over the course of the last five elections.

Tracy “Ty” Moore ’06, a senior class marshal and member of the Senior Class Committee, said that he approved of HAA’s choice and that Lehrer had been picked “on account of his insight, compelling views, his personality, and that he’ll be an excellent speaker.”

“As far as Commencement is concerned, the message is more important than the name and I think he’ll be brilliant,” Moore said.

Matthew J. Glazer ’06, former Undergraduate Council President, also commended the choice of Lehrer as speaker.

“Mr. Lehrer is an eminent journalist and a prolific writer, and I’m a big fan of his show,” Glazer said. “[He] projects an authenticity and integrity that distinguishes him in an age of talking heads and entertainment news, and I am very much looking forward to his remarks.”

Yuki Moore Laurenti, president of HAA, elaborated on the group’s decision. “As concern mounts about the eroding independence and standards of American journalism in the face of political and commercial pressures, Jim Lehrer remains a respected professional whose objectivity and intelligence have earned the trust of millions of viewers,” Laurenti told the Gazette. “I very much look forward to hearing him speak to our alumni in June.”

Jim Lehrer was born in Wichita, Kan., in 1934. He graduated from Victoria College in Texas and the University of Missouri and spent three years in the Marine Corps before starting work as a newspaper journalist, initially in order to fund his fiction writing.

He switched to television journalism after a decade in newspapers and moved to Washington with the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in 1972.

He began his collaboration with Robert MacNeil—a partnership that led to the 20-year run of the “MacNeil/Lehrer Report”—when the two covered the Watergate hearings in 1973.

Lehrer has remained with the show, now called “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,” as the sole anchor since MacNeil’s retirement in 1995.

Lehrer has also been a prolific writer, publishing three plays and two memoirs as well as 15 novels, the first of which was turned into a film, “Viva Max!” in 1969.

“Jim Lehrer is a familiar face to all have watched the presidential debates in the last few elections,” said Michael Thakur ’01, head class marshal of the Harvard Law School class of 2006 and a former Crimson editor.

“I’m sure he’ll have some interesting insights to share from his front-row seat on the stage of presidential election history,” he said.

John Lithgow ’67 gave last year’s Commencement address. He was preceded by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan in 2004 and Ernesto Zedillo, former president of Mexico, in 2003.

—Staff writer Alexandra C. Bell can be reached at acbell@fas.harvard.edu.