NORMAN - Emmy award-winning journalists Bob Schieffer and Jim Lehrer will discuss their insight about the changing political culture in Washington at a President’s Associates dinner at the University of Oklahoma on Thursday, Sept. 24, 2015. Schieffer, a reporter and political commentator, worked for CBS for almost 50 years, including almost 25 years as host of “Face the Nation.” Lehrer, also a political commentator, is perhaps best known for his long-term association with Robert MacNeil and his work on PBS broadcasts including, “PBS NEWHOUR.” They continue that partnership today.
“The visits of Lehrer and Schieffer to campus gives the OU family a great opportunity to hear their candid assessments of Washington today and whether our government can even return to the bipartisan cooperation of the past,” said OU President David L. Boren.
Schieffer recently retired from CBS News where he worked for 46 years and completed his 24th year anchoring the highly rated Sunday talk show, “Face the Nation.” Prior to joining CBS in 1969, he began his career in journalism a news reporter for KXOL, a rock and roll radio station. He then served three years in the Air Force and became the night police reporter for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where he was the first reporter from a Texas newspaper to report from Vietnam. That assignment led him to a job at Fort Worth’s Channel Five and took him to Washington and CBS News.
He began his career at CBS as a reporter in the Washington bureau and later as anchor for the weekend newscasts. While at CBS, he anchored the “CBS Evening News” for two years and went on to anchor “Face the Nation.” He has devoted most of his career exclusively to national politics and is one of the few journalists to cover all four major Washington national assignments: the White House, The Pentagon, U.S. Department of State and U.S. Congress. He has been on the journalism front lines covering the assassination of President Kennedy, Watergate, 9/11 and every presidential campaign since 1972. He has interviewed every president since Richard Nixon, as well as those who sought the office and has moderated three presidential debates.
Schieffer has won eight Emmy awards and has been named a Living Legend by the Library of Congress. This year he was inducted into the National Academy of Broadcasters. He has authored four New York Times best-selling books: "This Just In, Bob Schieffer’s America, Face the Nation: My Favorite Stories from the First 50 Years of the Award-winning News Broadcast" and "The Acting President."
Lehrer began his long-term partnership with Robert MacNeil in the 1970s when they teamed to cover the Senate Watergate hearings, an endeavor for which they received an Emmy Award. The two paired officially for “The MacNeil/Lehrer Report” in 1976 and together received more than 30 awards for journalistic excellence. After 20 years on the air, MacNeil retired in 1996 and the show became “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.” In 2009, the program title changed to “PBS NEWSHOUR” to reflect the program’s expanded role as a hub of news and public affairs programming on PBS both online and on air.
Lehrer has moderated 12 presidential debates since 1988. He has received numerous awards for journalism, including, in 1999, the National Humanities Medal and induction into the Television Hall of Fame with MacNeil and into the Silver Circle of the Washington, D.C., chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. He also has won two Emmys, the Fred Friendly First Amendment Award, the George Foster Peabody Broadcast Award, the William Allen White Foundation Award for Journalistic Merit and the University of Missouri School of Journalism’s Medal of Honor.
In 1991, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was OU’s Commencement speaker in 1996; also that year, OU conferred upon him its highest honor, the honorary doctor of humane letters. In 2008, OU awarded him the Gaylord Prize in journalism to honor a nationally recognized journalist with high standards of excellence.
Limited seating is available by reservation for OU students, faculty and staff, with overflow seating available to the public. For reservations, more information and accommodations on the basis of disability, please call OU Public Affairs at (405) 325-3784 or email specialevents@ou.edu.
