Tonight, Jim Lehrer will anchor his last broadcast of the “PBS NewsHour.” The Baltimore Sun‘s David Zurawik reflects on his legacy and speaks to the anchor:
Lehrer’s longevity is unprecedented. Walter Cronkite was the anchor and managing editor of the “CBS Evening News” for 19 years. Tom Brokaw filled the same roles on NBC for 22 years. Lehrer has been on the job on public television since 1975 when he started co-anchoring with Robert MacNeil.
And he has consistently been a beacon of responsible daily journalism across all that time. No one in TV news takes the journalist’s role as a provider of trustworthy information for American voters more seriously than this one-time city editor of the Dallas Times-Herald.
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TVNewser spoke to Lehrer the day he made his fateful announcement. You can read that interview here.