Lehrer, Jim 1934–

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Lehrer, Jim 1934–

(James Lehrer, James Charles Lehrer)

PERSONAL: Born May 19, 1934, in Wichita, KS; son of Harry Frederick (a bus station manager) and Lois Catherine (a bank clerk) Lehrer; married Kate Staples (a writer), June 4, 1960; children: Jamie, Lucy, Amanda. Education: Victoria College, A.A., 1954; University of Missouri, B.J., 1956. Hobbies and other interests: Collecting bus depot signs and other memorabilia.

ADDRESSES: Home—3356 Macomb, Washington, DC 20016. Office—WETA-TV, P.O. Box 2626, Washington, DC 20013; and MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, 3620 27th St. South, Arlington, VA 22206.

CAREER: Writer, novelist, memoirist, broadcaster, and journalist. Dallas Morning News, Dallas, TX, reporter, 1959–61; Dallas Times Herald, Dallas, reporter, columnist, and city editor, 1961–70; KERA-TV, Dallas, executive producer and correspondent, and executive director of public affairs, 1970–72; Public Broadcasting Service (PBS-TV), Washington, DC, public affairs coordinator, 1972–73, co-anchor of Robert MacNeil Report, 1975, associate editor and co-anchor of MacNeil/Lehrer Report, 1975–83, and MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, 1983–95, anchor of NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, 1995–; NPACT-WETA-TV, Washington, DC, correspondent, 1973–; writer. Co-partner, MacNeil-Lehrer Productions. Instructor in creative writing at Dallas College and Southern Methodist University, 1967–68. Moderator for U.S. Chronicle, PBS-TV, 1980. Military service: U.S. Marine Corps, 1956–59, served as infantry officer.

MEMBER: Texas Institute of Letters, Council of Foreign Relations.

AWARDS, HONORS: Emmy Award for journalism, National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, 1973, for coverage of Senate Watergate Committee's investigation; George Polk Award for journalism, 1974, for coverage of the Senate Watergate Committee's investigation; Columbia-Dupont Award for excellence in broadcast journalism, 1976–77, for MacNeil/Lehrer Report; George Foster Peabody Award for meritorious service in broadcasting, 1977, for MacNeil/Lehrer Report; leadership award, Association for Continuing Higher Education, 1981, for MacNeil/Lehrer Report; Emmy Awards for outstanding background and analysis of a single current story, 1984, for MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour coverage of U.S. Marines in Beirut, and for outstanding coverage of a single breaking news story, 1984, for MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour report on U.S. invasion of Grenada; National Humanities Medal, 1999; National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) "Spirit of America" speaker, 2005.

WRITINGS:

UNDER NAME JAMES LEHRER

Viva Max! (novel), Duell, Sloan & Pierce (New York, NY), 1966.

We Were Dreamers (memoir), Atheneum (New York, NY), 1975.

Silversides Thruliner (two-act play), produced at New Stage Theater, Jackson, MS, 1986.

Cedar Chest (two-act play), produced at New Stage Theater, Jackson, MS, 1986.

Chili Queen (two-act play), produced in New York City at Hartley House Theater, 1986.

NOVELS

Blue Hearts, Random House (New York, NY), 1993.

The Last Debate, Random House (New York, NY), 1995.

The Master Operator, Random House (New York, NY), 1996.

White Widow, Random House (New York, NY), 1996.

Purple Dots, Random House (New York, NY), 1998.

The Special Prisoner, Random House (New York, NY), 2000.

No Certain Rest, Random House (New York, NY), 2002.

Flying Crows, Random House (New York, NY), 2004.

The Franklin Affair, Random House (New York, NY), 2005.

The Phony Marine, Random House (New York, NY), 2007.

"ONE-EYED MACK" MYSTERIES

Kick the Can, Putnam (New York, NY), 1988.

Crown Oklahoma, Putnam (New York, NY), 1989.

The Sooner Spy, Putnam (New York, NY), 1990.

Lost and Found, Putnam (New York, NY), 1991.

Short List, Putnam (New York, NY), 1992.

Fine Lines, Random House (New York, NY), 1994.

OTHER

A Bus of My Own, Putnam (New York, NY), 1992, published as A Bus of My Own: A Memoir, Plume Books (New York, NY), 1992.

Also author of column "Politics: Dallas" in the Dallas Times Herald.

ADAPTATIONS: Lehrer's first novel, Viva Max, was adapted for a film of the same title starring Peter Ustinov, released by Commonwealth United in 1969.

SIDELIGHTS: Jim Lehrer is best known as co-anchor of public television's Emmy Award-winning news programs MacNeil/Lehrer Report and MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour and as anchor of NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. In 1975 Lehrer teamed up with Robert MacNeil to host the MacNeil/Lehrer Report, a nightly half-hour television news program broadcast on Public Television Service (PBS-TV). The show quickly earned critical acclaim for its in-depth coverage, which contrasts with the brief synopses of events provided by commercial network news. The format of the Report allowed it to focus comprehensively on one topic in each nightly segment instead of running the gamut of daily news. The show also utilized interviews and analysis rather than the visual effects employed by some commercial networks.

The MacNeil/Lehrer Report was not designed to compete with popular network news productions but was intended to serve as a supplement for the serious news viewer. Thomas Griffith, writing in Time, called the show "TV's best discussion of public affairs." But the program was not known for its public appeal. As Alexander Cockburn commented in Harper's: "admirers of the MacNeil/Lehrer Report—and there are many of them—often talk about it in terms normally reserved for unpalatable but nutritious breakfast foods: unalluring, perhaps, to the frivolous new consumer, but packed full of fiber."

In 1983, MacNeil/Lehrer Report was renamed MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour and broadcast, opposite commercial news shows, in an expanded format featuring multi-issue programming. The changes met with criticism from reviewers who felt that the solemn, nonsensational style of the Report could not sustain viewer interest for an entire hour, particularly in competition with the faster-paced, high-visibility programs of the major networks. As NewsHour continued, however, the show gained an audience. Alex Raksin wrote in the Los Angeles Times Book Review that "America's political leaders have come to see the NewsHour as a haven where they can chuck PR and confess at least some of their real stands on the issues."

Lehrer readily drew distinctions between NewsHour and newscasts from commercial networks. "[They] feel they have to sell the news," Lehrer told Broadcasting. "We're there to report the news." But Lehrer also cautioned against perceiving NewsHour as news for purists.

In 1995, following the retirement of co-anchor Robert MacNeil, NewsHour became NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. The new show, Lehrer insisted in Texas Monthly, would maintain its journalistic standards. "We're not going to move away from hard news," he said. Lehrer noted that his show with MacNeil had continued to draw viewers while commercial networks suffered declines in viewers. "The network newscasts are losing audience share," Lehrer observed. "We've doubled ours in the past five years." He added: "I wonder why one of the networks doesn't decide that it has nothing to lose by being more like us."

For Lehrer, journalistic integrity is essential, especially since the field has degenerated into what he described, in a talk featured in Vital Speeches, as "something akin to professional wrestling, something to watch rather than to believe." Lehrer also decries the assumption that the press is the guardian of ethics and morality, and he claims that the profession's credibility is undone by such a misconception. "From my perspective inside journalism," he wrote in the Saturday Evening Post, "I think that this kind of snide arrogance is a plague on and in the newsrooms of America." He added: "I believe that unless something is done about it the credibility of all of us in the business will continue to erode."

In addition to his journalism career, Lehrer has written novels, plays, and memoirs. He published his first novel, Viva Max!, in 1966, but then allowed nearly ten years to pass before issuing a second work, the memoir We Were Dreamers, which relates his father's purchase of an urban bus service when Lehrer was an adolescent. The Lehrer family devoted much of their time and energy to creating a successful bus line, but inexperience and financial difficulties compelled them to declare bankruptcy after only a year in business. Lehrer gleaned enough impressions from that year of hardship and family togetherness to compile what John K. Andrews, Jr., writing in National Review, described as a "rich stew of boyhood memories," in which the elder Mr. Lehrer "emerges under his son's loving pen as a particularly memorable man."

Almost ten years elapsed before Lehrer resumed creative writing. During that period he suffered a heart attack and underwent bypass surgery. According to a writer in People, these experiences "helped resurrect [Lehrer's] literary ambitions." In 1996, Lehrer indicated as much to a Publishers Weekly interviewer when he said: "Would I be writing fiction if I hadn't had a heart attack? That's a good question. The answer is I don't think so." The People writer related that as a consequence of Lehrer's grave experiences, he "quit smoking … and began writing furiously."

Although determined to resurrect his writing career, Lehrer felt overwhelmed by the thought of attempting another novel. At his wife's suggestion, he tried writing a play, which he had last done thirty years earlier in college. About his efforts, Lehrer explained in an article for the Washington Post: "There are some risks in all of this. I have set myself up to fail in public, to be loudly told to stick to journalism and leave play writing to those who already know how. But I am having pure, eye-watering pleasure watching and listening as professional actors come alive on stage as people I created…. I love it all—the talk, the smells, the process, the make-believe, the magic."

In 1986, Lehrer's renewed efforts as a writer resulted in a trio of plays that included Chili Queen, which he loosely based on a real-life experience wherein he witnessed a heated argument between a waitress and a customer over the exact amount of money the customer had paid. Stephen Holden, writing in the New York Times, described Lehrer's play as "a reasonably well-constructed seriocomic vignette with dialogue and performances that transcend the stereotypical." Holden called Chili Queen a "small dark comedy that reserves its sharpest satirical jabs for the way television packages daily events while coolly manipulating the hapless participants."

Two years after completing Chili Queen, Lehrer published Kick the Can, the first of several novels charting the exploits of One-Eyed Mack, who rises from aspiring pirate to become lieutenant governor of Oklahoma. In Kick the Can, Mack's restricted vision renders him unable to obtain work with either the Kansas Highway Patrol or a local bus company. He thus decides to don an eye-patch and head south to become a pirate. His adventures and relationships along the way comprise the bulk of the story. Robert Day, writing in the Washington Post Book World, contended that "not much of the novel seems organic to it," and he added: "It is all one device after another spread onto the narrative, which itself lurches like one of the old buses the characters drive." But Randall Short, writing in the New York Times Book Review, lauded Lehrer's "goofy, deadpan Southern surrealism" and concluded: "Anybody who doesn't like this book doesn't like chicken on Sunday."

Crown Oklahoma, the next novel in the "One-Eyed Mack" series, follows Mack, now lieutenant governor of Oklahoma, as he probes the alleged presence of organized crime in Oklahoma. Those allegations, however, have been fabricated by a national television news anchor. As Karen Ray observed in the New York Times Book Review, "the Okie crime organization scheme is meant to sound farfetched, and Mr. Lehrer uses it to get in his licks about responsibility, and the lack thereof, in television journalism." Carolyn See, writing in the Los Angeles Times, described Crown Oklahoma as "a darling book," and she remarked that "Lehrer … must be a terminally Big Silly." See noted that the author "has taken the whole solemn concept of the news, and tickled it, poked it in the ribs, jabbed and punched it into giggling submission." In the Washington Post, Gene Lyons found Crown Oklahoma "such an amiable, unpretentious little novel that it's hard to dis-like." In the New York Times Book Review, Karen Ray praised the novel as "good-hearted and inoffensive."

The following "One-Eyed Mack" novel, The Sooner Spy, deals with Mack's discovery that a retired Soviet defector has been living in Oklahoma. As Mack investigates the situation, he stumbles across a Russian spy sent to track down the retired defector. Newgate Callendar of the New York Times Book Review labeled the book "pleasantly wacky and sentimental," and Charles Champlin claimed in the Los Angeles Times Book Review that "Lehrer is most blessedly adroit and light-handed." Champlin observed: "His glimpses of the political process … are so amusing that the tale in all its improbabilities is a taste treat."

Ensuing "One-Eyed Mack" tales find the resourceful lieutenant governor in further adventures. In Lost and Found, Mack travels to France with the intention of locating a missing Oklahoma politician. A critic in Publishers Weekly deemed Lost and Found "full of raffish charm." Short List finds Mack an unlikely prospect for vice president after he replaces the governor in delivering a speech at the Democratic convention. A Publishers Weekly reviewer discerned "very funny moments … amid the predictable ruckus." In Fine Lines, Mack must solve the murders of various state legislators while thwarting the governor's designs to patrol against the arrival of Arkansans into Oklahoma. Thomas Gaughan reported in Booklist that "there's all manner of skullduggery and eccentricity afoot," while a Publishers Weekly critic noted the tale's "infectious fun."

Aside from his "One-Eyed Mack" tales, Lehrer has published several novels of political intrigue. Blue Hearts, which appeared in 1993, concerns a pair of former CIA agents who find themselves endangered nearly thirty years after investigating the likelihood of Soviet involvement in President Kennedy's death. A Publishers Weekly reviewer called Blue Hearts a "brisk, breezy spy story," and David Murray, writing in the New York Times Book Review, deemed the novel to be "highly readable and lighthearted."

The Last Debate explores the influence wielded by a quartet of journalists who are appalled by a Republican candidate's racism. An Insight on the News critic concluded that readers "will have fun pondering ethical predicaments dogging the Fourth Estate." A People critic affirmed that Lehrer "keeps his satire close to the bone." Thomas Gaughan, writing in Booklist, lauded The Last Debate as "a page-turner and a terrific read." A Publishers Weekly critic called the novel an "ingratiating post-Clinton political satire."

In Purple Dots, intrigue ensues when an intelligence officer receives a presidential appointment to stabilize the CIA. Library Journal reviewer David Keymer proclaimed the novel "very funny." A Publishers Weekly critic called it a "pointed portrait of Capitol Hill," and Booklist reviewer Thomas Gaughan deemed it "an engaging, entertaining tale."

Among Lehrer's less typical works is White Widow, a novel about a bus driver who becomes obsessed with an attractive rider in 1950s Texas. The hero's interest in the rider, who resembles actress Ava Gardner, results in a disastrous accident that holds drastic consequences. A Publishers Weekly reviewer declared that White Widow "lingers in memory like a sorrowful ghost story," while a Booklist critic appraised the tale as "simple but successful." Scott Veale, writing in the New York Times Book Review, described the novel as an "oddly affecting morality tale."

No Certain Rest is a historical mystery novel centered on the Civil War. In the book, Lehrer "engagingly interweaves a narrative of violent betrayal on the battlefield with the search for the truth by modern-day history hunters, concluding with a tragic echo of the original event," commented Wayne Lee Gay in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. When relic hunters at the Burn-side Bridge and Antietam Creek battlefield discover shallowly-buried human remains, National Park Service archaeologist Don Spaniel is called in to investigate the discovery of the Civil War-era body. Curiously, the body had been buried face-down, and there was an unmistakable bullet hole in the back of the skull. Spaniel concludes that the deceased was a union officer who was executed, but the name found on an ID tag with the body is that of Kenneth Allbritten, a known Civil War hero buried with honors in a cemetery in his Connecticut home town. Spaniel sets out to solve the mystery of the executed officer, determine if the man in the shallow grave really is the man who is supposed to be buried elsewhere and, if so, why a historical hero was discovered in a markedly unheroic position in death. When a 100-year-old written confession is discovered in an Iowa archive, Spaniel realizes that he has a potentially scandalous mystery to solve, one that will affect present-day descendants and the historical reputation of a noted war veteran. Adding to the histori-cal detail of the story, Lehrer recounts the charge on Burnside Bridge in 1862, a folly that resulted in more than 20,000 casualties.

Lehrer "delivers a clever forensic mystery" that raises "powerful questions about the ethics of whitewashing historical truths," commented a Publishers Weekly contributor. Kliatt reviewer Michael P. Healey commented that "the pace is brisk, the plot … is interesting, and the author gives us a good dose of history and historical prose style to enjoy." Library Journal writer Jean Langlais named the novel "a very entertaining story," while Booklist critic Carrie Bissey called it "an almost painfully earnest and well-researched Civil War story." Lehrer "skillfully develops suspense surrounding a compelling ethical dilemma," the Publishers Weekly critic concluded.

Lehrer turns in another mystery with Flying Crows, which a Publishers Weekly reviewer called a "touching novel about lost souls, loneliness, and life's small triumphs." While making some final rounds at the long-closed Union Station, Kansas City policeman Randy Benton makes a startling discovery: Birdie Carlucci, an elderly hermit who says he has lived in the old railroad terminal for more than sixty years. Birdie tells of how he escaped from the Somerset insane asylum with his friend Josh in 1933, and how he came to be a permanent resident of Union Station. As Benton begins piecing together the story, he learns of how inmates were mistreated at Somerset in the early years, how Birdie was a witness to the Union Station massacre and subsequently committed to the asylum, how the mysterious Josh took an interest in Birdie's welfare, and how the two men fled the asylum and caught the Flying Crow to Union Station. Urgent needs compel Josh to return to Somerset, but Birdie retains his freedom within the nooks and crannies of the train station. Eventually, Benton puts together Josh's twin secrets in a solution that combines the inhumanity of Somerset, a pair of massacres, and the history of railroading. Booklist contributor David Pitt commented favorably on the novel's "rich characters and mysterious, dark undertones." With Flying Crows, Lehrer has "crafted a highly personal story, quiet in tone and scope, yet booming in emotional intensity," commented the Publishers Weekly critic.

In The Franklin Affair, a posthumously delivered letter suggests that colonial genius and founding father Benjamin Franklin may have been responsible for the murder of the mother of his illegitimate child. In a narrative concerned with the academic intrigues of historians, Lehrer tells a "tale of academic intrigue," noted another Publishes Weekly critic. Professional historian Reginald Raymond Taylor, known simply as R, is involved with a committee investigating whether a history colleague has properly credited sources in a biography of Ronald Reagan. The object of the investigation has gone on the offensive, threatening to expose similar academic indiscretions among those investigating her. Meanwhile, R's mentor, noted Franklin scholar Wally Rush, has died, leaving a cache of papers in R's care and declaring him literary executor. As R tries to uncover any existing facts about the incriminating evidence against Franklin, questions begin to arise about his role in Rush's Pulitzer Prize-winning book on Franklin, and whether the deceased scholar has questionable claim to authorship of the work. Using the structure of a mystery novel, Lehrer "probes the border areas between intentional fraud, inadvertent borrowing, assisting in research, and actually writing text," commented Library Journal reviewer Jim Coan. A Kirkus Reviews critic called the book "a diversion about scholars of early American history who venerate Ben Franklin—who may have been as unscrupulous as many of them seem to be."

In 1992 Lehrer completed a second memoir, A Bus of My Own: A Memoir, in which he reflects on his personal experiences and provides anecdotes pertaining to politics, government, and the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. Raksin believed that the various elements which comprise Lehrer's personal history, from his happy childhood to his health concerns in middle age, "all seem to have gifted him with an unusual ability to laugh at the everyday problems he encounters in his work at the NewsHour." A Publishers Weekly reviewer, meanwhile, proclaimed A Bus of My Own as a "warm, unaffected autobiography."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Contemporary Theatre, Film, and Television, Volume 15, Thomson Gale (Detroit, MI), 1996.

Lehrer, Jim, A Bus of My Own, Putnam (New York, NY), 1992, published as A Bus of My Own: A Memoir, Plume (New York, NY), 1992.

Lehrer, Jim, We Were Dreamers, Atheneum (New York, NY), 1975.

PERIODICALS

American Journalism Review, December, 1995, Carl Sessions Stepp, review of The Last Debate, p. 48.

Booklist, May 1, 1994, Thomas Gaughan, review of Fine Lines, p. 1586; August, 1995, Thomas Gaughan, review of The Last Debate, p. 1910; October 1, 1996, Gilbert Taylor, review of White Window, p. 291; August, 1998, Thomas Gaughan, review of Purple Dots, p. 1923; July, 2002, Carrie Bissey, review of No Certain Rest, p. 1797; February 15, 2004, David Pitt, review of Flying Crows, p. 1003.

Broadcasting, August 3, 1987, "MacNeil and Lehrer, PBS's Winning Team," p. 95.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram, November 14, 2002, Wayne Lee Gay, "Novelist Lehrer Looks at History from Two Sides," profile of Jim Lehrer.

Harper's, August, 1982, Alexander Cockburn, "The Tedium Twins," p. 24.

Insight on the News, November 6, 1995, Lisa Leiter, review of The Last Debate, p. 25.

Kirkus Reviews, June 1, 2002, review of No Certain Rest, p. 759; February 1, 2004, review of Flying Crows, p. 102; February 1, 2005, review of The Franklin Affair, p. 141.

Kliatt, September, 2003, Michael P. Healy, review of No Certain Rest, p. 18.

Library Journal, April 1, 1997, Michael Rogers, review of The Sooner Spy, p. 134; October 1, 1998, David Keymer, review of Purple Dots, p. 132; July, 2002, Jean Langlais, review of No Certain Rest, p. 120; March 1, 2005, Jon Coan, review of The Franklin Affair, p. 78.

Los Angeles Times, November 18, 1986, Jim Sharbutt, "PBS Anchorman Jim Lehrer Debuts as Playwright," p. 10; August 7, 1989, Carolyn See, "Taking the News Industry in an Absurdly Comic Vein," review of Crown Oklahoma, p. 4.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, May 22, 1988, Mark Harris, "A Pirate Ship Too Safe at Anchor," review of Kick the Can, p. 8; March 11, 1990, Charles Champlin, "Bloody Sunday," p. 8; August 23, 1992, Alex Raksin, "Nonfiction," p. 6.

National Review, October 15, 1976, John K. Andrews, Jr., review of We Were Dreamers.

New York Times, November 26, 1986, Stephen Holden, review of Chili Queen, p. C14.

New York Times Book Review, May 29, 1988, Randall Short, review of Kick the Can, p. 14; June 25, 1989, Karen Ray, review of Crown Oklahoma, p. 24; March 11, 1990, Newgate Callendar, review of The Sooner Spy, p. 33; July 14, 1991, Ed Weiner, review of Lost and Found, p. 20; February 23, 1992, Bill Christopherson, review of Short List, p. 20; June 13, 1993, David Murray, review of Blue Hearts, p. 20; September 3, 1995, Elizabeth Kolbert, review of The Last Debate, p. 13; February 2, 1997, Scott Veale, review of White Widow, p. 21.

People, March 4, 1985, Jeff Jarvis, review of My Heart, Your Heart (television broadcast), p. 5; August 9, 1993, Linda Kramer, "A Novel Approach to Love," profile of Jim and Kate Lehrer, p. 95; October 30, 1995, Alex Trosniowski, review of The Last Debate, p. 40.

Philadelphia Inquirer, June 15, 2004, Gail Shister, "Lehrer of PBS Finds Joy in News Business, Fiction Writing," profile of Jim Lehrer.

Publishers Weekly, January 5, 1990, Sybil Steinberg, review of The Sooner Spy, p. 63; January 25, 1991, Sybil Steinberg, review of Lost and Found, p. 45; November 22, 1991, review of Short List, p. 39; July 20, 1992, review of A Bus of My Own, p. 241;; March 29, 1993, review of Blue Hearts, p. 33; April 18, 1994, review of Fine Lines, p. 48; July 31, 1995, review of The Last Debate, p. 68; October 14, 1996, review of White Widow, p. 61; December 30, 1996, Tracy Cochran, "Jim Lehrer: Novelist behind the News Hour," p. 39; August 10, 1998, review of Purple Dots, p. 367; June 24, 2002, review of No Certain Rest, p. 34; February 2, 2004, review of Flying Crows, p. 56; February 28, 2005, review of The Franklin Affair, p. 39.

Sarasota Herald Tribune, May 15, 2005, Susan L. Rife, "Newsman Bitten by History Bug; Jim Lehrer's Sixteenth Novel Shows a New Side to Ben Franklin," review of The Franklin Affair, p. E4.

Saturday Evening Post, November-December, 1993, "A Plague in the Press," p. 80.

Texas Monthly, October, 1995, Paul Burka, "The News about Jim Lehrer," p. 58; November, 2002, Evan Smith, "Jim Lehrer: The Texas-Bred Anchorman on His Latest Novel, the Future of Television News—and How He Stays Sane," interview with Jim Lehrer, p. 60.

Time, September 6, 1982, Thomas Griffith, "Quality in the Off-Hours," p. 73; September 19, 1983, "How Much Better Is Twice as Long?: After Eight Successful Years, MacNeil-Lehrer Goes to an Hour," p. 78; October 9, 1995, "The Pundits Who Came In from the Cold," p. 18; October 28, 1996, "Leno, Letterman—and Lehrer," p. 26.

Vital Speeches of the Day, December 15, 1998, "Journalism: Words of a Dinosaur," transcript of speech by Jim Lehrer, p. 139.

Washington Post, November 9, 1986, Jim Lehrer, "The Lure of the Theater," p. F1; July 17, 1987, Victoria Dawson, "The Lehrer/Lehrer Literary Hour; Husband Jim and Wife Kate, Pen Pals in the Pursuit of the Perfect Words," p. D01; May 22, 1989, Gene Lyons, "Lehrer's Sooner Follies," p. B03.

Washington Post Book World, May 15, 1988, Robert Day, review of Kick the Can, p. 7; March 11, 1990, Carolyn Banks, "Saving Oklahoma and the Rest of the Free World," review of The Sooner Spy, p. 5.