Fourth Estate winner, PBS Newshour anchor Jim Lehrer dies

Jim Lehrer was the 2011 Fourth Estate Winner. He is on the right. 2011 National Press Club President Mark Hamrick is on the left. Photo: Noel St. John

National Press Club President Mike Freedman said in a statement that "America has lost a true reporter's reporter" when he learned of the death on Thursday of PBS Newshour founding anchor Jim Lehrer.

Lehrer was the 2011 Fourth Estate Award honoree and he appeared at several Book Fairs over the years for both his memoirs and novels.

"Jim Lehrer exemplified all that is right and good in journalism," Freedman's statement continues. "He set the high bar for fairness and integrity in reporting and earned the respect of both his peers and the public. We will miss his gentle, decent, yet strong and firm approach to his craft."

Lehrer covered the Kennedy assassination, Watergate, 9/11 and was the moderator of 12 presidential debates, the most of any moderator and the only one to be only moderator for the debates in 1996 and 2000. His career began in Dallas where he reported for both the Dallas Morning News and the Dallas Times-Herald from 1959 to 1966, covering local politics. He became the Times-Herald’s city editor in 1968.

His television career also began in Dallas, at public station KERA. His move to the national stage with PBS was when he became a correspondent for what was then called the National Public Affairs Center for Television, or NPAT.

In 1975, he was paired with Robert MacNeil for what was first known as "The Robert MacNeil Report" but within months became the MacNeil/Lehrer report. In 1983, "The MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour" was created when the program expanded to one hour. When MacNeil retired in 1995, it became "The Newshour with Jim Lehrer." The name was changed to the PBS Newshour prior to his retirement in 2011.

Prior to becoming a journalist, Lehrer was a Marine in the 1950s. He attended Victoria College in Texas and then studied journalism at the University of Missouri. 

Lehrer wrote three memoirs, more than 20 novels, and plays. One of his early novels Viva Max! was made into a movie starring Peter Ustinov and Jonathan Winters.

He earned dozens of journalism awards and honorary degrees, and was given the National Humanities Medal by President Bill Clinton.

He married Kate Staples in 1960. They were the parents of three daughters: Jamie, Lucy and Amanda. He also had six grandchildren.