![book and author dinner Jim Lehrer's double e life Jim Lehrer says being fair "is the hallmark of our culture on the 'NewsHour,' and it has been for 25 years." By Bill Steigerwald Post-Gazette Staff Writer J by im that his practicing he Lehrer bosses could is so at be Serious PBS. well-known trademarked Journalism Most news junkies know him as anchor of the nonsense- and shouting-free nightly news and commentary program, "The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer." the authoritative moderator of presidential debates. for winning just about every prestigious broadcast journalism award that's been invented. Not nearly as many people know Lehrer also has a thriving career as a fiction writer. Lehrer, who will be one of four authors appearing at the Post-Gazette Book and Author Dinner on Wednesday, has found time over the years to write three plays and 12 novels, including his newest work, "The Special Prisoner." Twisted around the issues of war guilt and forgiveness, "Special Prisoner" is about a World War II airman who survived a brutal Japanese prison camp and 50 years later meets the elderly Japanese officer who tortured him. We recently talked to Lehrer by phone about his new book and the state of journalism. Question: You started your professional life as a journalist why was that? Answer: Well, I wanted to be like Ernest Hemingway. I wanted to write stories, and Hemingway said if you want to do that, go get a job as a newspaperman. So I did. When I was 17, 18 years old, 1 decided to be a reporter and a writer of fiction. I've never looked back. Q: Do you still consider yourself a journalist? A: Absolutely I'm a journalist. A journalist is somebody who covers the news and interviews people, and I've been doing that every night and every day either in print or in television for 40 years. Yeah, you bet I am. Q: What's the journalist's most important duty? A: Get it right. Q: You know the old H.L. Mencken line about what journalists are supposed to do - afflict the comfort and comfort the afflicted. Do you think that's being adhered to too much or too little these days? A: Well, it's hard to generalize. Some people get carried away with that. Some people don't do enough of it. Another tenet of ours, of mine, is that I believe the people who watch our program are as smart, and as caring, and as good as I am. What I try to do is keep them in mind and say, "OK, I'm going to ask them the questions that they would ask if they were sitting here," and I would ask them on their behalf. Some of those questions are discomforting for some people; sometimes they are not. I don't think of it in those terms, that I'm supposed to rabble-rouse all day or every day or every interview, or whatever. But there are some folks who do. Q: How much does the "NewsHour" reflect your values and input? A: It reflects it entirely. I'm responsible for everything that goes on on that about program. something If you're ever upset, the you see or guy responsible is the guy sitting out there. Q: When somebody asks you what your politics are, how do you describe them? A: I have no politics. It's a matter of function. ... I have a hard enough time performing my duties - which is an overall editorial view as executive editor of the program, plus doing what I do on the air - to clutter my head also with, "OK, what do I think politically about something?" I just don't do it. I don't have definable political views, and I don't think you could do what I No-nonsense for newsman the also finds success as an author Or of popular fiction JIM LEHRER THE SPECIAL PRISONER do for a living if you did. Q: You have to ask people like George W. Bush and Al Gore all kinds of questions on issues like gun control or Social Security reform. Is there a position on guns or any other issue that you take that would shock a liberal or a conservative if they found out how you felt? A: No, I don't think so. No, no. You know there's another cliché - and all good clichés are born out of a truth - that the more you know about something, the less opinionated you are about it. In order to avoid making a fool of myself on national television, I work very hard at preparing for my interviews. As a consequence, I know two, three, four sides to these things, and that helps. Q: You just had long interviews with both Gore and Bush. What did you think of them, and is the future of the country at risk? A: Answering the last question first, no, the country is not at risk. I think that the country's going to have a good choice to make. My bottom line when I interviewed them was that if someone sat and watched this interview for the 45 minutes, would they get a good feel for who this guy was? And in both cases, my answer was yes. For me, that meant it was successful. Q: You must have two audiences out there - the people who watch you every night and the people who read your books. Who is the audience for your books? A: Well, I don't know. This is my 14th book, my 12th novel. They do pretty well. There's some overlap, I'm sure. People who watch the program also read my books. There are also people who just read my books. Q: They sell well? A: Yes - and [the readers are] lovely people. Q: Do you like meeting them face to face? A: Oh, absolutely. You bet. I go all over the country on these book tours. That is truly a wonderful experience for somebody to come up to you and say, "I read your novel. I read 'Special Prisoner' or 'White Widow'" or whatever book it is. And they say, "It really moved me this way." That's a special thing for me. Q: Is there something tricky about "The Special Prisoner"? A: It goes a little deeper, a little darker, than some of my novels. It's about a prisoner of war in World War II, a young kid shot down flying a B-29, taken prisoner by the Japanese. Fifty years later - he got out of prison camp alive and becomes a Methodist bishop - he is forced to confront what happened to him in the camp. It's a deep, dark story. Q: Where did you get the idea? A: Two places. I grew up in Wichita, Kansas, in World War II, and that's where they made a lot of the B- 29s. My mother worked on the assembly line. She was a wire cutter. The B- 29 was a magic instrument for me. We were told and we believed with all our hearts and souls that the B-29 was going to end the war. A NOVEL to end the war. About four years ago, a man told me, "Hey, did you know the 20th Air Force and [Army Air Force Gen.} Hap Arnold used Bangkok, Thailand, as target practice before they bombed Japan?" Q: Really? A: Yeah. That's what I said: "Really? I didn't know that." And they said, "Oh yeah, they destroyed a lot of the city and killed thousands of people." Well it stuck in my craw. I wasn't thinking about doing a book; I was just curious. So I did some research, and I found out that they did one bombing mission and it burned a few places and less than 1,000 people were killed. But in the process of doing that, I started reading about these young American kids who flew those B-29s. I got consumed by them. They were most of them 18, 19 years old, flying these big planes at 5,000 feet, dropping incendiary bombs on defenseless cities, for the most part in Japan. I got concerned about those folks on the ground and what was happening to them, and out of this came this novel. Q: How long will you do "NewsHour"? A: Well, till one of two things happen: Till I don't get a kick out of it, which I do, every day, now; or until I start drooling on the air. Whichever comes first. Jim Lehrer joins novelists Edward Rutherfurd and Jeffrey Lent and memoir writer Scott Simon at the Post-Gazette Book and Author Dinner Wednesday at the Doubletree Hotel, Downtown. Tickets are $35 and proceeds benefit the Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council. Call 412-263- 1421 for tickets. Lehrer also will speak at noon that same day at a luncheon sponsored by the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania at the Duquesne Club. Cost is $35. For reservations, call the Press Club at 412-281-7778.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!L9k5!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F1daa6f46-3ffb-4318-9098-575e30cb7756_860x2217.jpeg "book and author dinner Jim Lehrer's double e life Jim Lehrer says being fair \"is the hallmark of our culture on the 'NewsHour,' and it has been for 25 years.\" By Bill Steigerwald Post-Gazette Staff Writer J by im that his practicing he Lehrer bosses could is so at be Serious PBS. well-known trademarked Journalism Most news junkies know him as anchor of the nonsense- and shouting-free nightly news and commentary program, \"The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer.\" the authoritative moderator of presidential debates. for winning just about every prestigious broadcast journalism award that's been invented. Not nearly as many people know Lehrer also has a thriving career as a fiction writer. Lehrer, who will be one of four authors appearing at the Post-Gazette Book and Author Dinner on Wednesday, has found time over the years to write three plays and 12 novels, including his newest work, \"The Special Prisoner.\" Twisted around the issues of war guilt and forgiveness, \"Special Prisoner\" is about a World War II airman who survived a brutal Japanese prison camp and 50 years later meets the elderly Japanese officer who tortured him. We recently talked to Lehrer by phone about his new book and the state of journalism. Question: You started your professional life as a journalist why was that? Answer: Well, I wanted to be like Ernest Hemingway. I wanted to write stories, and Hemingway said if you want to do that, go get a job as a newspaperman. So I did. When I was 17, 18 years old, 1 decided to be a reporter and a writer of fiction. I've never looked back. Q: Do you still consider yourself a journalist? A: Absolutely I'm a journalist. A journalist is somebody who covers the news and interviews people, and I've been doing that every night and every day either in print or in television for 40 years. Yeah, you bet I am. Q: What's the journalist's most important duty? A: Get it right. Q: You know the old H.L. Mencken line about what journalists are supposed to do - afflict the comfort and comfort the afflicted. Do you think that's being adhered to too much or too little these days? A: Well, it's hard to generalize. Some people get carried away with that. Some people don't do enough of it. Another tenet of ours, of mine, is that I believe the people who watch our program are as smart, and as caring, and as good as I am. What I try to do is keep them in mind and say, \"OK, I'm going to ask them the questions that they would ask if they were sitting here,\" and I would ask them on their behalf. Some of those questions are discomforting for some people; sometimes they are not. I don't think of it in those terms, that I'm supposed to rabble-rouse all day or every day or every interview, or whatever. But there are some folks who do. Q: How much does the \"NewsHour\" reflect your values and input? A: It reflects it entirely. I'm responsible for everything that goes on on that about program. something If you're ever upset, the you see or guy responsible is the guy sitting out there. Q: When somebody asks you what your politics are, how do you describe them? A: I have no politics. It's a matter of function. ... I have a hard enough time performing my duties - which is an overall editorial view as executive editor of the program, plus doing what I do on the air - to clutter my head also with, \"OK, what do I think politically about something?\" I just don't do it. I don't have definable political views, and I don't think you could do what I No-nonsense for newsman the also finds success as an author Or of popular fiction JIM LEHRER THE SPECIAL PRISONER do for a living if you did. Q: You have to ask people like George W. Bush and Al Gore all kinds of questions on issues like gun control or Social Security reform. Is there a position on guns or any other issue that you take that would shock a liberal or a conservative if they found out how you felt? A: No, I don't think so. No, no. You know there's another cliché - and all good clichés are born out of a truth - that the more you know about something, the less opinionated you are about it. In order to avoid making a fool of myself on national television, I work very hard at preparing for my interviews. As a consequence, I know two, three, four sides to these things, and that helps. Q: You just had long interviews with both Gore and Bush. What did you think of them, and is the future of the country at risk? A: Answering the last question first, no, the country is not at risk. I think that the country's going to have a good choice to make. My bottom line when I interviewed them was that if someone sat and watched this interview for the 45 minutes, would they get a good feel for who this guy was? And in both cases, my answer was yes. For me, that meant it was successful. Q: You must have two audiences out there - the people who watch you every night and the people who read your books. Who is the audience for your books? A: Well, I don't know. This is my 14th book, my 12th novel. They do pretty well. There's some overlap, I'm sure. People who watch the program also read my books. There are also people who just read my books. Q: They sell well? A: Yes - and [the readers are] lovely people. Q: Do you like meeting them face to face? A: Oh, absolutely. You bet. I go all over the country on these book tours. That is truly a wonderful experience for somebody to come up to you and say, \"I read your novel. I read 'Special Prisoner' or 'White Widow'\" or whatever book it is. And they say, \"It really moved me this way.\" That's a special thing for me. Q: Is there something tricky about \"The Special Prisoner\"? A: It goes a little deeper, a little darker, than some of my novels. It's about a prisoner of war in World War II, a young kid shot down flying a B-29, taken prisoner by the Japanese. Fifty years later - he got out of prison camp alive and becomes a Methodist bishop - he is forced to confront what happened to him in the camp. It's a deep, dark story. Q: Where did you get the idea? A: Two places. I grew up in Wichita, Kansas, in World War II, and that's where they made a lot of the B- 29s. My mother worked on the assembly line. She was a wire cutter. The B- 29 was a magic instrument for me. We were told and we believed with all our hearts and souls that the B-29 was going to end the war. A NOVEL to end the war. About four years ago, a man told me, \"Hey, did you know the 20th Air Force and [Army Air Force Gen.} Hap Arnold used Bangkok, Thailand, as target practice before they bombed Japan?\" Q: Really? A: Yeah. That's what I said: \"Really? I didn't know that.\" And they said, \"Oh yeah, they destroyed a lot of the city and killed thousands of people.\" Well it stuck in my craw. I wasn't thinking about doing a book; I was just curious. So I did some research, and I found out that they did one bombing mission and it burned a few places and less than 1,000 people were killed. But in the process of doing that, I started reading about these young American kids who flew those B-29s. I got consumed by them. They were most of them 18, 19 years old, flying these big planes at 5,000 feet, dropping incendiary bombs on defenseless cities, for the most part in Japan. I got concerned about those folks on the ground and what was happening to them, and out of this came this novel. Q: How long will you do \"NewsHour\"? A: Well, till one of two things happen: Till I don't get a kick out of it, which I do, every day, now; or until I start drooling on the air. Whichever comes first. Jim Lehrer joins novelists Edward Rutherfurd and Jeffrey Lent and memoir writer Scott Simon at the Post-Gazette Book and Author Dinner Wednesday at the Doubletree Hotel, Downtown. Tickets are $35 and proceeds benefit the Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council. Call 412-263- 1421 for tickets. Lehrer also will speak at noon that same day at a luncheon sponsored by the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania at the Duquesne Club. Cost is $35. For reservations, call the Press Club at 412-281-7778.")
![culture And in both cases, my answer was yes. For me, that meant it was successful. Q: You must have two audiences out there - the people who watch you every night and the people who read your books. Who is the audience for your books? A: Well, I don't know. This is my 14th book, my 12th novel. They do pretty well. There's some overlap, I'm sure. People who watch the program also read my books. There are also people who just read my books. Q: They sell well? A: Yes - and [the readers are] lovely people. Q: Do you like meeting them face to face? A: Oh, absolutely. You bet. I go all over the country on these book tours. That is truly a wonderful experience for somebody to come up to you and say, "I read your novel. I read 'Special Prisoner' or 'White Widow'" or whatever book it is. And they say, "It really moved me this way." That's a special thing for me. Q: Is there something tricky about "The Special Prisoner"? A: It goes a little deeper, a little darker, than some of my novels. It's about a prisoner of war in World War II, a young kid shot down flying a B-29, taken prisoner by the Japanese. Fifty years later - he got out of prison camp alive and becomes a Methodist bishop - he is forced to confront what happened to him in the camp. It's a deep, dark story. Q: Where did you get the idea? A: Two places. I grew up in Wichita, Kansas, in World War II, and that's where they made a lot of the B- 29s. My mother worked on the assembly line. She was a wire cutter. The B- 29 was a magic instrument for me. We were told and we believed with all our hearts and souls that the B-29 was going to end the war. to end the war. About four years ago, a man told me, "Hey, did you know the 20th Air Force and [Army Air Force Gen.} Hap Arnold used Bangkok, Thailand, as target practice before they bombed Japan?" Q: Really? A: Yeah. That's what I said: "Really? I didn't know that." And they said, "Oh yeah, they destroyed a lot of the city and killed thousands of people." Well it stuck in my craw. I wasn't thinking about doing a book; I was just curious. So I did some research, and I found out that they did one bombing mission and it burned a few places and less than 1,000 people were killed. But in the process of doing that, I started reading about these young American kids who flew those B-29s. I got consumed by them. They were most of them 18, 19 years old, flying these big planes at 5,000 feet, dropping incendiary bombs on defenseless cities, for the most part in Japan. I got concerned about those folks on the ground and what was happening to them, and out of this came this novel. Q: How long will you do "NewsHour"? A: Well, till one of two things happen: Till I don't get a kick out of it, which I do, every day, now; or until I start drooling on the air. Whichever comes first. Jim Lehrer joins novelists Edward Rutherfurd and Jeffrey Lent and memoir writer Scott Simon at the Post-Gazette Book and Author Dinner Wednesday at the Doubletree Hotel, Downtown. Tickets are $35 and proceeds benefit the Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council. Call 412-263- 1421 for tickets. Lehrer also will speak at noon that same day at a luncheon sponsored by the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania at the Duquesne Club. Cost is $35. For reservations, call the Press Club at 412-281-7778.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!APsY!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F89b22a45-9880-466e-b73e-e6fb9cf5e04a_738x4600.jpeg "culture And in both cases, my answer was yes. For me, that meant it was successful. Q: You must have two audiences out there - the people who watch you every night and the people who read your books. Who is the audience for your books? A: Well, I don't know. This is my 14th book, my 12th novel. They do pretty well. There's some overlap, I'm sure. People who watch the program also read my books. There are also people who just read my books. Q: They sell well? A: Yes - and [the readers are] lovely people. Q: Do you like meeting them face to face? A: Oh, absolutely. You bet. I go all over the country on these book tours. That is truly a wonderful experience for somebody to come up to you and say, \"I read your novel. I read 'Special Prisoner' or 'White Widow'\" or whatever book it is. And they say, \"It really moved me this way.\" That's a special thing for me. Q: Is there something tricky about \"The Special Prisoner\"? A: It goes a little deeper, a little darker, than some of my novels. It's about a prisoner of war in World War II, a young kid shot down flying a B-29, taken prisoner by the Japanese. Fifty years later - he got out of prison camp alive and becomes a Methodist bishop - he is forced to confront what happened to him in the camp. It's a deep, dark story. Q: Where did you get the idea? A: Two places. I grew up in Wichita, Kansas, in World War II, and that's where they made a lot of the B- 29s. My mother worked on the assembly line. She was a wire cutter. The B- 29 was a magic instrument for me. We were told and we believed with all our hearts and souls that the B-29 was going to end the war. to end the war. About four years ago, a man told me, \"Hey, did you know the 20th Air Force and [Army Air Force Gen.} Hap Arnold used Bangkok, Thailand, as target practice before they bombed Japan?\" Q: Really? A: Yeah. That's what I said: \"Really? I didn't know that.\" And they said, \"Oh yeah, they destroyed a lot of the city and killed thousands of people.\" Well it stuck in my craw. I wasn't thinking about doing a book; I was just curious. So I did some research, and I found out that they did one bombing mission and it burned a few places and less than 1,000 people were killed. But in the process of doing that, I started reading about these young American kids who flew those B-29s. I got consumed by them. They were most of them 18, 19 years old, flying these big planes at 5,000 feet, dropping incendiary bombs on defenseless cities, for the most part in Japan. I got concerned about those folks on the ground and what was happening to them, and out of this came this novel. Q: How long will you do \"NewsHour\"? A: Well, till one of two things happen: Till I don't get a kick out of it, which I do, every day, now; or until I start drooling on the air. Whichever comes first. Jim Lehrer joins novelists Edward Rutherfurd and Jeffrey Lent and memoir writer Scott Simon at the Post-Gazette Book and Author Dinner Wednesday at the Doubletree Hotel, Downtown. Tickets are $35 and proceeds benefit the Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Council. Call 412-263- 1421 for tickets. Lehrer also will speak at noon that same day at a luncheon sponsored by the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania at the Duquesne Club. Cost is $35. For reservations, call the Press Club at 412-281-7778.")
Jim Lehrer, America's no-nonsense newsman
The longtime anchor of PBS' 'The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer' also wrote fiction. In the spring of 2000 he was the big attraction at the annual Post-Gazette Book and Author Dinner. He died in 2020.
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