Media Credit: Dawn Jones-Garcia Jim Lehrer, guest of the Mary Alice Davis Distinguished Lecture in Journalism, told an audience that journalists shouldn't lose sight of basic reporting skills in his speech at Hogg Auditorium Monday night.

Blogs, cable news and the Internet cannot exterminate the fundamental reporting expected of journalists, PBS' "NewsHour" host Jim Lehrer said Monday night.

The anchor told a packed audience at Hogg Memorial Auditorium that journalists must not lose sight of basic reporting skills in favor of relying on technology to inform them.

Lehrer, born in Kansas, spent his formative years in Texas. He recounted Texas connections through stories of growing up in Beaumont and attending Victoria College. The audience laughed when he impersonated his college job as a bus driver and remembered how he wrote, edited and delivered the school newspaper at the college.

He also painted a bleak portrait of the journalistic landscape.

"I don't have to tell you that revolutions are seldom easy or pleasant for anyone directly involved, and the noises you hear from newsrooms and often their boardrooms nearby are screams of real panic," Lehrer said. "Newspaper circulation and profits are down; so are the ratings of the nightly news program. Sound the alarms! Cable news and the Internet bloggers and the satellite and other radio talk shouters and the late night comedians are teaming up with Yahoos and Googles, iPods, mp3 players and other strange things."

However, Lehrer said he believes people should be less dramatic.

"I say calm down," he said.

Lehrer said bloggers and news parody programs like "The Daily Show" exist because journalists are still reporting and gathering news. Without The Washington Post's investigation of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, faux news programs and blogs would not have material to joke about or summarize.

He said "The NewsHour" has a higher viewership than any of the major cable news network shows or news parody shows

The UT School of Journalism selected Lehrer as the 2007 Mary Alice Davis Distinguished Lecturer. Davis, a UT Journalism School graduate, was a columnist and editorial writer for the Austin American-Statesman. Lehrer also fielded questions from audience members.

Ruth Tipperreiter, a 12-year-old student at Hutto Middle School, asked Lehrer why he keeps his work up and continues caring about the journalism field.

"I really believe with all my heart and soul that there is not one problem we have in this country, this city, this county, wherever I am at any given moment, that can't be resolved by good people," Lehrer said. "That is the drive for me as a journalist."

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