Jim Lehrer Biography

Jim Lehrer was executive editor and former news anchor for PBS NewsHour.

Lehrer was born May 19, 1934 in Wichita, Kansas. He attended middle school in Beaumont, Texas, and graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in San Antonio, Texas, where he was one of the three sports editors at the Jefferson Declaration. He graduated from Victoria College in Texas and the University of Missouri.

After three years in the US Marine Corps, he began his news career in Dallas, first as a newspaperman, and then later as the anchor on a local news show. Lehrer started work with PBS in 1972, and in 1975 started The MacNeil/Lehrer Report with Robert MacNeil. The show was renamed The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, later, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and finally, as PBS NewsHour. In 1999 Lehrer was awarded the presidential National Humanities Medal.

Nicknamed the "Dean of Moderators" by CNN's Bernard Shaw, Lehrer moderated eleven presidential candidate debates.

Lehrer was also an acclaimed author, writing both non-fiction and fiction which drew on his life experiences and his interests in history and politics.

He died peacefully in his sleep in January 2020, at the age of 85.

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