The 35th annual symposium culminated with a Scholarship Banquet for current Murrow students, followed by the keynote address.
The symposium is perhaps best known for its distinguished honorees and speakers. Past recipients such as Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw will be joined by two more well-known journalists this year. Former White House bureau chief Helen Thomas, and CBS News Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer are getting the top honor in 2009.
Schieffer has spent 52 years as a reporter, and is a seven-time Emmy winner.
Thomas, who’s often referred to as the “First Lady of the Press” has covered every president since John F. Kennedy.
Tuesday they focused on truth in journalism, a virtue they said is getting lost in the “blogosphere”.
“You just can’t have a system where you wake up in the middle of the night and go, ‘This must be true,’ so you put it on a blog,” said Schieffer. “That’s not journalism.”
“There’s no way to find out if it’s really true, and it’s given such wide credence, you can lose reputations and ruin lives,” said Thomas.
For Helen Thomas, who has made a career out of testifying from the press box, to discuss responsibility in journalism is laughable in the extreme.
Admit it: This is just another of your long line of excuses to put up a big picture of Helen Thomas. At least the KSM Political Cartoon of the Week had some relevance. Why show a big picture of Helen Thomas? Why? Why? WHY?
I wish I knew.
Medusa is back!
That’s it. That’s IT.
You’ve lost a reader.