2008 Woodie Awards
SOC Summit hosts TV news anchors
Kathryn Mayer and Jessica Slosberg
Issue date: 3/7/06 Section: News
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CBS news anchor Bob Schieffer addressed a crowd during the opening of the 2006 School of Communication Summit at a dinner last Wednesday, the highlight of the three-day event featuring 900 students, staff, faculty and community members.
The 69-year-old anchor of CBS nightly news and host of "Face the Nation" addressed "building trust in a complex world," the summit's theme. Schieffer also talked about his career and the events he covered, including the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
"I'm a lucky person who had a chance as a big guy to do what he wanted to do as a little guy," he said.
Schieffer has covered all four major beats in Washington D.C. - the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department and Capitol Hill and has interviewed every president since Richard Nixon.
"I like it a lot better how it was in the old days," he said of politics. Politics used to be an amateur sport, he explained. "They [politicians] had real jobs other than being involved in campaigns. They were people of the community."
He celebrated freedom of the press as well as the press as an outlet for society to speak up. He said that American people are the most informed people on the earth. "It's a necessary part of democracy," he said of that knowledge. "The freedom of press is a freedom we must have to defend all freedoms."
The remarks were preceded by a short video that highlighted Schieffer's career, including his last 36 years working at CBS News. "If I could do it a little bit longer, I'll be old enough to be on '60 Minutes,'" he joked.
The video showed what Schieffer called the riskiest event he's covered, reading the details of President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky's sexual encounters on air. "I kept worrying about if I had stepped in it."
His most memorable experiences were during his early years as a reporter in Ft. Worth, when Lee Harvey Oswald's mother called the newspaper's office and asked for a ride to Dallas, where Kennedy had been shot.
The 69-year-old anchor of CBS nightly news and host of "Face the Nation" addressed "building trust in a complex world," the summit's theme. Schieffer also talked about his career and the events he covered, including the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
"I'm a lucky person who had a chance as a big guy to do what he wanted to do as a little guy," he said.
Schieffer has covered all four major beats in Washington D.C. - the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department and Capitol Hill and has interviewed every president since Richard Nixon.
"I like it a lot better how it was in the old days," he said of politics. Politics used to be an amateur sport, he explained. "They [politicians] had real jobs other than being involved in campaigns. They were people of the community."
He celebrated freedom of the press as well as the press as an outlet for society to speak up. He said that American people are the most informed people on the earth. "It's a necessary part of democracy," he said of that knowledge. "The freedom of press is a freedom we must have to defend all freedoms."
The remarks were preceded by a short video that highlighted Schieffer's career, including his last 36 years working at CBS News. "If I could do it a little bit longer, I'll be old enough to be on '60 Minutes,'" he joked.
The video showed what Schieffer called the riskiest event he's covered, reading the details of President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky's sexual encounters on air. "I kept worrying about if I had stepped in it."
His most memorable experiences were during his early years as a reporter in Ft. Worth, when Lee Harvey Oswald's mother called the newspaper's office and asked for a ride to Dallas, where Kennedy had been shot.