The best moderators are the moderators who are essentially invisible. A moderator who is there to be seen and heard and to be talked about either, 'oh, God, what a great question,' or, 'oh, God, what a lousy question,' that to me is a failed moderator.

Jim Lehrer

There's only one interview technique that matters... Do your homework so you can listen to the answers and react to them and ask follow-ups. Do your homework, prepare.

Jim Lehrer

The best moderators are the moderators who are essentially invisible. A moderator who is there to be seen and heard and to be talked about either, 'oh, God, what a great question,' or, 'oh, God, what a lousy question,' that to me is a failed moderator.

Jim Lehrer

You want to see an angry person? Let me hear a cell phone go off.

Jim Lehrer

If people want bells and whistles and all of that, there are bells and whistles available. If they don't want bells and whistles there are places to go where they are not available.

Jim Lehrer

I wanted to be a bus driver when I was a kid. I look at bus driving through the eyes of a little boy. I see it as glamorous.

Jim Lehrer

No two people see things the same way.

Jim Lehrer

There's always a germ of truth in just about everything.

Jim Lehrer

People can say anything they want to. If they don't want to get the news from me, get it from somebody else. It's not something I'm going to worry about, I'm sorry.

Jim Lehrer

I've always said this and finally I had a chance to demonstrate it: The moderator should be seen little and heard even less. It is up to the candidates to ask the follow-up questions and challenge one another.

Jim Lehrer

People can get their news any way they want. What I love about what's happened is that there are so many different avenues, there are so many different outlets, so many different ways to debate and discuss and to inquire about any given news story.

Jim Lehrer

A skill required to be president is to explain to the American people any given thing they do.

Jim Lehrer

If we don't have an informed electorate we don't have a democracy. So I don't care how people get the information, as long as they get it. I'm just doing it my particular way and I feel lucky I can do it the way I want to do it.

Jim Lehrer

I believe an invitation from the Commission on Presidential Debates is similar to a draft notice - a civic responsibility.

Jim Lehrer

Well, I don't know about objectivity, but I know for certain that it's always possible for a professional journalist who understands what he or she's up to to be fair, and that's the key word. Fairness to individuals, fairness to ideas, and to issues and whatever - that is critical, and that is also part and parcel of what the job.

Jim Lehrer

I've traveled around the country and I read local newspapers and all of that, and it's a sad, sad thing to go from city to city and see the small newspapers and they're tiny. They're tiny not only in size but also in scope.

Jim Lehrer

As I say, I'm a discourse advocate. What form it comes is less important to me than the fact that there is discourse.

Jim Lehrer

On a daily basis there are some huge ones that are, sure, from time to time, but it is helping the reader sort through all this sort of gray stuff out there.

Jim Lehrer

There are very few really stark black and white stories.

Jim Lehrer

I'm a journalist and that's what I do.

Jim Lehrer

I'm a gatekeeper, and the gatekeepers all used to be mostly old, white men.

Jim Lehrer