Miami Student

Issue date: 3/6/07 Section: Front Page

Media Credit: Michael Pickering Face the Nation anchor Bob Schieffer speaks Thursday evening at Hall Auditorium.

On the 50th anniversary of his first job as a reporter, CBS news icon Bob Schieffer spoke Monday at Hall Auditorium about his experiences in journalism and his opinions on the current state of politics in the United States.

Schieffer has been a political reporter for CBS news for more than 35 years, a long-time anchor, and moderator of Face The Nation.

As a member of Phi Delta Theta fraternity in college whose national headquarters are at Miami University, Schieffer had heard about the university long before his first visit in 1988 while covering the campaign of President George H. W. Bush.

"It's a beautiful campus," Schieffer said. "I try to get here every 20 years."

Schieffer began his lecture with a mission to make the event more informal.

"Maybe the professors are embarrassed to tell you this, but the real reason you want to get into journalism is because it's so much fun," Schieffer said.

He told personal stories, many of them making the audience laugh and applaud, about the way both political campaigns and reporting used to be.

In the days of Lyndon Johnson, Schieffer explained, campaigning was about connecting with the people.

"In those days, politicians had to be entertaining," Schieffer said. "They did things like throw their hats into the wings. We've taken all the spontaneity out of politics because we've taken the people out of politics. Our system is broken."

He added that citizens don't want to be inundated with campaigning for a year before an election, despite the trend of setting primary election dates earlier for the next presidential elections.

"It used to be campaigning was the interval between governments," Schieffer said. "Now, government is the interval between campaigning."

Schieffer said he feels like the root of the campaigning problem stems from candidates' overriding focus on money.

"If I could wave a magic wand over the system we have today," Schieffer said, "I would get rid of the primaries because that's what costs so much money."

When sharing anecdotes about his first reporting techniques, Schieffer took the audience to a world before press passes and maximum security.

Continued...

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