International Center for Journalists

First, let me say thank you for this honor. I am not only pleased and humbled to have a university chair named for me—I am absolutely stunned. I had no idea until this afternoon, when I went through tonight’s program schedule, that such a thing was even being considered.

To those familiar with my academic record it will be seen as all the more remarkable.

Even so, I accept it with pride because I love being a reporter, I wanted to be a reporter when I was a little boy and I got to be a reporter when I grew up. Over the years, I got to go places and see things that I never dreamed of and I have had a wonderful life. I tried not to take myself too seriously but I have always taken very seriously, the responsibility that comes with being a reporter.

Let me put it as plainly as I can. One of the most fundamental differences between a totalitarian society and a democracy is this: In a totalitarian society, there is only one source of news—the government. In a democracy, a free press provides a second source that every citizen can compare with the government’s version of events and then make a judgment as to which version is correct. If there were no other reason for a free press, that alone would be reason enough.

Yet even here, we find that concept being challenged as over and over we find zealous prosecutors bringing reporters before grand juries with demands to reveal their sources. If that becomes the standard routine, if every time a reporter offends the government of the moment he or she is threatened with jail, one of the cornerstones of our democracy will have been destroyed. We will still have two sources of information—but that second source, the press, will no longer be independent, and that changes everything.

We need a shield law — not because those of us in the press deserve more rights than other people, and we must be very careful to explain that — but because every American deserves to know what the government is doing and if we have to report to the government we can’t report on the government.

We are told that we are in the midst of an ideological battle for the hearts and minds of people around the world. If that is true, and I believe it is, then one story we ought to talk about is what a free press does—how our founders knew enough about human nature to understand that if allowed government would always cover up its mistakes. Does anyone really believe that we would be getting the full story on Iraq or that we would have found out about Abu Ghraib, or secret prisons, or that nauseating story of the congressional pages had it been left to the government to announce it?

Some would tell us that such disclosures weaken the country, too often those who uncover mistakes are branded unpatriotic. I don’t buy it; nor should you. When we uncover mistakes we don’t weaken the country; we strengthen it.

The 1964 Civil Rights Act laid bare 200 years of wrongs far worse than even Abu Ghraib, but who would seriously say exposing those wrongs in order to correct them made us weaker? To the contrary, Hubert Humphrey called that act the single most effective foreign policy initiative of that decade — it had nothing to do with foreign policy, but it showed the world who we were and that we stood for fairness and that it worked.

What does weaken our country is when government tries to cover up mistakes or plants phony news stories or tries to bribe friendly columnists to take the government line. Our great strength comes from emphasizing in every word and action the values and principles that separate us from those who oppose us — not by adopting their methods and techniques.

And there is one thing more. When we make a mistake we must correct it immediately. The greatest defense against charges of bias is to get the story right.

That is the story we have to tell. That is the story that will change minds and that is why I am proud to call myself a journalist.

We are in the midst of a mind-boggling technological revolution. None of us knows how people will get their news even five years from now. But for all the wonder of the new technology, the core of journalism is not about machines — it is about the courage and the integrity of the individual reporter. That is the part we must never forget and it is the reason all of us should be proud of what we do.

Thank you for what you are doing for journalists and thank you for this wonderful honor.