Sportscaster Bob Costas addresses the audience at the Cronkite Award Luncheon after accepting the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism on Tuesday afternoon at the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown Hotel. (Photo by Aaron Lavinsky)Bob Costas accepted the 29th annual Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism during a Tuesday luncheon at the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown Hotel.
The award-winning NBC sportscaster addressed a crowd of nearly 1,100 students, media professionals, community leaders and donors for The Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication about the importance of following standards of professionalism.
“Dedication to truth, to fairness and to quality, that’s what Walter Cronkite was about,” he said. “That’s what I hope the young people in this room and the University are taking to heart.”
The school honored Costas and the 28 previous award winners, including television reporters Christiane Amanpour and Diane Sawyer and newspaper journalists Bob Woodward and Ben Bradlee, for following Cronkite’s ideals.
Costas talked about the importance of the fundamentals of journalism.
He said sports casting could use a bigger dose of real journalism.
“The best of sports broadcasting is a combination of drama and theater and excitement and fun, skillfully presented in an informative and professional way,” Costas said. “But I think that too often the networks shy away from controversial topics.”
He said fans don’t change the channel when they see controversy in sports, pointing to his stories on steroid usage in baseball and the Jerry Sandusky scandal.
“I think people get it,” he said. “You can enjoy sports but still be skeptical about its successes or its failures.”
Costas said even though the way information is delivered will keep changing, journalism should always reflect the timeless virtues of truth, fairness and quality.
He said sharing information is easy for everyone now, and that not all of it is quality information.
“Too much is about just uninformed commentary coming from almost nowhere with no sense of accountability (and) no adherence and belief in the timeless principles that somebody like Walter Cronkite embodied,” he said.
Costas said he commends the Cronkite School for the quality education it provides students.
ABC15 anchor Katie Raml said she loved hearing Costas speak about the changes in journalism.
“I love how he went back to the principles that we’ve all learned at the Cronkite School and helping us to remember to stay true to them even when the forum changes,” she said.
Raml graduated from the Cronkite School in 1999 and said it was refreshing to hear Costas mention that the same virtues are still important.
Journalism freshman Emily Antuna said she was encouraged by the speech at the luncheon.
“It’s really inspiring how he was talking about how we need to bring Walter Cronkite’s fundamentals into journalism today and keep those fundamentals of honesty and credibility,” she said. “It’s nice hearing it from someone who’s really successful in the business.”
While professionals paid several hundred dollars for their seats at the luncheon, some students earned free invitations by blogging about school events, including the school’s “Must See Monday” series of lectures issues and Wednesday night screenings of movies like “All the President’s Men” and “Anchorman.”
Journalism freshman Shelby Slade earned her invitation by attending about five of the Monday night lectures.
“(The Cronkite School) did a good job of bringing really cool people in to speak,” she said of the lectures. “They all answered questions about things I’ve been wondering.”
Reach the reporter at hblawren@asu.edu or follow her on Twitter @hannah_lawr
