Back on May 19, ex-CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley hijacked the Wake Forest graduation ceremony to vent against Trump administration policies as well as the President’s lawsuit against CBS. “Journalism is under attack, universities are under attack, freedom of speech is under attack,” Pelley pompously proclaimed.
Then on Wednesday, CNN/PBS host Christiane Amanpour pitched a similar message to graduating seniors at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government: “No matter how many words are banned, how many news organizations are shuttered and threatened, how many journalists are threatened and intimidated, we will not be silenced... and no administration should be surprised.”
They aren’t the first media personalities to use the honor of speaking at a commencement ceremony to steal attention away from the achievements of those graduating in order to push their favorite liberal theories. Speaking at Benedictine University in 1996, for example, 60 Minutes correspondent Ed Bradley took a whack at former President Ronald Reagan: “I remember the campaign slogan one year, ‘It’s morning again in America.’ Well, it may have been morning for some but, for a lot of people, it’s become a nightmare.”
Four years later, White House reporter Helen Thomas pushed graduates to be lefty activists: “Don’t let the politicians chip away at the New Deal and the Great Society programs like Social Security, Medicare....” In 2005, former NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw instructed them to be environmental activists: “It will do us little good to achieve peace on Earth if Earth becomes a dead planet.”
The next year, New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr., indulged himself by blasting then-President George W. Bush’s foreign policy: “You weren’t supposed to be graduating into an America fighting a misbegotten war in a foreign land....You weren’t supposed to be graduating into a world where oil still drove policy and environmentalists have to fight relentlessly for every gain. You weren’t. But you are. And for that I’m sorry.”
More recently, media celebrities have used graduation ceremonies to electioneer against Donald Trump. “You must do everything you can to defeat the retrograde forces that have invaded our democratic process,” filmmaker Ken Burns told seniors at Stanford University in 2016.
And just two years ago, CNN’s Amanpour suggested censoring Trump (then a declared candidate for re-election): “The American press, and maybe the world’s press, still hasn’t learned out to cover or deal with Donald Trump. Maybe we should revert back to the newspaper editors and TV chiefs of the 1950s, who in the end refused to allow McCarthyism onto their pages unless his foul lies, his witch hunts and his rants reached the basic evidence level required in a court of law.”
From the files of the Media Research Center and NewsBusters, here are a few of the most obnoxious examples of liberal media personalities commandeering commencement ceremonies to inflict their agenda on graduates and their families:
■ “The presumptive Republican nominee [Donald Trump] is the opioid of all opioids, an easy cure for what some believe is the solution to our myriad pains and problems, when in fact with him you end up re-enslaved with an even bigger problem, a worse affliction, and addiction. ‘A bigger delusion,’ James Baldwin would say; the author and finisher of our national existence, our national suicide as Mr. Lincoln prophesied. Do not be seduced by easy equalization. There is nothing equal about this equation. We are at an existential crossroads in our political and civic lives. This is a choice that could not be clearer.”
— Filmmaker Ken Burns’ commencement address at Brandeis University, May 19, 2024.■ “The fact that the American people voted three times against Trump and Trumpism — 2018, 2020, 2022 — also speaks volumes....People have had the opportunity to make their choices and they have done it....The American press, and maybe the world’s press, still hasn’t learned how to cover or deal with Donald Trump. Maybe we should revert back to the newspaper editors and TV chiefs of the 1950s, who in the end refused to allow McCarthyism onto their pages unless his foul lies, his witch hunts and his rants reached the basic evidence level required in a court of law.”
— CNN anchor Christiane Amanpour delivering the commencement address at Columbia Journalism School, May 14, 2023.
■ “Right now, as we speak, we are defining the future of the United States. We have to decide in the next few years, maybe in the next few months, if we want to be an inclusive, diverse country, or if we tinker with democracy and politics and change that direction.”
— Univision anchor Jorge Ramos delivering the commencement speech at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, May 13, 2017.■ “For 216 years, our elections, though bitterly contested, have featured the philosophies and characters of candidates who were clearly qualified. That is not the case this year. One is glaringly not qualified. So before you do anything with your well-earned degree, you must do everything you can to defeat the retrograde forces that have invaded our democratic process, divided our house; to fight against, no matter your political persuasion, the dictatorial tendencies of the candidate with zero experience in the much maligned but subtle art of governance; who is against lots of things, but doesn’t seem to be for anything, offering only bombastic and contradictory promises, and terrifying Orwellian statements; a person who easily lies, creating an environment where the truth doesn’t seem to matter.”
— Filmmaker Ken Burns delivering the commencement address at Stanford University, June 12, 2016.
■ “One of the problems with being a trailblazer is, sometimes you get burned. In those first few months at CBS, TV critics wrote about my clothes, my hair, my make-up, even the way I held my hands. Some said I lacked ‘gravitas,’ which I’ve since decided is Latin for ‘testicles.’...My story may have played out in the public eye, but it’s by no means unique. Every one of you will at some point be confronted by naysayers and learn that life isn’t always fair. You’ll feel cheated, you’ll be mistreated. You’ll wonder, when will I be loved?’”
— Ex-CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric delivering the commencement address at the University of Virginia, May 20, 2012.■ “The vital signs of your mother, Mother Earth, have taken a turn for the worse....How we live on a smaller planet with many more people is a reality that will define your generation for the rest of your lives....We need you to celebrate one another in a common cause of restoring economic justice and true value, advancing racial and religious tolerance, creating a healthier planet.”
— Former NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw giving the commencement address at Fordham University, May 16, 2009.■ “I come here today with a request for the Class of ’08: We need you to fix the country....Start with climate. Something tells me this may be a challenge in the years ahead; tomorrow’s predicted high for Columbus is 220 degrees.”
— Then-NBC anchor Brian Williams addressing graduates of Ohio State University, June 8, 2008.
■ “It wasn’t supposed to be this way. You weren’t supposed to be graduating into an America fighting a misbegotten war in a foreign land. You weren’t supposed to be graduating into a world where we are still fighting for fundamental human rights, whether it’s the rights of immigrants to start a new life, or the rights of gays to marry, or the rights of women to choose. You weren’t supposed to be graduating into a world where oil still drove policy and environmentalists have to fight relentlessly for every gain. You weren’t. But you are. And for that I’m sorry.”
— New York Times Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr.’s May 21, 2006 graduation address at the State University of New York at New Paltz.■ “Our best efforts will be for naught if we fail on another front: if we fail to love our mother, Mother Earth. It will do us little good to achieve peace on Earth if Earth becomes a dead planet....Individually and collectively, you’re also stewards of the air we breathe, the water that we drink, wild lands and creatures large and small. Develop a sense of proportion about your personal and professional needs. Eschew excess and embrace moderation in your consumption habits. Sackcloth and kelp soup are not required, but the Buddhist reminder of the need to live lightly on the Earth is a helpful guide to the daily habits and needs of us all.”
— Tom Brokaw, delivering the commencement address at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, June 12, 2005.■ “I want to speak to you today about war and empire.... We are embarking on an occupation that if history is any guide will be as damaging to our souls as it will be to our prestige and power and security....We have forfeited the goodwill, the empathy the world felt for us after 9/11; we have folded in on ourselves....We are far less secure today than we were before we bumbled into Iraq. We will pay for this, but what saddens me most is that those who will by and large pay the highest price are poor kids from Mississippi or Alabama or Texas who could not get a decent job or health insurance and joined the army because it was all we offered them.”
— New York Times reporter Chris Hedges in a May 17, 2003 commencement address at Rockford College in Illinois.■ “All you have to do is look around you and see that there is so much to be done to make this a more equal society. For starters, don’t let the politicians chip away at the New Deal and the Great Society programs like Social Security, Medicare, that puts a floor beyond which the elderly, the sick, the powerless do not starve or lack for medicine or shelter....
“Members of Congress have bottled up a gun safety bill, refused to vote on it....The world is also a more dangerous place because Congress turned down the nuclear test ban treaty. That vote deprived the United States of its moral authority to urge other nations not to test or build nuclear weapons. So you see, there is a lot of work cut out for you.”
— Former UPI White House reporter Helen Thomas during her May 19, 2000 commencement address at the University of San Francisco.
■ “The legacy of the Reagan administration will be with us for years. The deficit under Reagan totaled more than a trillion dollars. Someday we’re going to have to pay those bills. As officials look to cut spending and taxes at the same time, we can’t afford another round of voodoo economics....I remember that campaign slogan one year ‘It’s morning again in America.’ Well, it may have been morning for some but, for a lot of people in this country, it’s become a nightmare.”
— CBS 60 Minutes correspondent Ed Bradley in an April 28, 1996 speech to Benedictine University in Illinois.■ “More is not always better. We’re moving into an era when the less we use, the better off we will be. Is a 400-pound wife better than a 130-pound wife?....If only one third of the money we spent on the Cold War could have been spent differently, we could have had decent housing, health care, and education for all Americans.”
— CNN Founder Ted Turner’s commencement address at the University of Denver, quoted in the Rocky Mountain News, June 7, 1992.
For more examples from our flashback series, which we call the NewsBusters Time Machine, go here.
