Lucye Rafferty/The Hoya Leonard Downie Jr., executive editor of The Washington Post, spoke in ICC Auditorium Saturday as part of The Hoya’s second annual Journalism Conference.

The advent of 24-hour news media on cable television and the Internet will not replace newspapers, Leonard Downie Jr., executive editor of The Washington Post, said Saturday in the keynote address of the second annual Georgetown University Journalism Conference sponsored by THE HOYA.

While the Internet has given rise to a spectrum of news media, “old media” Web sites remain the most common news resources on the Internet, he said.

“[Newspapers are] supplying the news no matter in what form, and newspapers will not disappear,” Downie told over 100 students in ICC Auditorium.

Local television stations have far fewer resources than do major metropolitan newspapers. “There’s no way they can cover the news the way we cover the news,” he said.

Downie said he saw journalism as a “public service,” and said that journalists are “making a difference in American society with the information [they] publish.”

He said the only true free press in the world is in the United States. When asked about pressure for patriotism in the news following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Downie responded, “Our patriotic duty is to do our constitutional job.”

Downie also said journalists have to give up many of their civil rights – for example, journalists must refrain from participating in political protests in order to maintain impartiality.

The only political act journalists can practice is voting, he said. Downie, however, said he has not voted since he was named managing editor in 1984 because he wants to “keep an open mind.”

“My job is to present completely unbiased news,” he said.

Downie remained dismissive of recent books claiming a liberal media bias, but did say that sometimes reporters’ personal opinions can be reflected in an article. As the executive editor, however, he said he remains the “last line of defense” against bias.

The editorial page of the Post used to be liberal, Downie added, but it has moved to the right of the center with the last two editors, noting the stand the editorial board took in favor of the war with Iraq. He said that the relationship between the editorial page and the rest of the paper is similar to a “separation of church and state” mentality.

Often the Post receives calls from officials requesting them not to publish something on national security grounds, he said. According to Downie, the newspaper will publish the story only if it is sure it will not threaten national security and if they sense the officials are trying to “cover up something.”

Throughout his speech, Downie criticized two trends in journalism. The reason newspapers reduce the space for foreign news is not “the lack of interest by Americans.” The real reason for the lack of foreign news was economic, he said.

“Our correspondent in Japan cost us 25 times as much as a correspondent in Washington,” he said.

Downie also addressed the split between the New York Times and the Washington Post, who had collaborated on publishing the International Herald Tribune. The deal did not last long, he said, because the New York Times wanted to “throw [the Post] out . they wanted to run that by themselves.”

“We’re very bitter, we’re still angry about it,” he said.

Instead, Downie said that the Post is now cooperating with the Wall Street Journal and providing articles for the Journal’s European and Asian editions.

Downie also criticized the tendency of newspapers to overplay some stories for their entertainment value.

“The real problem is that there’s not enough news being produced by many news organizations,” he said, admitting that the Post had overplayed John F. Kennedy, Jr.’s death.

Downie said the Post has been undergoing changes since the Jayson Blair scandal at the New York Times. He said there is an industry code of ethics and many news critics and organizations to make sure this code is followed.

Downie joined the Washington Post in 1964 as a summer intern and was hired by the Post as a full time reporter at the end of the summer. Downie’s series of articles about the local court system earned him a Pulitzer Prize nomination at the age of 23 and ultimately led to reforms that brought about the D.C. Superior Court system used today.

After serving as both Metro editor and then National editor he was named managing editor in 1984 and finally the executive editor in 1991.