Daily Inspiration Quote by Jim Lehrer

In Jim Lehrer’s mouth, “There’s always a germ of truth in just about everything” isn’t a warm, inclusive platitude; it’s a newsroom survival skill dressed up as modesty. The key word is “germ” - not a full-grown fact, not a verdict, barely even a story. A germ is small, stubborn, easy to miss, and capable of spreading. Lehrer’s line nods to the uncomfortable reality that most claims, even dubious ones, latch onto some fragment of experience or observation. That fragment is precisely what makes misinformation persuasive and partisan narratives durable: they don’t need to be wholly true to feel true.

The subtext is a discipline of listening without surrender. For a journalist whose brand was measured calm, the sentence signals curiosity as method: assume your opponent isn’t hallucinating, then locate the sliver that explains why people believe what they believe. It’s also a warning against the lazy pleasure of total dismissal. Saying “just about everything” opens the aperture wide, but “germ” keeps the standards intact; the job is to culture that germ under scrutiny, see what it becomes, and quarantine what turns toxic.

Contextually, Lehrer’s career ran through Watergate’s aftershocks into the cable-era arms race and the early internet’s rumor economy. In each phase, credibility depended less on having opinions than on demonstrating process. The quote captures that ethos: truth isn’t a halo you grant allies and deny enemies; it’s a trace you hunt, even in the places you’d rather not look.