Twenty-three years ago, Ithaca College alumna and broadcast news pioneer Jessica Savitch died in an automobile accident. For the past 22 years her family has funded the Jessica Savitch Distinguished Journalism Lecture Series — brining influential forces in the broadcast news world to campus to inspire students.

Steve Capus, the recently appointed president of NBC News, spoke as this year’s Savitch series lecturer with his speech “Bridging the Gap: Old Media to New Technology" on Wednesday night.

However, most of Capus’ speech was geared toward news coverage in general and how recent events have changed coverage, rather than the title topic of technology.

“It didn’t start the way I thought it would,” sophomore Michael Kulikowsky said. “But having a guy like him here and students asking questions, it took it in a different direction.”

Capus started on a somber note, saying before Sept. 11, 2001, news had become silly and sensational, but quickly became important and serious following the attacks.

“[The year] 2001 changed the country and everything has moved forward since then,” Capus said.

Capus outlined further changes that took place following Hurricane Katrina. What began as hurricane coverage turned into a major story.

Capus said once journalists in New Orleans became angry and emotional about the things they were seeing and the lack of aid news coverage changed, the human side of reports came out and viewers began to believe the horrors.

He also noted that in today’s world people are too eager to find a “gotcha” moment, an instance when an anchor or network does or says something that those who are looking can use to assign labels like “Anti-American leftist-liberal.”

In order to demonstrate this, Capus shared a story about criticism of NBC as unpatriotic shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks. The network was branded as “Anti-American” when they said they did not feel it appropriate for Tom Brokaw to wear an American flag lapel pin while reading the evening news. He also showed a clip from the “Today Show” which featured Laura Ingraham challenging NBC news for focusing on the negative events in Iraq while ignoring the advances that were being made.

On a similar note, Capus said that since Sept.11 — and more specifically, since the beginning of the Iraq War — news reports asking difficult questions are often branded as unruly, rude and un-American by the government. Capus called this a diversion tactic, saying that by drawing attention to the media instead of itself, government officials or other controversial sources are able to take themselves out of the negative limelight.

His key example for this was the recent Cheney hunting accident. A full 20 hours went by before the White House acknowledged that Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot his hunting partner. When the press broke the story — before official acknowledgement — the reporters were called rude and unruly when they started asking questions, he said.

Capus stressed that people have a choice: they can get news by only listening to news they agree with, or they can listen to other news sources they may not necessarily agree with that will open their mind.

For those in the audience who hope to one day be the people providing the news Capus offered this advice: have unique content and be a respected source. He also noted the importance of credibility, saying that if an organization’s or individual’s credibility is lost, it will be nearly impossible to regain.

“We must stay true to the calling as journalists,” Capus said. Though the night had its heavy points, Capus addressed the nearly-full Park Auditorium casually, joking about more than 500 e-mails on his Blackberry and not sticking to a set speech. Rather than discussing media and technology strictly, Capus rolled where the audience took him.

Few of the questions had much to do with technology and the media and instead touched on topics like sensationalism in the news, past and future presidential campaign coverage, Capus’ opinion on shows like “The Daily Show” and his future plans for NBC news.

Though the night was not necessarily what programs listed, the audience seemed pleased, as hands dotted the air and few people left before the lecture ended.

“[Capus] was entertaining and didn’t carry an agenda, which is refreshing,” sophomore Michael Myers said.