(Joe Raedle/Pool via AP, File) While NBC “Nightly News” host Lester Holt may not have been that explicit in his comments to the attendees at the 45th Edward R. Murrow Symposium at Washington State University, it was the underlying message. Holt received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Edward R. Murrow College of Communication and talked to students, faculty, and other attendees in his acceptance speech. During the 44-minute presentation, Holt attempted to defend his profession from accusations of partisanship and bias. He opined on his coming of age, which included covering the Vietnam War, college campus protests, the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy, Watergate, and the riots of the late 1960s. He noted that there were not text alerts or social media to give viewers a glimpse of breaking news the way there is today, so Americans relied on the anchors at the major networks to provide the news. Then he compared it to today: