 And one thing that I always believed and that I knew for certain was that I could never have sustained a personal relationship while I worked this hard, or while I was that driven this intensely by the story. |
| I was really just the tea boy to begin with, or the equivalent thereof, but I quickly announced, innocently but very ambitiously, that I wanted to be, I was going to be, a foreign correspondent. |
| Yes, you are running businesses, and yes, we understand and accept that, but surely there must be a level beyond which profit from news is simply indecent. |
| I have made my living bearing witness to some of the most horrific events of the end of our century, at the end of the 20th century. |
| I was planning, I told everybody, to take him on the road with me. At the very least I fully expected to keep up my hectic pace, and my passion as a war correspondent. |
| If you have a child, I said, you have a responsibility at least to stay alive. |
| And I believe that good journalism, good television, can make our world a better place. |
| We hear foreign accents on CNN. It's crazy, it's wild, who knows, maybe they'll take you because you certainly don't fit in, in the American spectrum of news. |
| In Iran the whole reform and democracy movement has been based on the emerging free press. |
| In emerging democracies like Russia, in authoritarian states like Iran or even Yugoslavia, journalists play a vital role in civil society. In fact, they form the very basis of those new democracies and civil societies. |
| We in the press, by our power, can actually undermine leadership. |
| For instance, why are we terrorizing this country, leading with murder and mayhem, when crime is actually on the decline, as somebody, as somebody mentioned? |
| Our industry has invested so much money in technology that perhaps it's time to invest in talent, in people. |
| If we have no respect for our viewers, then how can we have any respect for ourselves and what we do? |
| Because if we the storytellers don't do this, then the bad people will win. |
| What we do and say and show really matters. |
| Indeed in the full flush of journalistic passion and conviction I once told an interviewer that of course I would never get married. And I most definitely would never have children. |
| I am no longer sure that when I go out there and do my job it'll even see the light of air, if the experience of my network colleagues is anything to go by. |
| And I really believe good journalism is good business. |
| They take journalism really seriously because they know the force that it is and can be. |
