As a journalist, I’ve been a professional watcher, picking up the body language and verbal tics that make us individuals and interesting to others.
One of the advantages of being a national journalist of some recognition is that you come across high-profile people, and many become your friends.
My mother was a journalist, so writing is not unnatural to me.
A lot of journalists give me a hard time about how I look, but I’ve never met a journalist I’d rather look like.
Years ago, NPR tried to stop me from going on “The Factor.” When I refused, they insisted that I not identify myself as an NPR journalist. I asked them if they thought people did not know where I appeared on the air as a daily talk show host, national correspondent and news analyst. They refused to budge.
As a journalist, I have wanted very much to find a way to write about the music industry, and it’s been frustrating to me that that’s never worked out.
I think of myself as a journalist and a storyteller.
You witness a lot as a journalist, and what you witness becomes a part of you.
I get much more information about the rest of the world from people who are not Americans. You get a distance from America that is useful for a journalist; useful for my perspective on the world.
This much we know: Journalism is not a precise science. It’s, on its best day, is a crude art. We make mistakes; I make mistakes. With more than 50 years as a journalist, I have at least had the opportunity to blow more stories, make more mistakes than maybe anybody in television.
A good journalist, as you know, is a great listener. And so’s a good writer. And I got to listen to people for almost 20 years. That serves me well, I hope, when I try to understand how a character might be feeling, or how they might react.
Critics? Don’t talk to me of critics! You think some jackanapes journalist, his soul eaten away by the maggots of jealousy and failure, has anything worthwhile to say of art? I don’t.
Every journalist who is not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible.
