And after about two years, I realized that creative writing was not going to help you ace those biological tests. So I switched over to journalism. I didn't graduate with honors, but I did graduate on time and with some doing.
And as a result, I guess I'm just kind of a rubberneck. I'm kind of a - someone who likes to see things and likes to see these events and talk to the people who make them happen. But I don't think journalists are as important as the people they cover.
And I came away from that experience, and it was a very difficult experience - I came to understand that you have to practice at being a good father and practice at being a good husband, just as you have to practice at being a good journalist.
At the White House, everybody works for the same person. They're all part of the same company. But on Capitol Hill, they're all independent contractors. They all work for themselves. That's a formula for getting news.
But I can't think of any country in the world that has a citizenry that is more informed than the American people.
But if you don't enjoy doing something, you'll be miserable no matter how much money you make.
But if you're going to go out on a military unit, you've got to allow yourself to be under the control of the commander because you really could put the troops in danger.
But my mother, as was the style back in the '50s, her idea of a success was to have her son, the doctor. And so instead of enrolling in journalism or something like that, I enrolled at TCU in pre-med.
But the reporter has the responsibility to determine, number one, whether that is true, and number two, to make a judgment as to whether it's in the public interest and whether or not it should be part of the debate.
But with 9/11, we found that people tended to come back to the networks and the people who had been our core viewers in the past came back and they have stayed with us.
For sure, the American people have access to more information now than any other people who have ever lived on earth. And I think we do a pretty good job of sorting out what's important.
Had there been a reporter along with Lieutenant Calley when he massacred those people in Vietnam, I think that probably wouldn't have happened.
I also think it's not just good for the American people to have independent observers along, I think it's also good for the military.
I always thought writing was the foundation and the basis for journalism in the same way being able to draw is the foundation for art.
I can't think of any other job in journalism where the newsmakers come to you.
I had - all my life, everybody who knew me thought that I would probably grow up to be a reporter, a newspaper reporter because we didn't have much television in those days.
I had an idea in the beginning to do a book about some of the events that I had covered, just various stories that I've covered. Reporters spend a lot of time telling each other tales about how they covered stories, and that's what this book started out to be.
I sometimes tell people, when I was hired at CBS, it was because I was a good writer, not whether I was or not was beside the point.
I take them at their word at the Pentagon, if they're going to let these reporters go along and give us a view of this war if it does come.
I think journalism is a great way to do public service, to have an impact on your community.
I used to be a print reporter.
I want to try to talk like normal people talk, not just stand there and bark at the camera.
I'd covered the campaign in 1988, and I'd managed to gain an even 20 pounds, which is one of the dangers you have covering those campaigns.
I've basically thought of myself as a writer, whether I was or not.
In so many of the other beats these days, there are these layers of public relations people that you have to go through to get to the newsmakers themselves.
It's getting the right person that's the challenge.
It's no longer just reporting the headlines of the day, but trying to put the headlines into some context and to add some perspective into what they mean.
Journalism is very good right now.
My job is to give everyone a chance to catch their breath and step back from all this and get back to work.
Nowadays I'm not even sure if newspapers take into account whether a person is a good writer.
Obviously, if the commander makes certain decisions that the reporter thinks is inhibiting his right to report a legitimate story, he has to appeal to the commander's boss to get that changed.
Once we get them in the studio, you interview a person the same way you would interview another. You ask them a question. You let them answer. You try to listen closely and then ask a follow-up.
One thing young people have to always keep in mind when deciding what they want to do with their lives is, is it fun? Is it something that I'm interested in? Is it something I enjoy?
People are more sophisticated in the way they go about dealing with the press.
Prior to 9/11, everybody was talking about at least one of the evening news programs going away, that their future was very limited.
The commander's responsibility is to win the military battle and he has to do whatever will help him accomplish his mission.
The most challenging aspect of it is not interviewing the people, but getting the right people at the right time to be interviewed.
There's fierce competition between all the networks to get the guest who can bring the most pertinent information about whatever the story of the moment happens to be.
They've asked me to do this temporarily. I don't know what temporarily means. Life is temporary.
We now assume that when people turn on the evening news, they basically already know what the news is. They've heard it on the radio. They've seen it on the Internet. They've seen it on one of the cable companies. So that makes our job a bit different.
We're far from perfect. It's a human enterprise.
Well, you know, in any political campaign, you're gonna have people on one side that are gonna slip a reporter something because they think it'll hurt the guy on the other side.
With Vietman, we found ourselves involved there before we really understood what was going on.
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