A fact of modern life is that it takes women longer to get ready than men.
A press card does not provide you with an invisible shield. You're flesh and blood.
Although I was entirely relaxed on camera, if I had to stand up and say something to an assembled group of people, I was rendered all but inarticulate.
Anyone who writes an autobiographical work at the age of 34 is, at best, presumptuous. It occurred to me that it was time to set the record straight.
Because you report a story, you are supposed to have an answer on how to solve it.
Being a novelty had its advantages.
By far my most perilous assignment was covering a tank car explosion.
Correspondents are always told to get the gest shot of the Capitol dome.
Covering the Senate was a routine affair, but I was busy the first few months learning the Senate rules, not to mention when and where newscasters and cameras were allowed.
Every time I am in danger of believing the glamour of my own press, some incident inevitably brings me back to earth.
For every two minutes of glamour, there are eight hours of hard work.
For me, the truth has always been somewhere between the dream and a harsher reality.
Houston was a wonderful place for a young reporter to start.
How is a reporter supposed to feel about ambiguity? As a human, you react to the overwhelming tragedy of it.
How valuable NBC Magazine was in my career is questionable.
I chose Ithaca College because it was less expensive than Emerson or Syracuse.
I couldn't do runway work, nor did I want to take assignments that would take me out of the country.
I don't exactly know what it means to be ready. A cake when the oven timer goes off? Am I fully baked, or only half-baked?
I hadn't realized until I covered the police beat just how seedy crime is.
I have had a lifelong phobia of snakes.
I remembered the immense impression Kennedy's funeral had made on me.
I very much wanted to be accepted by my peers, to be considered a serious journalist.
I was perhaps too insecure in the beginning, too quick to be defensive.
I worked half my life to be an overnight success, and still it took me by surprise.
In every interview I have ever read or seen or taken part in, the final question in our future-oriented society is always, What next?
In interviews I gave early on in my career, I was quoted as saying it was possible to have it all: a dynamic job, marriage, and children. In some respects, I was a social adolescent.
In real life, events seem much less dramatic.
In the beginning, my mother humored me when I told her I wanted to be a reporter.
It had not occurred to me that marriage requires the same effort as a career. And unlike a career, marriage requires a joint effort.
It is my belief that one's salary is between an individual and the IRS.
Many senators have developed a canny sense of what will play best for the audience.
Men still control the news, both on and off camera.
Mistakes are not always the result of someone's ineptitude.
My current goal is to place a moratorium on goals.
My goal was to be a network correspondent by the time I was 30.
My most lucrative job in college was a stint as the regional Dodge Girl.
My second major assignment was to trail Vice President Mondale through the West and Northwest.
Never refuse an assignment except when there is a conflict of interest, a potential of danger to you or your family, or you hold a strongly biased attitude about the subject under focus.
News events are like Texas weather. If you don't like it, wait a minute.
News events cannot be controlled, nor can newscasts be mapped out like entertainment shows.
News reporting is a cycle: No matter how much you work at sending a message, it's only successful if it's received.
Newscasters cannot call attention to themselves by being too attractive or too unattractive.
No matter how many goals you have achieved, you must set your sights on a higher one.
One reason I left local news was that I was tired of the constant musical chairs among news directors.
Our free enterprise system of disseminating information is collectively referred to as The Media. But there is no collective.
Probably the worst Sunday night newscast at NBC that ever bore my name was one I didn't do.
Shootouts are not gunfights of honor, they're gang wars and racial riots.
Some news managers have been slow to grasp that good television news is always substance over form.
Television is intensely personal.
Television news is a delicate balance of serving public good and private gain.
Ten days after my operation, I went back on the air.
Texas newsrooms have hurricane reporting down to a science. When a hurricane was imminent, my first thought was how I could make history.
Texas was defined by its larger-than-life characters, particularly politicians.
The bad news is that 50 people died in a hotel fire; the good news is that we got exclusive footage.
The better the coverage, the more discriminating the viewer.
The code of the road is, if there is anything to eat, eat; if there is a place to sit, sit; if there is a restroom, go.
The idea of stardom was difficult to grasp. It was like being schizophrenic; there was her, the woman on television, and the real me.
The latest wrinkle is on wrinkles. There is a widespread belief that women can't grow old in television news.
The minute viewers callin or write about your looks, they were not listening to what you were saying.
The most important event I covered was the Panama Canal debate, which dragged on for months.
The nearest I had come to a dead being was the fetal pig I dissected in biology class.
The news anchor is exactly that - an anchor, a center, a focus.
The relationship between talent and management is uneasy, at best.
The single life is not one I willingly chose for myself.
To get it first is important - but more important is to get it right.
Walking into a room filled with people you don't know but who know you brings out your worst vulnerabilities.
We've opened up new doors without fully understanding where they lead.
What is the value of sticking a microphone in a man's face right after he has learned of his wife's death?
When for so long you can't get a job for reasons that seem specious, you you finally do have it, you are constantly afraid of losing it.
When I first anchored in 1970, I had never seen a woman anchor a news show.
When I was a little girl in the 1950s, it would not have been possible for me to say, I want to be an anchorwoman when I grow up.
When you're not on the scene of a story, you are inexorably involved not only physically but intellectually and emotionally, as well.
Women didn't want to watch other women on television because they were jealous of their husbands' diverted attention.
Women may not have it easy, but we are given a fairer chance to reach for the top.
Women were seldom given quality assignments or adequate air time.
You can easily die racing to cover a bank robbery as you can in a war zone.
You can get someone to wear a Dan Rather sweater and do a Dan Rather delivery, but you won't have Dan Rather.
David Brinkley called her "the dumbest woman I have ever met"
Second husband hung himself with her dog's leash.
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