I leave CNN with the utmost respect, love and admiration for the company and everyone who works here. This has been my family and shared endeavor for the past 27 years, and I am forever grateful and proud of all that we have accomplished.

Objectivity doesn't mean treating all sides equally. It means giving each side a hearing.

Mostly, as I said, a desire to do a bit of good, and the quaint notion that this is what we signed up for, this is the business that we have chosen.

And then theres always the crying and the weeping that we hear-children, women, even men. And these images and these sounds are always with me.

We turn now over the debate of the proposed Islamic center and mosque near Ground Zero....The controversy has raised profound questions about religious tolerance and prejudice in the United States.

But 17 years ago, I arrived at CNN with a suitcase, with my bicycle, and with about 100 dollars.

U.S. soldiers, with whom I now have more than a passing acquaintance, joke that they track my movements in order to know where they will be deployed next.