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.

If you have a child, I said, you have a responsibility at least to stay alive.

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.

Because if we the storytellers don't do this, then the bad people will win.

What Americans don't care much about is the piffle we put on TV these days, what they don't care about is boring, irrelevant, badly told stories, and what they really hate is the presumption that they're too stupid to know the difference.

And I believe that good journalism, good television, can make our world a better place.

Our industry has invested so much money in technology that perhaps it's time to invest in talent, in people.