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.

When the going gets weird, anchormen punt.

I'm proud to say I've never been anybody's lapdog.

They say California's the big burrito; Texas is a big taco right now. We want to follow that through. Florida is a big tamale.

Turn the lights down, the party just got wilder.

Covering the civil-rights movement was a mind- and eye-opener for me. Houston was a segregated society, as was Texas as a whole - some of it by law, a lot of it by fear and tradition. But there was no violence where I lived, and if there was hate, it was either concealed from me or I just didn't recognize it.

It's the ratings, stupid, don't you know? They've got us putting more fuzz and wuzz on the air, cop-show stuff.