Very big business is in bed with very big government in Washington, and has more to do with what the average person sees, hears and reads than most people know.

You'd better do what you feel good about doing. If we [try] to figure out what it is the audience wants and then try to deliver it to them, we're lost souls on the ghost ship forever.

The American Dream is one of the greatest ideas in the history of human achievement . . . It thrives today in an age when its core components of freedom and opportunity are open to more Americans than ever before. It holds a real, identifiable place in the American heart and mind, and it informs the aspirations of everyone from farmers to software developers, from detectives to bankers, from soldiers to social workers . . . It defines us as a people, even as we add to its meaning with each new chapter in our national experience and our individual actions.

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

As someone who's been covering presidential campaigns since the 1950s, I have no delusions about political reporting. Candidates bargaining access to get the kind of news coverage they want is nothing new.

Anyone who says network news cannot be profitable doesn't know what he is talking about. But anyone who says it must "always," make money is misguided and irresponsible.

I don't pretend to be a digital savant or even a digital apprentice.