A tough lesson in life that one has to learn is that not everybody wishes you well.

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.

The dream begins, most of the time, with a teacher who believes in you.

From the streets of Cairo and the Arab Spring, to Occupy Wall Street, from the busy political calendar to the aftermath of the tsunami in Japan, social media was not only sharing the news but driving it.

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.

I don't back down. I don't cave when the pressure gets too great from these partisan political ideological forces.

I've never believed in measuring one's worth by the size of his or her bank account. I prefer to look at distance traveled.