I actually think agendas are more often found in State of the Union speeches than in inaugural speeches.

It's not surprising that you wouldn't see that side of me on television, but in real life I find the world to be quite a funny place.

I knew early on that I wanted to be a reporter, but I didn't know I was a political journalist until my first job in Boston, in the '70s, covering the public school committee at a time when busing was a huge issue. Children's lives were being directly affected by political decisions, and that's when I realized that everything is politics.

I just think we as consumers of information media must be very clear what it is we are consuming. Whether we are choosing to get our information by listening to people fight about it. Or whether we're choosing to get it by listening to the facts or watching the facts as they're laid out and then reaching our own conclusions. It's very different ways of info gathering, but it's not all journalism.

In the media universe we're in, where there are people screaming on one end, there is no problem at all with having a little bit of extra politeness.

Act right all the time, because someone's always watching.

People are always surprised when they see me speak live that I have a sense of humor. And I say, Well, you know, there's not much opportunity to laugh when you're reporting the dread news of the day.