There are some situations one simply cannot be neutral about, because when you are neutral you are an accomplice. Objectivity doesn't mean treating all sides equally. It means giving each side a hearing.
Perhaps the most important thing I could say is to never be thrown by failure and mistakes. Each and everything that happens, even if it was not what you hoped would happen, is a valuable, life-learning tool. And you will only achieve success if you know how to learn from your failures and mistakes. It’s vital.
And I believe that good journalism, good television, can make our world a better place.
I strongly believe that journalism is one of the most noble professions, because without an informed world, and without an informed society, we are weak, we are weak.
My view is that when lies become mixed up with the truth, it's a very dangerous world.
Because if we the storytellers don't do this, then the bad people will win.
Objectivity means trying to give all sides a hearing. It does not, in my view, mean treating all sides as equal.
What we do and say and show really matters.
Some people accused me of being pro-Muslim in Bosnia, but I realised that our job is to give all sides an equal hearing, but in cases of genocide you can't just be neutral. You can't just say, 'Well, this little boy was shot in the head and killed in besieged Sarajevo and that guy over there did it, but maybe he was upset because he had an argument with his wife.' No, there is no equality there, and we had to tell the truth.
Objectivity doesn't mean treating all sides equally. It means giving each side a hearing.
People are interested if you tell stories well and relevantly.
We in the press, by our power, can actually undermine leadership.
For instance, why are we terrorizing this country, leading with murder and mayhem, when crime is actually on the decline, as somebody, as somebody mentioned?
I do believe that is a template that I stick very strongly to to tell the truth in an increasing swelter of lies and misinformation and disinformation.
They take journalism really seriously because they know the force that it is and can be.
I believe America will always win the war. It's a superpower that no one can challenge. The real challenge is for the United States to win the peace.
I have made my living bearing witness to some of the most horrific events of the end of our century, at the end of the 20th century.
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.
But 17 years ago, I arrived at CNN with a suitcase, with my bicycle, and with about 100 dollars.
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.
If you have a child, I said, you have a responsibility at least to stay alive.
And one thing that I always believed and that I knew for certain was that I could never have sustained a personal relationship while I worked this hard, or while I was that driven this intensely by the story.
If we have no respect for our viewers, then how can we have any respect for ourselves and what we do?
I leave CNN with the utmost respect, love and admiration for the company and everyone who works here. This has been my family and shared endeavor for the past 27 years, and I am forever grateful and proud of all that we have accomplished.
And then theres always the crying and the weeping that we hear-children, women, even men. And these images and these sounds are always with me.
