My life, like most people's, has been negatively affected by cancer, and the thought of my young children living in an age where this is no longer humanity's No. 1 health fear was simply overpowering.
Everyone told me, "Don't ever talk about international stuff," and "Don't do long-form content online," and "Don't get too serious in news," and "Don't be too heavy" - all this stuff, all the rules. But we broke the rules, and that, ironically, has led to some of our most successful stuff.
Success. Money. Fame. Whatever you're going after. You have one kick at the can, I always say. It's very rare that you have many kicks at the can. You're there at the right place at the right time, you have your shot, and it either works or it doesn't. And I've had many shots.
I woke up. I was like, "Look, you can do anything you want - and you want a lot of things, so you should get to work."
I always used to say that I wanted to be the next MTV, the next ESPN, the next CNN rolled up into one, and everyone would laugh at me. But now I think that people are finally wising up because, digitally, you can do that.
Every generation has a changing of the guard in media. We do the same stuff that everybody else does, but we just do it differently. We do our content online differently. We do our magazines differently. We do our TV differently. We never had anyone tell us how to do magazines, so we just developed it in a different way.
I thought I was a pretty good writer, but I didn't have anything to write about. I wanted to go out in the world, have some adventures and then write about them.
You have to be dynamic. You have to be able to change. So a lot of times we'll go to a country or go meet people, and then while we're there, the story changes and you have to be able to go with that. And then the story comes out in the editing room, which is a very documentary sort of process - not how news works. So that's different.
If you look not just at the Arab spring, but at what I call the youth spring that has started in Europe, young people are starting to find a voice, and they are not looking to the traditional media to reflect that.
I think if you look at the failure of journalism in the modern age, then I don't want to be called a journalist.
I came to America from Canada because Canada is stultifyingly boring and incredibly hypocritical.
If you're coming from America to Iraq, then how are you supposed to be objective? I mean, you could pay lip service to being objective, but how are you going to objective when you're embedded with the Marines? The Marines are saving your life every day and they're protecting you. But when you're sort of living with people who are there, we just press record and let them tell the story.
The human race is facing all kinds of problems, and all we are doing is pointing fingers and saying, 'Your interpretation of the problem is different from my interpretations of the problem.
It's our job to get into the hardest-to-see places and bring back the best footage - we have the best footage of North Korea ever shot. If that's a stunt, then I'll keep on doing stunts until I die.
The greatest propaganda coup of the American right has been to convince its citizens that we are in the grip of a liberal conspiracy.
When I was a child, I acted like child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things.
American media has just become talk radio, incredibly partisan name-calling and op-eds.
I am a human being. I am not an actor.
People think because 'Vice' is irreverent and because we're crazy, we're stunt journalists. You know what? I don't actually care.
I don't care if I die - look, I'm old - but you want your kids to have good times and a good life. I became sort of aware. I used to get so angry.
There are only two companies in the world that can help me. That's Facebook and Google, because they are going to make me the largest digital network in the world, which is my goal.
When you're 18, 19, you want to live fast and leave a beautiful corpse behind.
Once you have a certain amount of money, it ceases to be an issue. I'd rather put my cultural imprint on the fabric of life. After money, all you want is immortality.
All I know is that when I go somewhere, I'm not an autobot. I am a human being. I am not an actor.
Sometimes we ask ourselves 'Why?' Why do I continue to smile, to give, to live? Why do I continue to stand, despite the ferocity of the wind that keeps blowing, that keeps slapping against my face, creating a pressure that says 'fall'? Why I don't I listen to those who call me a fool because I continue to love despite my hurt? I don't know what tomorrow brings; I don't know if my troubles will seize or if my sorrows will continue. But this much I do know - I will continue to hold out, I will continue to press on, until my blessing comes.
