'm thrilled to be joining the incredible team at ABC News. Being asked to anchor 'This Week' and the superb tradition started by David Brinkley, is a tremendous and rare honor, and I look forward to discussing the great domestic and international issues of the day.
I'm not an American but I have always had the outsiders' respect for the American people and the American way.
In Bosnia, little children shot in the head by a guy who thinks it's okay to aim his gun at a child.
In emerging democracies like Russia, in authoritarian states like Iran or even Yugoslavia, journalists play a vital role in civil society. In fact, they form the very basis of those new democracies and civil societies.
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.
I was planning, I told everybody, to take him on the road with me. At the very least I fully expected to keep up my hectic pace, and my passion as a war correspondent.
U.S. soldiers, with whom I now have more than a passing acquaintance, joke that they track my movements in order to know where they will be deployed next.
Indeed in the full flush of journalistic passion and conviction I once told an interviewer that of course I would never get married. And I most definitely would never have children.
In Iran the whole reform and democracy movement has been based on the emerging free press.
Yes, you are running businesses, and yes, we understand and accept that, but surely there must be a level beyond which profit from news is simply indecent.
We were thrilled and we were privileged to be part of a revolution, because make no mistake about it, Ted Turner changed the world with CNN.
Here in the United States, our profession is much maligned, people simply don't trust or like journalists anymore and that's sad.
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?
If we have no respect for our viewers, then how can we have any respect for ourselves and what we do?
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.
I have always thought it morally unacceptable to kill stories, not to run stories, that people have risked their lives to get.
Our industry has invested so much money in technology that perhaps it's time to invest in talent, in people.
But 17 years ago, I arrived at CNN with a suitcase, with my bicycle, and with about 100 dollars.
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.
I have spent the past ten years in just about every war zone there was.
