You can easily die racing to cover a bank robbery as you can in a war zone.
How valuable NBC Magazine was in my career is questionable.
For every two minutes of glamour, there are eight hours of hard work.
In every interview I have ever read or seen or taken part in, the final question in our future-oriented society is always, What next?
I very much wanted to be accepted by my peers, to be considered a serious journalist.
Every time I am in danger of believing the glamour of my own press, some incident inevitably brings me back to earth.
No matter how many goals you have achieved, you must set your sights on a higher one.
A fact of modern life is that it takes women longer to get ready than men.
Men still control the news, both on and off camera.
My goal was to be a network correspondent by the time I was 30.
The news anchor is exactly that - an anchor, a center, a focus.
The latest wrinkle is on wrinkles. There is a widespread belief that women can't grow old in television news.
The relationship between talent and management is uneasy, at best.
The single life is not one I willingly chose for myself.
Some news managers have been slow to grasp that good television news is always substance over form.
News reporting is a cycle: No matter how much you work at sending a message, it's only successful if it's received.
Never refuse an assignment except when there is a conflict of interest, a potential of danger to you or your family, or you hold a strongly biased attitude about the subject under focus.
The minute viewers callin or write about your looks, they were not listening to what you were saying.
Our free enterprise system of disseminating information is collectively referred to as The Media. But there is no collective.
I worked half my life to be an overnight success, and still it took me by surprise.
By far my most perilous assignment was covering a tank car explosion.
Women were seldom given quality assignments or adequate air time.
One reason I left local news was that I was tired of the constant musical chairs among news directors.
I don't exactly know what it means to be ready. A cake when the oven timer goes off? Am I fully baked, or only half-baked?
Television is intensely personal.
Mistakes are not always the result of someone's ineptitude.
The bad news is that 50 people died in a hotel fire; the good news is that we got exclusive footage.
Being a novelty had its advantages.
The code of the road is, if there is anything to eat, eat; if there is a place to sit, sit; if there is a restroom, go.
Texas was defined by its larger-than-life characters, particularly politicians.
Walking into a room filled with people you don't know but who know you brings out your worst vulnerabilities.
My current goal is to place a moratorium on goals.
A press card does not provide you with an invisible shield. You're flesh and blood.
The most important event I covered was the Panama Canal debate, which dragged on for months.
The better the coverage, the more discriminating the viewer.
In real life, events seem much less dramatic.
Anyone who writes an autobiographical work at the age of 34 is, at best, presumptuous. It occurred to me that it was time to set the record straight.
It had not occurred to me that marriage requires the same effort as a career. And unlike a career, marriage requires a joint effort.
Many senators have developed a canny sense of what will play best for the audience.
The idea of stardom was difficult to grasp. It was like being schizophrenic; there was her, the woman on television, and the real me.
I have had a lifelong phobia of snakes.
News events are like Texas weather. If you don't like it, wait a minute.
Newscasters cannot call attention to themselves by being too attractive or too unattractive.
What is the value of sticking a microphone in a man's face right after he has learned of his wife's death?
Although I was entirely relaxed on camera, if I had to stand up and say something to an assembled group of people, I was rendered all but inarticulate.
To get it first is important - but more important is to get it right.
News events cannot be controlled, nor can newscasts be mapped out like entertainment shows.
Television news is a delicate balance of serving public good and private gain.
