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Every reporter inhales skepticism. You interview people, and they lie. You face public figures, diligently making notes or taping what is said, and they perform their interviews to fit a calculated script. The truth, alas, is always elusive.

If there's anything that's important to a reporter, it is integrity. It is credibility.

Journalists do not like to report on uncertainties. They would almost rather be wrong than ambiguous.

As a reporter you tend to seek coherence from your subject or your source - it all needs to add up and make sense. In truth, in reality, there's often a great deal of murkiness and muddiness, confusion and contradiction.

Confidence is everything in this business.

Folks really need to be very cautious about overanalyzing or overparsing what I've said to this reporter or that reporter.

Confidence has a lot to do with interviewing - that, and timing.

I've been a reporter for 20 years, and I don't ever get things wrong. That's important in terms of my professional status.

I try very hard to maintain the confidence of my sources by speaking candidly with them, honoring agreements about the use of our conversation, and practicing journalism in an honest and straightforward way.

Confidence is a very fragile thing.