I left the golden age of documentaries to go into the golden days of the 'CBS Evening News.' You could see that the audiences were eroding.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I always knew I wanted to be in front of the camera. But even after 10 years behind the scenes at CBS News producing live segments, celebrity profiles, and breaking news, I still hadn't been given the chance to be on TV.
One reason I left local news was that I was tired of the constant musical chairs among news directors.
I think people of my generation became journalists - you know, right after the broadcast pioneer fathers - because we wanted to report the big stories.
In the U.S., the '50s and '60s marked the documentary's golden age, especially at CBS, where pioneering television journalist Edward R. Murrow, immortalised in George Clooney's 'Good Night, and Good Luck,' produced such landmark investigations as the CBS Reports programme 'Hunger in America.'
I left 'The Bob Newhart Show,' which was my decision. CBS wanted it to go on. But I could see television changing; I could see the tastes were changing.
When I was leaving NBC News to go to CNN, people would say, 'What?! Why would you possibly leave the 'Today Show' to go to cable?' If I would've listened to people, I would've been on a great platform, but I wouldn't have grown as a journalist. So far, most of the steps in my career have been really good.
One good thing about leaving daily journalism was that I was no longer obliged to read all the book prize short lists.
I can swear on a stack of Bibles that not once in doing the 'CBS Evening News' for 19 years - well, I take it back. Once perhaps. But during 19 years, with perhaps one exception, was I ever aware of any political or commercial pressure on that broadcast whatsoever.
When I stepped down from the evening news at the age of 65, in '81, things were still going well. Immediately after that, the whole tenor of the CBS News Department changed.
When I took a couple of years to do the documentaries after I left 'American Morning' - what was I gone for, five years? - I didn't feel that I was floating under the radar.