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I think the big news organizations, the UPI, AP, Reuters, and the 'Sunday Times' - do take their training seriously. And I think they do only send experienced correspondents with proper insurance and proper training. And they don't force them to go where they don't want to go.

I was a news reporter for 16 years, seven of them a foreign correspondent in the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. Perhaps the most useful equipment I acquired in that time is a lack of preciousness about the act of writing. A reporter must write. There must be a story. The mot juste unarriving? Tell that to your desk.

What I learned at journalism school and at ABC - those skills are the same no matter where you are in the world.

I've worked with Ed Bradley, Dan Rather and lots of different local news anchors.

I can't think of any other job in journalism where the newsmakers come to you.

When U.S.-based editors and columnists parachute into a news storm, it is often the stringers who keep us out of trouble, helping us glimpse the complexity behind the headlines.

With news, especially investigative pieces, you've got to be really smart and really lucky to be timely and to not get beaten by the big guys. You can't go head-to-head with the networks.

The dirty little secret of foreign correspondents is that 90 per cent of it is showing up. If you can find a way to get there, the story, the reporting, it's the easiest you'll ever do. 'Cause the drama's everywhere.

I'm not sophisticated when it comes to politics, when it comes to journalism.

Journalism, as concerns collecting information, differs little if at all from intelligence work. In my judgment, a journalist's job is very interesting.