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I believe that 'advocacy journalism' is not an oxymoron. If that means that I'm going to disrupt the cable, partisan fracas of obsession over what this means from left and right, then so be it. I will be disruptive of it.

I think, at the end of the day, acting and activism are both about empathy. You're trying to get people to see other people as real and human. And to care.

I'm not an advocacy journalist - that's not what I do. My role in journalism is to be able to engage the most interesting people with the best ideas.

Empathy is the starting point for creating a community and taking action. It's the impetus for creating change.

I'm passionate about people. I've spent my life in advocacy. People matter - whether or not we agree on the issue, people matter.

I do not subscribe to the advocacy journalism school. It's not who I am and not who CNN wants me to be.

'Empathy' is the latest code word for liberal activism, for treating the Constitution as malleable clay to be kneaded and molded in whatever form justices want. It represents an expansive view of the judiciary in which courts create policy that couldn't pass the legislative branch or, if it did, would generate voter backlash.

Being a humanitarian, supporting animal rights activists, human rights activists, it's all the same.

There's a gap somehow between empathy and activism. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of 'soul force' - something that emanates from a deep truth inside of us and empowers us to act. Once you identify your inner genius, you will be able to take action, whether it's writing a check or digging a well.

Empathy is a tool for building people into groups, for allowing us to function as more than self-obsessed individuals.