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I personally think honestly disclosing rather than hiding one's subjective values makes for more honest and trustworthy journalism. But no journalism - from the most stylistically 'objective' to the most brazenly opinionated - has any real value unless it is grounded in facts, evidence, and verifiable data.

Journalists in newspapers and in many magazines are not permitted to be subjective and tell their readers what they think. Journalists have got to follow a very strict formulaic line, and here we come, these non-fiction writers, these former journalists who are using all the techniques that journalists are pretty much not allowed to use.

A journalist covering politics, most of us are aware of the necessity to try to be sure we're unbiased in our reporting. That's one of the fundamentals of good journalism.

I was for many years myself a journalist and it is not appropriate to say a programme should not be broadcast.

As anchorman of the CBS Evening News, I signed off my nightly broadcasts for nearly two decades with a simple statement: 'And that's the way it is.' To me, that encapsulates the newsman's highest ideal: to report the facts as he sees them, without regard for the consequences or controversy that may ensue.

I do think that there are gray lines of morality in a newsroom, when it comes to some stories. The best-intentioned journalist still has a difficult mission, to try to boil down people.

I think that if journalists, reporters who spend a lot of time on a story, are honest with themselves, we all have feelings about our subjects - I mean, unless you're a robot.

The ethics of journalism are one thing. Another thing is the ethics of business.

You're required to be outspoken in journalism, and in television you're exposed anyway, because everyone watches it.

A journalist enjoys a privileged position. In exchange for not being able to participate in the rough-and-tumble issues of a community, we are given license to observe it all, based on the understanding that we'll tell everyone what happens fairly and squarely. That's harder than it sounds.