Global Reporting Quotes

When I was growing up in the U.S. in the 1970s, 35-40% of an average nightly newscast focused on international stories.

At Al Jazeera, the first story I did was to sit down with a former Haitian dictator, Jean-Claude Duvalier, and grill him about crimes against humanity. Al Jazeera is giving me the opportunity to tell important stories and stories that I want to tell.

That's whatever news topic, whatever political process any country is going through - whenever they are in the news, that's when they exist. If you don't see them they don't exist.

Reading the text of my blog itself is not really the interesting part. The exciting part is how the Internet allows me to be the eyes and ears for the people sending me postings from Africa.

I very much want to be in the business of creating content, of doing stories all over the world rather than figuring out what the business model is for 'Newsweek' on the iPad, although that's very important work as well.

When you think about Twitter, there are people all around the world reporting twenty-four seven, every second. They're reporting what they're seeing and what's happening around them. So there's a lot of potential for breaking news.

As a journalist, I've felt as if it's a privilege that people share their stories and want you to be the messenger.... Even in my current job, when I go abroad, I'm racing to get back to the president and the secretary to share what I've seen.

The idea of being a foreign correspondent and wandering the world and witnessing great events, having adventures and covering the activities of world leaders, appealed to me greatly. It was a very glamorous life in those days.

I've been intrigued by 'Le Monde' ever since work took me to Paris once, and I noted that on a day when there was some huge worldwide story, the paper led its front page on some cabinet changes in Turkey. It implied a magnificent disdain for the quotidian folderol of mere news.

Paris is a Roach Motel for top American journalists: They check in, having won the plum foreign posting, but never leave.

Journalism took me around the world. I worked in London for ten years and reported on the collapse of the Soviet Union, the troubles in Northern Ireland, and the first Gulf War.

I started writing and photographing for different publications and finally ended up being the correspondent in South Asia, for the Geneva-based Journal de Geneve, which at one time used to be one of the best international newspapers in Europe.

I have very strong Canadian connections. My daughter was born there a year and half ago. But because of the nature of my job, I need to be in countries where I can get the stories that I am looking at.

From Public Radio International, there's 'PRI's The World', which is the States looking out at the rest of the globe. Elsewhere, the 'Global News Podcast' from the BBC World Service offers something similar.

It has been wonderful to be the home port for the brave and brilliant forces of ABC News around the world and to feel every single night that you and I were in a conversation about the day together.