After a 15-year career in television news, sometimes spent biting my tongue in the name of objectivity and balance, I retired to raise our two small children.

If you live in the overlapping world of politics and media, as I am learning, anything less than full transparency can potentially do you in.

You're never going to hear me say, 'Well, I've been critical of Obama five times, so now I need to be critical of McCain five times.' That is a false equivalence, and that's what I think is wrong with journalism.

We will fiercely challenge those forces within the education establishment who impede innovation in our schools and who protect and defend inequality and institutional failure.

The death of chief justice Rehnquist and the president's nomination of John Roberts raises the stakes for the court and the American people exponentially.

I haven't reported in grand detail on rituals of American life, road journeys or malls or the death of steel-manufacturing towns. I think this is because I feel a degree of alienation that I cannot combat.

I've lost seven friends to smoking-related lung cancer. Each death was a long, agonizing experience.

First need in the reform of hospital management? That's easy! The death of all dietitians, and the resurrection of a French chef.