Big Think

Question: What sparked your interest in journalism?

Cynthia McFadden: You know I was very interested in the lives of others. And I was very interested in telling stories. You know Lyle Denniston, who was a fabulous reporter for the Baltimore Sun, once said that a journalist is really just a little kid in the neighborhood who wants to be the first one in the morning to run down the street and say, “Guess what I know?” And I certainly have that gene. I’m not sure that journalism is much . . . You know journalism is a drug. It’s a drug. The best ones have to do it. They have to tell the story, and that’s how I feel about it.  Peter Jennings used to say when kids would write him and ask how they became network anchormen, he would say, “There is no such job as anchor. There’s merely the job of reporter. And if you are a good enough reporter, you might get asked to be the anchor, which should only be that you now are allowed to tell more of the stories as a reporter you wanted to tell.” And I hope I’ve used that in the last five or six years to tell more of the stories that I want to tell.

Recorded on: Jul 7 2007