Why I teach:
To advance new generations of journalists dedicated to First Amendment freedoms for everyone. To advance the art of story telling. To help others help themselves. To have fun with young people.

• Family first, career second.

• “In all things, excellence with honor,” a wise newspaper publisher told me.

• “Do the right thing,” said another.

• “Learn to laugh at yourself and you will be forever amused,” said another.

• Professors learn as much from students—or more—as students learn from professors.

• Writing isn’t hard, the late Red Smith said, you just open a vein and bleed it out drop by drop.

• Mal Malette of the American Press Institute in New York, later in Reston, Virgina, once told me: “Writing is good thinking put on paper through good technique.”

• Write tightly. “Jesus wept” does not need any helper words, such as “Jesus wept sadly.”

• Keep reading everything.

• Think.