We don't allow the words show
because we want everyone to know,
including our colleagues and our parents
and puppies, that we are a newscast.
And that's all we want to be.
And that's all we will ever be.
As long as my name is in the title,
we want to just bring the facts,
the truth, the news.
It sounds like a slogan. It's not.
It's a mission and it's a requirement
we're not going to have pundits,
and we're not going to have opinion.
We're going to find out what the facts are,
and we're going to deliver them to
you in context and with perspective.
And the facts are upsetting
to people sometime.
And that's too bad,
because this is what we're doing and
it's gonna work because I'm only
worried about getting it right.
I avoid it by not first of all not
working on a 24 hour news network.
This particular network does business
news all day long and then Kramer
comes on and does what Kramer does
and then right after that I just
do a newscast and I draw from the
resources of NBC News an NBC stations
an from Telemundo stations and from
Sky News overseas and we have great
editors an we aren't doing analysis.
We're just not going to do it because
when I took this job the boss said we
want just a newscast with just the facts
that we want to keep opinion out of.
And I was like then we're a perfect fit.
That's all I want to. It can be done.
Journalism has rules and if
you follow them you'll be fine.
And that's what we're going to do.
Certainly it will mess up. We will.
But then we'll correct it.
'cause we're human beings.
But we're not straying into analysis.
We're not going into opinion.
No one there will never be a panel, never.
And when it happens,
you know it means I'm out.
Well, you know it may have been
interpreted that way from time to time,
but sometimes what's in the ether
an in the air is not factual.
I have no problem with anybody's opinion.
Some of my best friends are
opinion television hosts.
You do you awesome,
but you have a responsibility,
I believe to begin with facts.
When you opine if you have the honor
and privilege of a platform like the
ones that my colleagues and I share.
You have to label yourself
what you are and if you don't,
you can't stray and people who
tell lies who are in a position
of power are injurious to society.
And if it's politicians,
we're going to call them out
because politicians work for us.
They do we hire them to do our work
to govern us and make sure things are
going well to protect us and run our economy.
We hire them.
To do that,
we pay their salaries and we
are entitled to find out the
truth about what they do.
I'm not going to worry about
what some opinion host is saying
because I'm on an island affects
now in a company that wants just
facts and it feels so good.
We didn't do the open.
You know that minute for you know
people watching at home the minute
that you do at the top of the hour
where they Boo Pew Pew Pew Pew Pew,
Sarah Palin style,
you know, just going at it,
you know that that thing that
gets everybody to come watch.
No enough of this noise,
just I don't need anymore of that
we dove in to find their positions
on issues and we presented those
positions to those who watched us.
And then we gave our polling
which told what people told us.
They thought about it.
From overnight polling,
and that's how we handled it.
But the yackety yak yak
about just nonsensical crap.
We didn't do that in 80s
way because it was noise,
and I'd heard enough.
And the last thing you needed was
to hear what I think about it.
So we just sort of took a moment to realize
what had happened the night before.
That was new in America.
We've never seen anything like that.
The Commission on Debates has rules,
and they follow them.
And that's how we get informed.
You know,
the idea is that you break it down and find
out what their differences are on policy,
you know and we didn't get much of that.
We found a few buckets of that last night,
and we reported on those things.
But the shoutfest man,
I don't have time.
I got a life and a job and
I don't need your shoutfest
go have it somewhere else.
Man, it was fantastic for awhile.
I hadn't been off for more than like 2
weeks in at least 40 years. 40 years.
So it was time and at the beginning my
partner and I traveled some we went to
see his family and then we went to see
my family and then we went on a vacation
in North Africa and then covid hit.
We locked ourselves in the
house for four months.
So during that four months I got a
little chance to do some reading and do
some thinking and reflecting on life
which middle aged old people do and I
realized I need to go do this again.
I thought about maybe doing something else,
you know, just changing careers completely.
Or just sitting around and doing nothing.
And then I just decided why not get back
in this and have one more shot at it.
Start with a clean slate with all new people.
And on a common mission to tell the truth
in context within with perspective,
do it until I'm tired of it,
and then disappear. That's my plan.