For 50 years, I was the journalist. The guy asking the questions, crafting the answer into a well-told story, and distributing it for all the world to see. I have been the the guy asking the questions for newspaper, radio, and television news. I asked the questions for television and theatrical release documentaries. I asked the questions for a magazine I published. Of course, all of this required collaboration with hundreds of other journalists, and I would routinely ask them questions about the topic we were working on, to stimulate their thought processes so that we might produce the best story possible.

I asked the questions to all kinds of people. I questioned kings and presidents. Murderers and their victim’s families. I ask the questions to the faces of the rich and famous, to the poor and destitute. I asked the questions in mansions and makeshift tents. I asked in blistering heat, pouring rain, the freezing cold atop a glacier, and under the most beautiful and welcoming skies this planet has to offer. I asked the questions in more than thirty countries around the globe.

None of that makes me any more exceptional than any of my brothers and sisters in this chosen career. Tens of thousands of journalists do the same thing every day. Sometimes, it gets us killed. I, myself, have been oh-so-close to asking my last question several times in my career. But we keep asking because, if we don’t ask the questions, who will? So, we ask. Never fearful of how the act might play out. In the end, this is how the people of the world get their answers. That’s where a journalists motivation comes from.