We in the press, by our power, can actually undermine leadership.

'm thrilled to be joining the incredible team at ABC News. Being asked to anchor 'This Week' and the superb tradition started by David Brinkley, is a tremendous and rare honor, and I look forward to discussing the great domestic and international issues of the day.

But 17 years ago, I arrived at CNN with a suitcase, with my bicycle, and with about 100 dollars.

We hear foreign accents on CNN. It's crazy, it's wild, who knows, maybe they'll take you because you certainly don't fit in, in the American spectrum of news.

In emerging democracies like Russia, in authoritarian states like Iran or even Yugoslavia, journalists play a vital role in civil society. In fact, they form the very basis of those new democracies and civil societies.

Little did we know then that CNN would become the big league.

We manage the fear, I manage the fear, but it certainly takes its toll, the strain does.

I am no longer sure that when I go out there and do my job it'll even see the light of air, if the experience of my network colleagues is anything to go by.

In Bosnia, little children shot in the head by a guy who thinks it's okay to aim his gun at a child.

I was really just the tea boy to begin with, or the equivalent thereof, but I quickly announced, innocently but very ambitiously, that I wanted to be, I was going to be, a foreign correspondent.

U.S. soldiers, with whom I now have more than a passing acquaintance, joke that they track my movements in order to know where they will be deployed next.

Yes, you are running businesses, and yes, we understand and accept that, but surely there must be a level beyond which profit from news is simply indecent.

We do it because we're committed, because we're believers.

Indeed in the full flush of journalistic passion and conviction I once told an interviewer that of course I would never get married. And I most definitely would never have children.

And I really believe good journalism is good business.

If you have a child, I said, you have a responsibility at least to stay alive.

And I believe that good journalism, good television, can make our world a better place.

What we do and say and show really matters.

But to be self-obsessed is simply not o.k. for the most important country in the world, the United States, which affects every other country in the world.

I'm not an American but I have always had the outsiders' respect for the American people and the American way.

I have made my living bearing witness to some of the most horrific events of the end of our century, at the end of the 20th century.

I have spent the past ten years in just about every war zone there was.

And one thing that I always believed and that I knew for certain was that I could never have sustained a personal relationship while I worked this hard, or while I was that driven this intensely by the story.

Because if we the storytellers don't do this, then the bad people will win.

I have always thought it morally unacceptable to kill stories, not to run stories, that people have risked their lives to get.

They take journalism really seriously because they know the force that it is and can be.

For instance, why are we terrorizing this country, leading with murder and mayhem, when crime is actually on the decline, as somebody, as somebody mentioned?

Here in the United States, our profession is much maligned, people simply don't trust or like journalists anymore and that's sad.

Our industry has invested so much money in technology that perhaps it's time to invest in talent, in people.

In Iran the whole reform and democracy movement has been based on the emerging free press.

We were thrilled and we were privileged to be part of a revolution, because make no mistake about it, Ted Turner changed the world with CNN.

We in the press, by our power, can actually undermine leadership.

I was planning, I told everybody, to take him on the road with me. At the very least I fully expected to keep up my hectic pace, and my passion as a war correspondent.

I leave CNN with the utmost respect, love and admiration for the company and everyone who works here. This has been my family and shared endeavor for the past 27 years, and I am forever grateful and proud of all that we have accomplished.

If we have no respect for our viewers, then how can we have any respect for ourselves and what we do?

I never assumed that because I was a woman that anything was off limits to me.

If we have no respect for our viewers then how can we have any respect for ourselves and what we do

Good journalism, good television, can make our world a better place.

Clearly no one knows what leadership has gone undiscovered in women of all races, and in black and other minority men.

If you don't understand that you work for your mislabeled 'subordinates,' then you know nothing of leadership. You know only tyranny.

One of the things about leadership is that you've got to show up. And if you want to be president of the United States you've got to make a case to the American people that Barack Obama needs to be dismissed from his position.

The intelligence investigation under the leadership of Senator Church, which I know has helped cause this investigation by you, points out that the agencies did not disclose certain facts to us and that certain plots were going on.

Leadership is an active role; 'lead' is a verb. But the leader who tries to do it all is headed for burnout, and in a powerful hurry.

Al Qaeda is not the organization now that it was before. It is under stress organizationally. Its leadership spends more time trying to figure out how to keep from getting caught than they do trying to launch operations.

Leadership is about doing what you know is right - even when a growing din of voices around you is trying to convince you to accept what you know to be wrong.

Among my activities was membership in the Boy Scouts; I rose each year through the ranks, eventually achieving the rank of Eagle Scout and undertaking leadership roles in the organization.

While Mayor Daley surprised me today with his decision to not run for reelection, I have never been surprised by his leadership, dedication and tireless work on behalf of the city and the people of Chicago.

I think it is important to ask ourselves as citizens, not as Democrats attacking the administration, but as citizens, whether a world power can really provide global leadership on the basis of fear and anxiety?

Leadership comes in small acts as well as bold strokes.