I am big on - even with our whole team - it's always about, well, what were the lessons learned? Something didn't work out? What are the lessons learned? What are the lessons learned?
Almost everything I've learned about journalism has been from other friends who are journalists, taking advantage of the money I hope they don't think they threw away at j-school. I studied comparative literature, but the professional vagaries of journalism I've learned through other people's trial and error, and my own.
The lessons learned in journalism also apply. Writing for NPR has taught me to cut a piece in half and then in half again - without losing the essence. Apply that to the swollen prose of a bulky novel and you might reveal a beautiful work.
My childhood should have taught me lessons for my own fatherhood, but it didn't because parenting can only be learned by people who have no children.
But most of what I've learned about acting - and a lot of what I've learned about life in the past seven years - was taught to me by Robert Altman
But most of what I've learned about acting - and a lot of what I've learned about life in the past seven years - was taught to me by Robert Altman.
There is a growing literature about the multitude of journalism's problems, but most of it is concerned with the editorial side of the business, possibly because most people competent to write about journalism are not comfortable writing about finance.
Where my dad taught me everything about writing, Graham Paterson, who gave me my first job at The Times, taught me everything about journalism, which is that it's no big deal, and it's more important to have a glass of wine.
I don't think about whether people will remember me or not. I've been an ok person. I've learned a lot. I've taught people a thing or two. That's what's important.
I've taught a college journalism course at two universities where my students taught me more than I did them about how political news is consumed.
The New York Times I think really is the gold standard of a certain type of journalism and in some ways it's the most important type of journalism, this chronicle of the biggest and most important stories of our time covered with a level of rigor and seriousness that is really unparalleled.
Some of the most important lessons I've learned have been from stumbling, and I am deeply grateful that my parents allowed me to fight my own battles.
The one man other than my father who made the most lasting impression was an uncle, Serge B. Benson. He taught me in three different classes - but above all, he taught me lessons in moral, physical, and intellectual courage that I have tried to apply in later life.
My father always taught by telling stories about his experiences. His lessons were about morality and art and what insects and birds and human beings had in common. He told me what it meant to be a man and to be a Black man. He taught me about love and responsibility, about beauty, and how to make gumbo.
I took lessons for about everything you could imagine - gymnastics to karate to flute and piano. My mom always definitely kept me in some kind of class or program, but for guitar, I kinda gave up on then kinda just taught myself. Same thing with piano. I've never been good with following lessons.
My goal was to play drums, but my father made me take piano lessons. He told me I needed to learn to read music first, so I took lessons for six years. I thank God that he made me take those lessons, because it taught me a tremendous amount.