Not a pundit. The tool of my trade is a notebook, not a crystal ball. In the seventh grade, I joined the staff of my junior high school newspaper, and graduated as its editor. The Staats Zeitung und Herald became the nucleus of the mighty Knight-Ridder chain. It was great for a junior high school kid to go home by subway late at night, hands stained with newspaper ink that took a week to wash off.
Television is a cleaner medium.
I went on to edit student papers in high school and college. I started to major in broadcasting, but soon decided to save classroom time and tuition money by doing radio and newspapering as extra-curricular activities. I completed a major in history and graduate study in comparative government. My wanderlust was encouraged first by the U.S. taxpayers, who sent me to Salzburg, Austria as an announcer for the Blue Danube Network of Armed Forces Radio. A startup news service, called Radio Press International, sent me to Washington to create a bureau.