CNN’s John Roberts' commencement speech

May 7, 2009

Anchor of CNN's American Morning, John Roberts gave began his speech by posting a Twitter photo of the SJMC graduation class. Roberts is a former CBS White House correspondent. He joined CNN in 2006 where he has served as the network's senior national correspondent and as an anchor of This Week at War.

I envy you. You have done something I never had the chance to. You have just completed a first-class education in the art of journalism. And I – after 34 years of experience in this business –  am envious.

There was nothing like this when I was your age.

There was no “school of journalism.”

There were no top-flight professors to show me the ropes and guide me along my chosen career path.

There was really only one program in existence at the time – a Radio and Television arts program that wasn’t even a university-accredited course. So, you are way ahead of where I was. I was a science major – with an eye on medicine as a career. But like you, I got bitten by the journalism bug in a way I could never imagine. I was pretty close to obsessed.

At parties, I would plug a microphone into the stereo system and interrupt the music with news reports.

That sure won me the appreciation of my friends.

I volunteered at a local cable access channel.

I even strapped a 100-pound videotape recorder onto my motorcycle to do a story on traffic problems.

When it came to finding a job, I didn’t have career counselors helping me out. I had myself and my typewriter. (How many of you have ever seen a typewriter?)

I banged out letters about how much I loved journalism and how enthusiastic I would be to have a job in that field and sent them to every radio station within 300 miles of where I lived. Then a couple of weeks later I jumped on my motorcycle and went to visit a lot of those stations. Some refused to open the door. But a handful did. A few even let me cut an audition tape. And one hired me.

It was the proverbial 5000-watt radio station in the middle of nowhere.

But for a wide-eyed kid looking to break into the business, it was like entering the temple.

The temple unfortunately wasn’t lined with gold.

They paid me $125 a week.  Six thousand five hundred dollars a year. And I worked about 80 hours a week – so – do the math. I was making about a $1.56 an hour. When you’re making $1.56 an hour, you had better be motivated to succeed.

There are three lessons in this.

First, believe in yourself.

Second, be prepared to knock down a lot of doors.

Third, you are going to have to be extremely motivated to make it. Particularly now.

The world of journalism is changing by the minute.

The Internet is quickly becoming a primary source of news for many people. Newspapers – once the bedrock of the business are failing every week.

Local television stations are under extraordinary financial pressure. Even the major networks are cutting budgets and shedding employees.

There just aren’t the jobs out there now that there used to be. If you want one of those jobs - you are going to have to shine above all the other young people who will be competing for them.

So how do you do that?

Four key word:

Enthusiasm

Determination

Dedication

Humility

I have interviewed a lot of applicants for a lot of different positions. The successful ones aren’t necessarily the most experienced. They are the ones who show a real interest in the work – a real willingness to learn and a real motivation to make themselves better every day.

You're going to run into a lot of walls in the future. 

But as professor Randy Pausch writes in his book "The Last Lecture,” the walls aren't there to keep you out. They're there to keep everyone else out.
The walls are only there to show you how much you really want it.

And here's another example from my life.  I started in radio news, but when I moved to television (at the ripe old age of 22), management wanted me to launch a new show that would be sort of a Rolling Stone magazine for television.  It was great. I traveled the world doing music journalism. I covered the funeral of Bob Marley in Jamaica and interviewed bands like the Clash, the Police and U2 when they were young kids just getting their start.  And from there, I helped create Canada's version of MTV.

But I never lost my love for hard news and made a deal with the network president that after two years, I would move over to the news division. And I had a bigger dream.  I grew up watching Walter Cronkite on CBS - the Kennedy assassination - the space program - the Vietnam War. I wanted to be a correspondent at an American network.

People scoffed at me.
Who the hell did this "music journalist" think he was that he could go from interviewing people like Ozzy Osbourne to questioning the President? How could he ever make the transition from pop to foreign policy?

I never really thought much about that.  I just wanted to do it - and damn the torpedoes - I was bound to live out my dream. And I learned something from that interview I did with Ozzy in January of 1985.  He told me that you will have setbacks, and people might even say awful things about you, but if you believe in yourself and your abilities, you can do anything you set your mind to.

And I won't say I was smug. But every time I boarded Air Force One to follow the President, the experience just seemed a little more awe-inspiring because of where I came from.

A good deal of your career arc will depend on luck and timing.  There's a lot of “right place at the right time” in this business.  And I've been fortunate enough to find myself at the intersection of luck and good timing more than a few times. Believe me, it's possible to make your own luck, but you have to work really hard at it.

Of course, I've had a few misses along the way, and at least one pretty good career train wreck. But the true measure of your character is not how you avoid adversity - it's how you deal with it. Professionalism, grace and humility go a long way at those times.

You've learned a lot about the mechanics of journalism here at CU - and some of you may have even become expert skiers along the way.
(I know what I'm talking about here...my son recently graduated from CU with a major in Integrated Physiology and a minor in back bowls.)
Now, I would encourage you to go out and learn about the world.  There are incredible and wondrous things to learn about. I've traveled to about 85 countries and seen some amazing things. 
I have visited mountainside villages in the magic of Kashmir – walked in the rubble of eight- story apartment buildings tumbled into the streets after a Turkish earthquake.  I have lived under the bombs in Belgrade during the Kosovo war - snuck into closed military areas during the Israel-Hezbollah war - and seen images of horror in Iraq that have changed the way I think about journalism and life.

Your journalism will reflect your experiences.  The more you have, the better you will be. So many people come out of journalism courses with the goal of immediately becoming an anchor at a local station.  That's fine, but with rare exception, you'll probably have a mediocre career and will never do great things.Let me emphasize.  Do great things.
The far more satisfying route is to become a great reporter. Try to find a job that will let you travel the world. Join an investigative unit. Launch your own investigations - absorb experiences, develop sources and build a reputation as a hard-hitting correspondent.

You'll get a tremendous amount of satisfaction from it.

And one day - if you become an anchor, you can bring to bear the sum total of your experiences and blow away all of those other people who just wanted to be on TV.

Allow me to impart another piece of advice from a person who has battled his way up the ladder.

Though you might be a J-school grad, you’re still likely to start at the bottom rung of that ladder.

While you’re there, learn to do as much as you possibly can. 

I took it upon myself to learn every aspect of the news gathering and production process.  I learned how to report, how to produce, how to shoot camera, how to edit, how to direct, even how to use a switcher. I thought that the more I understood every facet of the process, the more effective I would be as a correspondent, and an employee. There was also a measure of self-preservation in there as well. I figured that if and when it came around to staff cuts, the last person that would be let go would be the one who knew how to do it all.

I shot a lot of my own stories when I first started out. 

And I put those skills to good use in both the Iraq war and the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. I shot a lot of my own stories. In fact, during the Iraq war, my team didn’t even have an official photographer. 

As the new person in any shop, you’re also going to get a lot of crappy assignments. Well, I’m here to tell you to “embrace the crap.”

Suck it up.

Hell – even enjoy it. And figure out a way to make it sing. If you can take chicken poop and make it chicken soup, you’ll get noticed. And then you’ll get to do the stuff you really want to do.

I talked earlier about believing in yourself.

I would add to that this important notion: Set your own career track.

There are so many different paths you can take.

Mine was just one example – but the important idea to remember is this: Set your own path.

Walk it with humility and respect for others.

And don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do it.

You’ve learned a lot here about responsibility and ethics and morality, about balance and research and fact checking and libel and everything else that you need to be a good journalist.

Even with all that knowledge and training, you are going to find yourself from time to time conflicted about how to deal with a situation. You can analyze – and rationalize – and theorize and all the other “izes” out there and you still won’t have a clear idea of how to proceed.

In those cases, it’s very simple.  Just do the right thing.

During hurricane Katrina, I witnessed suffering on a massive scale.  The kind you’d expect to see in Congo, but not America. Thousands of people were in desperate need of help. As journalists, we’re trained to not get involved. To always remain – the observer. In New Orleans, we had people begging us for water and food that we ourselves didn’t really have.

And this went on for mile after mile along I-10. The newly homeless, many of them injured, dehydrated and sick, baking in the hot Louisiana sun. Standard journalism practice would tell you to stand back. Take pictures, interview people, then move on. Don’t get involved. But you don’t give up your membership in society when you become a journalist.

So we said – the hell with what we’re told to do. We gave away whatever water and food we had with us, and when we got resupplied, brought along extra on all our shoots. We gave people rides to emergency shelters, and we rescued them from flooded homes with our boat. We even started picking up animals.

At one point, we had nine stray dogs on our 14-foot bass boat. Some people might say we crossed the line. But I have no trouble with it because we simply did the right thing.

And you’ll know what the right thing is.

You’ll feel it in your gut.

Your heart and your head will be at peace with it.

You’ll show respect by doing it.

And you in turn, will be respected for it.

Journalism is all about passion. 

Passion for the work.

Passion for the story.

Passion to discover.

If you remain passionate about what you do, you will have a long and productive career in journalism.

This should never become a clock punching exercise.

If it does, find something else to do.

If you are passionate about what you do, it will fill your heart with endless enthusiasm and excitement.

And if you follow your heart – really follow it, there are no boundaries to the potential of what you can do.

Go forward from this place – and do great things.