Cherished Failure

Can you tell me about a huge failure that you had that you actually, later on, came to value and cherish because it taught you an important lesson that made you better?

This is by far the worst one that has ever happened in my career. I was a cub reporter for the Associated Press, and I thought I was the biggest deal with a notebook in Sacramento, and it was only a matter of time before the AP realized I was brilliant, and was going to put me in the White House, and I would be covering Bill Clinton. And I wrote a story about then Governor Gray Davis, and back then we didn't have electronic campaign filings. And I wrote that he had done a favor for a law firm that had given him a $40,000 campaign contribution. And it turned out they had only given him a $20,000 campaign contribution, which if you think about it now, I think that's actually worse, but that's not the point of the story. His press secretary called my boss screaming, and she was a very mean person who was a screamer, too. And she called me. And I said: "Yes, I got it wrong." And the governor for about two weeks after that would get in front of television cameras and ask why I still had a job. And I was...

You're kidding, the governor would do that?

I mean, he was...Yes, he was very upset by it, but it was the Associated Press. It goes out through the wires around the whole country. And I was so mortified, and I was 21 or 22. My career, I thought, was over. I would never get a job again. I was disgraced. I would never work in the capital ever again. And I learned that day that like, the hubris, and not making sure you know what you're writing about before you write, like...make sure it's 1000% right, is so important. And I had gotten cocky. And I really recommitted to fact-checking and the truth that day.