Jill Abramson

People often assume New York City is no place to keep a dog. This is certainly what my parents told me when I was growing up there. But I have found this not to be the case at all.

The times I didn't get jobs I wanted, I remember feeling dispirited - really crestfallen.

As someone who has spent a lot of her career as an investigative reporter, I'll confess that a frustration of mine has always been that so much investigative journalism involves a dissection of events in the past.

I'm talking to anyone who has been dumped - have not gotten the job you really wanted or have received those horrible rejection letters from grad school. You know, the disappointment of losing, or not getting something you badly want. When that happens, show what you are made of.

I think about the question of perspective in reporting all the time, and since I spent 20 years of my career in Washington as both a reporter and an editor I'm keenly aware that a newspaper should not be dominated by stories in which the only voices and perspective come from those in power.

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.

As a big user of public libraries, I deplore the cutbacks they have had to sustain.

Having small children and being an investigative reporter would seem like a difficult mix, but it worked well for me. I was often working on my own enterprise stories, which were not as deadline sensitive.

I think as an investigative reporter I had tough standards, but I don't think of myself as a tough person.

With the fragmentation of television audiences and the advent of cable and on-demand services, the prestige of being an anchor is not what it was in the days of Walter Cronkite.

I like the immediacy of blogs and the democratizing effects of letting millions of voices bloom on the Web.

In one's relationship with dogs and with a newsroom, a generous amount of praise and encouragement goes much better than criticism.