CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR

'm thrilled to be joining the incredible team at ABC News. Being asked to anchor 'This Week' and the superb tradition started by David Brinkley, is a tremendous and rare honor, and I look forward to discussing the great domestic and international issues of the day.

U.S. soldiers, with whom I now have more than a passing acquaintance, joke that they track my movements in order to know where they will be deployed next.

I have made my living bearing witness to some of the most horrific events of the end of our century, at the end of the 20th century.

For instance, why are we terrorizing this country, leading with murder and mayhem, when crime is actually on the decline, as somebody, as somebody mentioned?

We in the press, by our power, can actually undermine leadership.

I have spent the past ten years in just about every war zone there was.

I am no longer sure that when I go out there and do my job it'll even see the light of air, if the experience of my network colleagues is anything to go by.

But to be self-obsessed is simply not o.k. for the most important country in the world, the United States, which affects every other country in the world.

But 17 years ago, I arrived at CNN with a suitcase, with my bicycle, and with about 100 dollars.

I leave CNN with the utmost respect, love and admiration for the company and everyone who works here. This has been my family and shared endeavor for the past 27 years, and I am forever grateful and proud of all that we have accomplished.

Indeed in the full flush of journalistic passion and conviction I once told an interviewer that of course I would never get married. And I most definitely would never have children.

I was planning, I told everybody, to take him on the road with me. At the very least I fully expected to keep up my hectic pace, and my passion as a war correspondent.

In Iran the whole reform and democracy movement has been based on the emerging free press.

They take journalism really seriously because they know the force that it is and can be.

Because if we the storytellers don't do this, then the bad people will win.

And one thing that I always believed and that I knew for certain was that I could never have sustained a personal relationship while I worked this hard, or while I was that driven this intensely by the story.

Here in the United States, our profession is much maligned, people simply don't trust or like journalists anymore and that's sad.

And I really believe good journalism is good business.

In Bosnia, little children shot in the head by a guy who thinks it's okay to aim his gun at a child.

Our industry has invested so much money in technology that perhaps it's time to invest in talent, in people.

Little did we know then that CNN would become the big league.

If we have no respect for our viewers, then how can we have any respect for ourselves and what we do?

In emerging democracies like Russia, in authoritarian states like Iran or even Yugoslavia, journalists play a vital role in civil society. In fact, they form the very basis of those new democracies and civil societies.

And I believe that good journalism, good television, can make our world a better place.

I'm not an American but I have always had the outsiders' respect for the American people and the American way.