: I never met your father but, like millions of Americans, I knew him and liked him through his good work on television and I am so sad that he is gone far too early.
I want you to know how grateful we are for the work he did and how very, very proud you should be of him.
Your father did nothing less than change the way news will be reported in the future. He brought together the technology — he invented the means — that allowed him to report from the most difficult circumstances imaginable, right from the battlefield of war. He set a new standard for reporting news as it happens, for taking us directly to the center of any story anywhere on earth. This means that technology and time will never limit free information in the future — only those who want to hide will restrain our right to know.
Your father also helped change the way war is covered. Because he was there and he took us there with him, he brought our perspective of war down from the maps and satellite images and charts and graphs, down to the human level. He showed us what he and the soldiers around him were going through, the hardship and fear they undertook and the reasons why.
Your father was also a great reporter who was as unafraid of war as he was of asking tough questions on our behalf. We will always need reporters like your father; they assure that a democracy has its most precious resource: information.
You have many — always too many — cousins in grief: the daughters and sons of men and women who have given their lives in this war. They all have one thing in common: They served the cause of freedom. The soldiers were armed with guns. Your father was armed with cameras and satellites and microphones and a notebook. Like them, your father served democracy.
I am deeply sorry for your loss.
