Did I ever tell you how focused TV types are on themselves?
It's true. We are.
And we are forever eying each other.
Colleagues, we like. Colleagues, we don't.
And the past few days now we're practically hyperventilating over the firing, or resigning, or whatever they're calling of a colleague at a rival network.
And suddenly me and my colleagues are saying what does this mean for me? What. About me? Back to me.
Fortunately I don't get caught up in this self-absorption, because as you know, I'm a very modest guy.
It's one of the qualities I most admire about myself.
You won't see me acting like a big star
Or putting his name in the title of his show.
Or shows.
Or doing animations like he's some super hero.
Or single-handedly saving the country!
You won't see me constantly referring to myself in the third person.
Not this person.
Not this prompter-reader, pal!
But enough about me back to me. And my colleagues and me.
I hate to admit this on-air, but a lot of us ain't much more than well, air, hot air.
We read a prompter for a living. We're not opening up brains for a living.
We get whole staffs who look after us.
And cater to us.
Even dress us. And primp us.
And bosses who, for all this, pay us.
A lot.
There's no magic to what we do.
But you would think the world starts and stops at our electronic doorstep.
Fox News Alert. It doesn't. We're lucky.
Bottom line, we're very lucky.
Lucky to talk to some fascinating people and sometimes think we're just as fascinating people.
We're not. I'm not.
I know this might surprise you, but I didn't get here on my good looks, so I thank the good lord for my good fortune every day.
But just in case, I keep pictures of executives in compromising positions with me, every day.
I kid. But to make a point.
We TV anchors are not the point. We are not the end-all, and be-all. We're not bad people, but we do obsess about ourselves more than most people.
My dad used to say, "Neil, stay humble, because in your case it will come in handy."
He was right. He is right. He's my anchor. Those words are my anchor.
You are my anchor.
It's a pleasure to serve you, to try and inform you, engage you, even rattle you, maybe now and then, get a chuckle out of you.
That's it, for me.
That's it for my colleagues.
So forgive us our self-absorbed sins.
For we know not what we do. Only that some of us think what we do matters in the great scheme of things.
Forgetting now and then that without you watching we'd lose all these things.
The prompter. The pay. The fancy clothes. The fancy party invites.
That's why I think it's good when we suddenly hear about a colleague who loses a glamorous job. It tunes us into the cold reality of countless thousands who've lost far more.
I'm not saying it humbles us.
But it does make some of us think.
And some of us thank our lucky stars that some of you are kind enough to even think--
We are stars.
I might just write that down.
And put it in the prompter.
For all of us to read.
But first, let me fix this one hair out of place.
Good night.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox