Sometimes, Good Things Happen
Weekly commentary by CBS Evening News anchor and Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer.
Someone asked me the other day if it bothered me to announce bad news.
The flip answer would be "I guess not or I would have found another job a long time ago."
Because the truth is, most of what we report is bad news.
When there's a fire down the street from your house that isn't welcome news, but you sure want to know about it and we see it as our job to tell you.
Still, there is so much bad news that I sometimes think we ought to start our newscast by saying, "I hate to be the one to tell you this but…"
Not so last week, when Warren Buffett said he would turn over $31 billion to Bill Gates' foundation and let Gates decide how to give it away.
It made me feel good just to announce it. What an example to all of us.
So many channel their charitable giving to reflect maximum credit on themselves, but Buffett followed the rule he has followed in business: get good people to run your operation and then stay out of their way.
On charity, the Bible speaks of doing it so secretly that even the left hand won't know what the right hand is doing. Buffett went one better, keeping both hands off and letting Gates do it. "He'll have a clearer head six feet above ground than I will six feet under," he said.
I hope there'll be more news like that but the world being what it is, it will probably be awhile.