As someone who has been wrong often, I can tell you one thing for sure: hindsight reminds you of your follies every day.
I probably would do over the Tom Cruise interview because I've thought of so many things I would have said in hindsight.
Writing my first book, I think in hindsight I went into it saying, 'It's gonna sell.' I was earning enough to scrape by sometime around a book or two before 'Tell No One.' I moved up from $50,000 to $75,000, then $150,000 for each book. I had never thought I would be doing anything else. I had enough encouragement.
I was reading scripts, doing coverage, for CAA. Reading hundreds and hundreds of scripts across the board, from blind submissions to 'Brokeback Mountain'. It was not always a pleasant task but something, in hindsight, I'm glad I did.
In hindsight, Watergate was a curse as well as a blessing for American journalism. The courageous reporting of the 'Post' and the 'New York Times' - coupled with the favourable Supreme Court rulings on publication of the Pentagon Papers - were landmarks for the interpretation of First Amendment rights and the freedom of the press.
From as far back as I can remember, I was always insecure about my looks, whether it was my flat chest, my skinny legs, or how to cope with my body as it changed. With hindsight, I can see I was different. I was given a body that worked for photographic modelling and a photogenic face.
Hindsight bias makes surprises vanish.
Newspapers are busily experimenting with different models. Traditionally, and I suspect in hindsight very mistakenly, online news was free. And once given free access readers felt it was their entitlement.
To all those who have suffered as a consequence of our troubled past I extend my sincere thoughts and deep sympathy. With the benefit of historical hindsight we can all see things which we would wish had been done differently or not at all.
