John Dickerson

“When a man assumes a public trust, he should consider himself as public property, and justly liable to the inspection and vigilance of public opinion; and the more sensibly he is made to feel his dependence, the less danger will there be of his abuse of power — The abuse of power, that rock on […]

I was not familiar with this quote: Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, […]

Yesterday I thought about an old friend very randomly. We are not in touch much– maybe once every two months. Ten minutes later she emailed me to check in. I wonder if friendships follow a time rhythm that is reciprocal.  You share a relationship with someone that reasserts itself at regular patterns and those patterns […]

Hello to all of you out there at the other end of this email list. When you write, you’re supposed to have your audience in mind. You draw some diagram of how much they are like you and how much they are not. This helps you discard writing that makes you chuckle by yourself in […]

In the absence of solutions from the institutions created to serve the public good.. A) How much private sector money is available to be donated to those economically hardest hit by Covid-19? B) How difficult would it be to create a system that a) collected from A b) evaluated need to discourage fraud and c) […]

About FDR:

A few weeks ago I asked people to suggest great speeches that were aimed at convincing skeptical audiences. Here is a brief list based on those responses (A lot of people mistook the request to mean “who is a person who made a good speech” (I’d love to know the convincing speech you’re thinking of!) […]

Buran Phillips is the pastor at Westminister Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, TN. I go there occasionally with my in-laws. I am a huge fan of his. I am posting one of his sermons here as an experiment to see if it is possible. If it works– which it appears to– I’ll keep doing it.  

We have a cover! The Hardest Job in the World will join the bookstore shelves June 9. Just in time for Father’s Day! Also suitable to give as a part of Breathing Humans Day when all good people are encouraged to give themselves and those they love a contemporary book. In advance of all of […]

Jim Lehrer has passed away. The longtime PBS newsman will be eulogized by those who knew him better, but my every interaction with him over the years left me better for it. I have thought more than once about Jim Lehrer: if you could have his talent and be that calm, decent and good a […]

The choir at St. Paul the Apostle in New York is a wonder. I always leave mass with one of their songs in my head. This week I recorded part of one because it so moved me. Here is a snippet:

  My eulogy for my father Claude Wyatt Dickerson buried today December 3, 2016: There is a picture of Dad from a family trip we took to London in 1976 that has been on my mind this week.  Dad is holding me on his shoulder so I can watch the changing of the guard at […]

There is a thing going around Twitter (Don’t dare call it a meme), that your campaign slogan is your name, plus a colon, plus your last text. So mine is: “Dickerson: Oh Yes!” Jeff Haywood did the good work for me: Yard signs are available at local offices.

I have been thinking about organizational leadership. How do we measure leaders? Can we take apart action and measure its component parts? Here’s an approach that came to me while I was running. (Tear it to shreds. Or praise it until your heart is an emptied vessel.) Time: How much actual time was spent on the […]

Reprise of my notebook from last year on what Fathers Day means to me:

John Prine will be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame tonight. Last night, his music publishing company Downtown held a tribute for him to benefit 826NYC with an all-star lineup including Norah Jones, Antibalas Horns, Sara Bareilles, Stephen Colbert, Natalie Merchant, Nathaniel Rateliff, and The War and Treaty.  This is what I said this after reading the lyrics […]

I searched Audible for my book about my mother. The other entries with similar tittles are a little unsettling:

Which means this piece on him is now eight years old. I think it still holds up.

Tyrion Lannister’s ode to the power of stories might not have been aimed at a son’s recollections of his eulogy for his mother but that’s the mark it hit.

As you know, (from clicking on this link if nothing else) I’m moving to 60 Minutes. My final message to my colleagues at CBS This Morning in what we called our Reporter’s Notebook: Thank you to Kira Kleveland and Claire Fahy and Wes Carlton and Craig Shea for putting this piece together. *The Mariner joke is […]