This week is a special one for me. My first children’s book, “Read All About It!” comes out, and I’m immensely proud of it.
I wrote it because I’m a father of four daughters and because I’m a journalist. I wrote it because I look at the world they’re growing up in, and I keep thinking one thing over and over:
We have to teach our children how to find the truth — and in this world, that is more difficult than ever.
Social media gives everyone a voice, and yes, sometimes it’s a gift, and sometimes it’s the fastest way to get information from people close to the story.
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But it’s often half-truths, reused and recycled, with people “reporting” on subjects they know nothing about or places they have never been.
And with AI, we’re entering a new era where you can’t trust what you see, what you hear or what’s put in front of you.
Today, our children often see clips before context, or outrage before evidence, and if we don’t teach them the difference, someone else will. Which is why journalism is so essential and more important than ever — proper journalism.
Journalism is going to the place itself. It’s looking someone in the eye and telling the story as it really is — even when it doesn’t fit the narrative or when it’s dangerous. Time and again in my own career, when I thought I knew the story, I would arrive on site only to find out that it was different from the one I’d imagined, or that it had countless levels I had been unaware of.
And that is why journalism matters more than ever — because truth matters, and we have to hold it up and pass it on to the next generation.
And that starts at home. Small questions such as, “Where did that come from?” “Who said that?” “Why would they do that?” “Is that true?” all begin building that interest in truth and in journalism.
And if you keep asking your kids those questions, you make them more interested in the world around them, and they will care far more about it.
And that’s one of the reasons I wrote “Read All About It!” — to inspire them and encourage them.
Let me tell you briefly what the book is about — without giving too much away.
It’s about a little hedgehog who wants an adventurous day. He heads out for a walk looking for adventure. And then he sees a baby owl that has fallen from a tree and a big brown bear running toward it.
And the hedgehog has a decision to make.
Does he stay safe? Does he hope someone else handles it? Or does he do something?
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Now people ask me, why did I pick a hedgehog? And the answer is, because there really was a hedgehog.
For my entire career as a war correspondent, I traveled with a little toy hedgehog in my pocket. It was my daughter’s toy. She gave it to me, and I took it everywhere.
And when I was overseas, that hedgehog would send videos back to them, telling them where we were, what we’d seen. Telling them that I was OK, while keeping them curious about the world.
I learned later that I needed the hedgehog more than they did.
When our team was attacked in Ukraine in 2022 and Fox News cameraman Pierre Zakrzewski, Ukrainian journalist Oleksandra “Sasha” Kuvshynova and two Ukrainians with us were tragically killed, that little hedgehog was inside my body armor. And in the days that followed, when I was barely alive and trying to survive, I held that hedgehog tight. I gripped it, and I talked to it.
It reminded me of home, and it reminded me of my family, and it reminded me of what I was fighting for. It was like a voice saying, “You are going home. You are going to survive. You will see them again.”
When I finally made it to the hospital and had some serious facial injuries that at first I didn’t want them to see, it was again the hedgehog who sent many messages back to them.
That’s why the hedgehog — and family — are at the center of this book.
Because family is the center of everything. It is our children who make us want to build a better world, and I know that journalism helps us do that. Knowledge does, too.
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I became a journalist because I wanted to travel. I loved meeting people, loved geopolitics, loved chasing a story. But more than that, I love journalism because it is truth — because it holds people in power to account. And that’s what creates a better world.
In “Read All About It!” Hedgehog does save the day and then spreads the message around the forest. He warns them all about the bear and about what’s happening. He doesn’t just watch from a distance. He tries to make others understand the truth, because the truth allows people to act.
And that’s one of the other morals I wanted to include in the book: Don’t just witness. Participate.
How often do we see people watching something go wrong and just filming it? Or posting it? Or commenting on it, but not stepping in? Not saying, “Stop, that’s not right.” Not helping the person who needs help.
We should teach children they are not meant to be spectators, that they can be active. That they can be engaged. And I know that journalism and an interest in the world around them will inspire them to do that.
I hope that “Read All About It!” does that — and that after reading it, you can sit with your children and talk to them about the ideas in it, and about some of the values that make the world a better place: adventure, courage and truth. Follow those, and we will keep building a better, stronger world.
