When staffers at CNN need guidance, when we need direction about CNN's standards and practices,

when we need a gut check to make sure that our stories and scripts and even our

tweets are living up to CNN's standards. We turn to Rick Davis.

Rick is the Executive Vice President in charge of standards and practices at CNN, and he is now

retiring after an epic career spanning more than 40 years. So what can we learn from him as he prepares

to say goodbye to CNN? That's one of the questions here on this week's Reliable Sources Podcast.

So let's cue the music.

I'm Brian Stelter and this weekly podcast is our opportunity to go more in-depth

with media leaders and newsmakers.

Talking about how the news gets made.

And for more than 40 years, CNN's news has been made by Rick Davis.

Rick is a CNN original, someone who was there on launch day, actually producing the second hour of CNN's inaugural coverage.

And he has played a part in so many stories, in so many parts of the CNN world.

And so when Rick announced late last year

that he will be retiring, effective at the end of January,

it brought up a lot of emotions and reactions from all around the CNN world.

Staffers in Atlanta and Washington and New York and LA and all around the world are sad to see him go but are grateful for his

contributions to the network to the news gathering to the website to all of it.

Rick helped run CNN sports in the 1980s. He was instrumental in

launching many CNN programs including reliable sources and we're going to

talk about that in a minute, and for more than 30 years

has been overseeing news standards and practices, a critical role at a global news outlet like

...