A brief profile in awesomeness: CNN's Christiane Amanpour
One of the most renowned broadcasters of our time, Amanpour, the daughter of Iranian and British parents, worked for NBC affiliate WJAR in Providence, Rhode Island as an electronic graphics designer after her graduation from the University of Rhode Island in 1983. Six years later, she was hired by CNN and posted to Frankfurt, Germany, where she reported on the democratic revolutions sweeping Eastern Europe at the time.
She proved herself early as someone not only willing but eager to report from dangerous locales. It was her coverage of the Persian Gulf War that made her famous. Often covered in filth, no time for makeup, wearing her trademark flak jacket, she later reported from the Bosnian war, where her reports from Sarajevo during the Siege of Sarajevo led some viewers and critics to question her professional objectivity. Her reply: "There are some situations one simply cannot be neutral about, because when you are neutral you are an accomplice. Objectivity doesn't mean treating all sides equally. It means giving each side a hearing."
Memorable Quotes
"Remember the movie 'Field of Dreams' when the voice said, 'Build it and they will come'? Well somehow that dumb statement has always stuck in my mind, and I always say, 'If you tell a compelling story, they will watch.'"
"I think that as a country that is so powerful, so good in its values, so determined to spread values such as democracy, morality around the world...it's absolutely vital...that the people of the United States get a look at what's going on outside. It's our role and it's our job to be able to go to these places and bring back stories, just as a window on the world."
"I remember once doing a live shot from a so-called famine camp in Ethiopia---and actually in Somalia as well. I was showing a man and telling his story and explaining how ill he was, and it was a live camera. All of a sudden, I realized that he was dying. And I didn't know what to do, I didn't know how to break that moment, how to get the camera away, what to do that would not sully what was happening in real life. And then there's always the crying and the weeping that we hear.....children, women, even men. And these images and these sounds are always with me...."
"...a strange thing has happened, something I never expected. Sadly, (my) marriage and motherhood have coincided with the demise of journalism as I knew it and I dreamt that it would always be. I am no longer sure that when I go out there and do my job, it'll even see the light of air, if the experience of my colleagues is anything to go by.
"More times than I care to remember, I have sympathized with too many of them assigned like myself, to some of the world's royal bad places. They would go through hell to do their pieces, only to frequently find them killed back in New York, because of some fascinating new twist on 'killer Twinkies' or Fergie getting fatter or something. I have always thought it morally unacceptable to kill stories...that people have risked their lives to get."
Read more here... or view an interview here...
- August 27, 2007
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