Fashion

Life On The Front Line: Christiane Amanpour Reflects On Her Never-Ending Quest For Truth


From the first day I became conscious, I’ve been curious. As a child, I used to hide behind the sofa in our living room at home just to listen to my parents and their friends chatting – I’ve always wanted to know everything, see everything, go everywhere. Curiosity is the greatest, spiciest, life-giving quality, and the reason I do what I do. But I became a journalist by accident. I thought I wanted to be a doctor – a surgeon, in fact – but I didn’t get good enough A Levels for medical school. I was living in Iran with my parents, feeling a little lost and questioning my future when the Iranian revolution unfolded. It was a very difficult thing for my family, my country and my community to endure, but it made me realise what I wanted the purpose of my life to be, which was to tell the kind of stories I could see happening around me.

I decided to study journalism in America. When I graduated from the University of Rhode Island in 1983, I was hired as an entry-level desk assistant by a recently launched media startup called CNN. Later, trying to climb the ladder, I took a job in its New York office, where I reported on everything – the Aids crisis, wrestling, cat shows – before being formally made a foreign correspondent in 1990, aged 32. In August of that year, I was sent to Saudi Arabia to report on the Gulf War: the moment I arrived, I knew I had found my calling. CNN’s coverage of the war would turn out to be its watershed moment, cementing its status as a leading American and global news outlet. That was the beginning of my 28-year (and counting) career as a war correspondent.

It was a formative experience for many reasons, not least because I was one of a team of three women – me as correspondent and two camera crew – in a country defined by a patriarchal society where women didn’t work and barely had any rights. It was phenomenal. I remember a colleague who worked for the Wall Street Journal printing a story about how the Saudi officials were appalled that CNN had sent an all-female crew to their country. When I read that, I laughed and it focused me. I wanted to prove myself.

Being a woman in the field has, in many ways, opened doors. In many cultures, men can’t go behind the purdah, or curtain, so to speak. But we can – which meant, wherever we were, be it Afghanistan, Iran or Rwanda, we were able to tell the everyday stories of women and children living in wars and conflicts. And that has, I think, often distinguished our coverage from that of our male competitors.

In the wake of MeToo, I have given a lot of thought to my position and I feel very fortunate that, for whatever reason – whether it was a vibe I gave off or that I was hugely competent at what I did – I was never conscious of being discriminated against or being inappropriately approached by male bosses or colleagues. I believe that if you master your craft and are good at what you do, you will find confidence and authority. Ultimately, I think they knew they’d better not screw with me – and if they did, it was at their peril.

Two years after I was sent to the Gulf, I was stationed in Bosnia where, for four years, I reported on the war for CNN, bringing the atrocities to the attention of the world. I still consider the work I did during that time to be my greatest professional achievement, but I also learnt a great deal about myself and the human condition. It was in Bosnia that I came to understand that journalism has to be about being truthful, not neutral. Whether you’re talking about genocide or climate change, there are facts and empirical evidence, and these are paramount. In war, there are victims and aggressors; in climate there’s overwhelming science versus a handful of deniers, and the two must never be equated.

People ask me how I coped living and working in warzones, and the reality is I had a cavalier attitude towards my mortality. I was young, unattached and didn’t have children. I felt immortal. Even when people – colleagues – were being killed or wounded around me, I still didn’t think it would happen to me. The intensity of the situation and depth of the passion for the work often translated into personal relationships – there was a lot of love and sex on the road, and that’s where some of my most important relationships were formed. I remember them with great fondness and sadness, ultimately grateful that we were able to find love and passion and common purpose amid a lot of horror and inhumanity.

When I had my son, at 42, with my ex-husband, my attitude changed. My only thought was how to stay alive for my child. I developed a whole new set of fears that I didn’t know I had. I started to think more seriously about how many times I could go into that firing line, or whether I should wear my flak jacket that day. Once you have a kid, your entire mind, heart, soul and body shifts focus – everything becomes about being there for them, and that hit me like a ton of bricks. I was also aware that, as an older mother, I had already achieved so much and was doubly conscious that I needed to not be a hero. I no longer had anything to prove apart from getting the story right.

No matter what their profession is, every mother feels the guilt of being absent. I spent a lot of time figuring out how to be present, which is why, when my son was 10, I swapped the field for the studio, leaving my role as Chief International Correspondent to become Chief International Anchor. At the end of 2018, my husband and I divorced, and now that my son is older, and I’m facing an empty nest, I’m thinking about putting myself back out there again. It’s time for my third act.

And I am already excited for this chapter, to be hosting my new show on PBS – Amanpour & Company – as well as CNN, and taking on new projects such as my series Sex and Love Around the World, in which I explore what it means to be intimate and satisfied – physically and emotionally – through the eyes of women across the globe. It was completely out of my comfort zone and utterly fascinating. It proved to me that age doesn’t close you off to anything. As I move into my sixties (and I’m proud to say it) I’m calling this decade the sexy sixties. Professionally and personally, one thing I’ve learnt is that our only limitations are the ones we put on ourselves.





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