CBE (English pronunciation: /krɪstʃiˈɑːn ɑːmənˈpʊər/ ( listen); Persian: کریستیان امانپور; born January 12, 1958) is a former CNN chief international correspondent from 1992–2010, as well as the anchor of Amanpour - a daily CNN interview program (2009–2010). She announced on March 18, 2010, that she will become the new anchor of ABC News's This Week in August of this year.
Amanpour is a Board Member at the IWMF (International Women's Media Foundation).
Early years
Amanpour was born in Iran to her father, Mohammad, an Iranian airline executive and her British mother, Patricia. The Amanpours led a privileged life under the government of the Shah of Iran. She completed her primary education in Iran and at the age of 11, her parents sent her to boarding school in England. She attended and graduated from an all-girls school, New Hall School in Chelmsford, Essex, England. Christiane returned to England not long after the Islamic Revolution began. She stressed that they were not forced to leave but rather when they were returning, Iraq invaded Iran and so they stayed and after a while it just became difficult to return to Iran.
Amanpour moved to the United States to study journalism at the University of Rhode Island. During her time there she worked in the News Department at WBRU-FM in Providence, Rhode Island. In 1983 Amanpour graduated from the university summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Journalism degree.
Career
Before 1983, she worked for NBC affiliate WJAR in Providence, Rhode Island, as an electronic graphics designer. In 1983, she was hired by CNN on the Foreign Desk in Atlanta, Georgia as an entry-level desk assistant. During her early years as a correspondent, Amanpour was able to land her first major assignment covering the Persian Gulf War which led her to be transferred in 1986 to Eastern Europe to report on the fall of communism. In 1989, she was assigned to work in Frankfurt, Germany, where she reported on the democratic revolutions sweeping Eastern Europe at the time. Through this position, she was able to move up throughout the company and by 1990 served as a correspondent for CNN’s New York Bureau.
Following Iraq's occupation of Kuwait in 1990, Amanpour's reports of the Persian Gulf War brought her wide notice while also taking the network to a new level of news coverage. Thereafter, she reported from the Bosnian war and many other conflict zones. Her emotional delivery from Sarajevo during the Siege of Sarajevo led some viewers and critics to question her professional objectivity, claiming that many of her reports were unjustified and favoured the Bosnian Muslims, to which she replied, "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." Amanpour gained a reputation for being fearless during the Gulf and Bosnian wars from parachuting into conflict areas.
From 1996–2005, she was contracted by 60 Minutes creator Don Hewitt to file four to five in-depth, international news reports a year as a special contributor. These reports garnered a Peabody Award in 1998, adding to the Peabody she was awarded in 1993. Hewitt's successor, Jeff Fager, was not a fan of her work and terminated her contract.
Based out of CNN's London bureau, Amanpour is one of the most recognized international correspondents on American television, with a willingness to work in dangerous conflict zones. She speaks English, Persian and French fluently.
She has had many memorable moments in her career, one of them being a telephone interview with Yasser Arafat during the siege on his compound in March 2002, during which Chairman Arafat hung up on her.
She interviewed North Korea's chief nuclear negotiator Kim Kye Gwan on February 26, 2008, after the New York Philharmonic visit to North Korea.
Amanpour is a member of Committee to Protect Journalists or CPJ along with many other notable journalists.
Amanpour appeared in the Gilmore Girls as herself in the television series' finale. Throughout the series Amanpour was an inspiration to aspiring journalist Rory Gilmore. In July 2009, she appeared in Harper's Bazaar magazine with the title "Christiane Amanpour Gets a High-Fashion Makeover".
Amanpour played herself in newscasts within the film Iron Man 2.
CNN
Amanpour was CNN's chief international correspondent based in New York. In her 18 years as an international correspondent, Amanpour has reported on major crises from the world's many hotspots, including Iraq, Afghanistan, the Palestinian territories, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, Somalia, Rwanda, the Balkans and the United States during Hurricane Katrina.
Amanpour joined CNN in 1983 as an entry-level assistant on the network's international assignment desk in Atlanta. She worked her way up to correspondent in CNN's New York bureau before becoming an international correspondent in 1990. Her first major assignment was the Persian Gulf War, and she has since covered wars, famine, genocide and natural disasters around the globe.
She has secured exclusive interviews with world leaders from the Middle East to Europe to Africa and beyond, including Iranian Presidents Mohammad Khatami and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, as well as the presidents of Afghanistan, Sudan and Syria, among others. After 9/11 she was the first international correspondent to interview British Prime Minister Tony Blair, French President Jacques Chirac and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.
Her body of work has earned an inaugural Television Academy Honor; nine News and Documentary Emmys; four George Foster Peabody Awards; two George Polk Awards; three duPont-Columbia Awards; the Courage in Journalism Award; an Edward R. Murrow award and other major journalism awards – as well as honorary degrees from The American University of Paris, Georgetown University, New York University, Smith College, Emory University and the University of Michigan.
In 2007, Amanpour was made a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE), by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for her "highly distinguished, innovative contribution" to the field of journalism. In 1998, the city of Sarajevo named her an honorary citizen for her "personal contribution to spreading the truth" during the Bosnia war from 1992 to 1995. In a special episode of Larry King Live that was broadcast from London, Amanpour had an interview with her own husband Jamie Rubin about the situation in Iran (June 20, 2009).
On September 21, 2009, Amanpour started her own daily series, simply titled Amanpour. The last transmission was April 30, 2010
ABC News
On March 18, 2010, Amanpour announced she would leave CNN for ABC News where she would anchor This Week. She said, “I’m thrilled to be joining the incredible team at ABC News. Being asked to anchor This Week and the superb tradition started by David Brinkley, is a tremendous and rare honor and I look forward to discussing the great domestic and international issues of the day", Amanpour said in a statement. "I leave CNN with the UTMOST respect, love and admiration for the company and everyone who works here. This has been my family and shared endeavor for the past 27 years and I am forever grateful and proud of all that we have accomplished.”
Criticism
Amanpour was criticized by HonestReporting and the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) for her CNN report "God's Warriors". It also referred to her report "God's Jewish Warriors" as "CNN's Abomination".
HonestReporting said in its critique "Hard on Jews, soft on Islam" that Amanpour's reporting contained "bias, inaccuracies and false moral equivalence".
In 1994, Stephen Kinzer of the New York Times (Oct. 9, 1994) criticized her coverage of the Bosnian War. Kinzer quoted a colleague’s description of Amanpour as she reported on a terrorist bombing in the marketplace of the Balkan town of Markale:
She was sitting in Belgrade when that marketplace massacre happened, and she went on the air to say that the Serbs had probably done it. There was no way she could have known that. She was assuming an omniscience which no journalist has.
Personal life
Amanpour has been married to James Rubin, former Assistant Secretary of State and spokesman for the US State Department, since 1998. Their son Darius John Rubin was born in 2000. The family resides in New York City.
She shared an apartment, on the east side of Providence, with John F. Kennedy, Jr. while he was attending Brown University and she was attending the University of Rhode Island.
Awards and recognition
1992, Livingston Award for Young Journalists
1993, George Polk Award for Television Reporting, 1996).
1993, George Foster Peabody awards
1994, Woman of the Year, New York Chapter of "Women in Cable"
1994, Courage in Journalism Award, International Women's Media Foundation
1996, George Polk Award for Television Reporting
1997, Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree, Emory University
1997, Nymphe d’Honneur at the Monte Carlo Television Festival
1998, George Foster Peabody awards
2002, Edward R. Murrow Award for Distinguished Achievement in Broadcast Journalism
2002, Goldsmith Career Award for Excellence in Journalism, at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government
2005, International Emmy, International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences
2006, Honorary citizen, city of Sarajevo
2006, Honorary doctorate degree from the University of Michigan for her contributions to journalism
2007, CBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours
2007, Persian Woman of the Year
2008 The Fourth Estate Award (National Press Club)
Director on the board of the Committee to Protect Journalists
Fellow, Society of Professional Journalists
Nine Emmy news/documentary awards
Major role in two DuPont awards given to CNN
Major role in a Golden CableACE award given to CNN
Honorary Board Member of the Daniel Pearl Foundation
Sigma Chi Award (SDX) for her reports from Goma, Zaire
Forbes magazine named her one of "The World's 100 Most Powerful Women"
WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival Gold Award
POP Award, by "Cable Positive"
2010, Honorary doctorate of humane letters degree, Northwestern University
2010, Honorary doctorate from Georgia State University for her contributions to journalism
Source:Christiane Amanpour
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