CNN’s Chief International
Correspondent Christiane
Amanpour at work in
Jerusalem.
year from Diane Sawyer, ABC’s Good Morn-
ing America co-anchor. “Terrorism and the war
in Iraq have moved us right into a crowded—
and more dangerous—neighborhood,” says
Sawyer. “Not many of us grew up memorizing
chapters [on] what is Shia and what is Sunni
and the differences between Syria and Iran. I
also wanted to show that there are deep human
connections—even with nations considered our
adversaries—with regard to children, families,
food and daily life. It seems to me that there is
nothing more important than understanding
the world in three dimensions right now—hope
and humanity, danger and differences. As news-
women, we bring the whole of our lives to a
story, not just our brains. My producers really
do laugh that Peter Jennings would never have gone from
doing an interview with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to an ex-
ploration of a refrigerator in an average Iranian home. But
I learn from both.”
Which doesn’t mean that women can’t “bring it” when it
comes to delivering the hardball.
“They do hard news,” says media historian and consultant Donna Halper, author of Invisible Stars: A Social History of Women in American Broadcasting. “But a woman is
going to have a different perspective on a story than a man.
She will have a different approach in telling the story to the
viewer. Men and women are going to view the world differently, and having women interpreting the world now as a
given on TV only adds value for the viewer.”
Mark Lodato, a professor and news director at Arizona
State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism,
says that value is viewers are “better served” by having
women beamed into their living rooms. “The more diverse
voices we can get involved in the editorial process, the better,” he says. “In the typical television editorial meeting each
morning, story ideas evolve through debate and discussion.
Having more women involved broadens the perspective and
likely improves the story.”
CNN Chief International Correspondent Christiane
Amanpour agrees, indicating that reporting in the thick of
global conflict as a woman—and, now, as a mother—only
adds to the quality of the broadcast. “Over the past 17 years,
my reporting from the front lines has always been done with
a certain sensitivity,” she says. “By that, I mean I am attuned
to the human dynamics and personal consequences of war,
crisis and disaster. I have instinctively been drawn towards
the people who are caught up in these conflicts—men,
women and children. I think that has given my reporting
from these places a human touch, making the stories more
accessible to viewers.”
PHOTOS (FROM LEFT): RAYMOND BOREA/GETTY, JOHN PAUL FILO/CBS
high profile
The rise of women in
network TV news
Barbara Walters
1976
Barbara Walters
becomes the first female network news
co-anchor, joining
Harry Reasoner and
Howard K. Smith on
ABC Evening News.
Walters rose from a
writer/researcher job
with the male-dominated Today Show
in 1961 to writing
and editing her own
stories, eventually
becoming a co-host.
Walters was succeeded by Jane Pauley as
co-host of Today.
1977
Judy Woodruff is
named chief White
House correspondent
for NBC. Woodruff
would go on to host
Frontline for PBS
and Inside Politics
on CNN.
1985
Maria Shriver, niece
of the late President
Kennedy, co-anchors
CBS Morning News
with Forrest Sawyer.
1989
Deborah Norville
succeeds Pauley as
co-host of Today,
with widely negative
results.
1991
Norville leaves Today
and is replaced by
Katie Couric. Norville
eventually reemerges
as host of the syndicated tabloid show
Inside Edition.
1993
Connie Chung joins
Dan Rather as co-anchor of CBS Evening News. Chemistry
problems are cited
for the failure of
this pairing, and the
partnership ends in
1995. Chung lands at
ABC’s 20/20.
1996
Cokie Roberts,
daughter of former congressional
majority leader Hale
Boggs of Louisiana,
is named co-host
of This Week With
David Brinkley, a
position she holds
until 2002.
1997
The View launches,
paving the way for
all-female panel
discussions of news
and entertainment.
Meredith Vieira
emerges as a star;
she’ll replace Couric
at Today in 2006.
1999
Walters interviews
Monica Lewinsky
and gets a record
74 million viewers.
2002
Sophie Thibault becomes the first solo
female national news
anchor, with French-Canadian TVA.
2005
Elizabeth Vargas co-anchors ABC World
News Tonight with
Bob Woodruff, after
former longtime anchor Peter Jennings
announces he has
lung cancer. Jennings
dies in August 2005.
In May 2006, Vargas,
anticipating the birth
of her second child,
resigns.
Katie Couric
2006
With a reported annual salary of $15
million, Katie Couric
anchors CBS Evening
News. The same year,
longtime NFL reporter Lesley Visser, now
with CBS, becomes
the first woman to
receive the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s
Pete Rozelle Radio-Television Award.
