Christiane Amanpour, CNN’s chief international anchor and one of the most recognizable figures in television journalism, is leaving the cable network after 43 years.
Amanpour, in a May speech, expressed concern about a then-looming takeover of the network by David Ellison’s Paramount Skydance, the owner of CBS News, and lamented an “ideological realignment” at that network.
“I mean, do I have to list what’s happening there? I mean, hemorrhaging viewers, probably hemorrhaging money. This ideological realignment of CBS and the destruction, potentially, of ‘60 Minutes,’” she said. “So, clearly, obviously, I’m concerned.”
A CBS News spokesman declined to comment on Amanpour’s prior comments, but the network has vigorously denied any editorial interference at the network or at its flagship newsmagazine, “60 Minutes,” where Amanpour was a contributor from 1996 to 2005.
Paramount Skydance took over CNN parent company Warner Bros. Discovery in a $110 billion merger earlier this month. The new combined company is called Skydance.
In a statement announcing her departure , which will take full effect next year, Amanpour did not mention the corporate takeover but urged her colleagues at CNN to keep up their work.
“From my very first big exciting assignment covering the First Gulf War, to the horrors of the Bosnian War, Rwanda, Afghanistan, Ukraine and Iran and all the points in between, it’s the teams and the camaraderie that counted so much, as we together battled to seek the facts, the evidence and the humanity, so that CNN could always broadcast the truth about the world and to the world, without fear nor favor,” she said in the statement.
“I will be continuing my successful podcast the Ex-Files with Global and look forward to interesting new projects down the line, and will always be rooting for CNN and maintaining its history of independent journalism. Remember: always be truthful, not neutral.”
Amanpour said in the statement that she is ending her daily shows on CNN and PBS at the end of the year and will maintain a weekly show on CNN until June.
In an email to staff obtained by The Washington Post, CNN’s chairman and editor in chief said he was “very sorry to see her go, but I’ve come to accept that this is the right time for her, both personally and professionally.”
“Christiane has been a household name around the world for decades. Yet she began more than 40 years ago not as one of the biggest stars in CNN’s history, but as a news desk assistant in our Atlanta newsroom. Famously, one of her bosses told her back then that she didn’t have what it took to become a foreign correspondent — or to hold any on-air role at all. Boy, did she prove him wrong!” Mark Thompson wrote.
CNN did not respond to a question about whether Amanpour’s exit was directly linked to the new ownership.
The post Christiane Amanpour is leaving CNN after 43 years appeared first on Washington Post.
