Christiane Amanpour

Christiane Maria Heideh Amanpour CBE (/ˌkrɪstʃiˈɑːn ˌɑːmənˈpʊər/ ^ⓘ; Persian: کریستیان امان‌پور, romanized: Kristiane Amānpur; born 12 January 1958) is a British-Iranian journalist and television host. Amanpour is the Chief International Anchor for CNN and host of CNN International's nightly interview program Amanpour, CNN's The Amanpour Hour on Saturdays and Amanpour & Company on PBS. She also hosts Christiane Amanpour Presents The Ex-Files with her ex-husband James Rubin on Global.

Amanpour was born in the West London suburb of Ealing, the daughter of Mohammad Taghi Amanpour (Iranian) and Anne Patricia Hill (British). Her father was Shia Muslim and her mother Roman Catholic.

Amanpour was raised in Tehran until the age of eleven, when she was sent to England to attend the Convent of the Holy Cross, an all-girls preparatory boarding school in Chalfont Saint Peter, Buckinghamshire. At 16, she moved to the New Hall School, a Roman Catholic school in Chelmsford, Essex.

After finishing her education in England, Amanpour returned to Iran. Her father worked as an airline executive for Iran Air, and lost his job and fortune in 1979 due to the Iran Revolution. In 1979, the family moved to the United States, where she studied journalism at the University of Rhode Island. During her time there, she worked in the news department at WBRU-FM in Providence, Rhode Island. She also worked for NBC affiliate WJAR in Providence as an electronic graphics designer.

In 1983, Amanpour graduated from the university summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with a Bachelor of Arts degree in journalism.

In 1983, Amanpour was hired by CNN on the foreign desk in Atlanta, Georgia, as an entry-level desk assistant. By 1986, she served as a correspondent for CNN's New York bureau. During her early years as a correspondent, she was given her first major assignment covering the Iran–Iraq War, followed by a transfer in 1986 to Eastern Europe to report on the fall of European communism. In 1989, she was assigned to work in Frankfurt am Main, West Germany, where she reported on the democratic revolutions sweeping Eastern Europe at the time.

Following Iraq's occupation of Kuwait in 1990, Amanpour's reports of the Persian Gulf War brought her wide notice. Thereafter, she reported from the Bosnian war and other conflict zones. While in Bosnia, she interviewed Serb general Ratko Mladic, who would later be convicted of genocide. Because of her emotional delivery from Sarajevo during the Siege of Sarajevo, viewers and critics questioned her professional objectivity, claiming that many of her reports were unjustified and favored 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."