Christiane Amanpour, chief international correspondent for CNN, received the 2002 Edward R. Murrow Award for Distinguished Achievements in Broadcasting May 23 from the Murrow School of Communication. Amanpour, who has been covering the Israel-Palestine conflict, flew in from London to present her talk, “Killing the Messenger.” Earlier in the day, Washington State University broke ground for a 24,000 square-foot addition to the Edward R. Murrow School of Communication. The facility is scheduled to be completed by fall 2003.
A few excerpts from Amanpour’s talk:
“In my opinion, what we say and how we report the truth defines not only the moment but us as people.”
“These days we are being targeted because someone doesn’t like what we say.” (In reference to the 69 journalists who were killed worldwide last year while covering the news.)
“By not letting us close to military activity, TV audiences are getting just one view of America … a grainy, green night-scope vision of bombing. We cannot tailor our report to please the politics of the day no matter what country we are in.”