Christiane Amanpour
NEW YORK >> For what it’s worth, CNN’S best-known international journalist, Christiane Amanpour, also found it odd that she’s had little visible presence on the company’s North American network for the past several years.
That changes Saturday at 11 a.m. Eastern with the debut of “The Amanpour Hour,” part of a revamped Saturday morning lineup that will also feature shows headlined by Chris Wallace, Michael Smerconish and Victor Blackwell.
Amanpour, 65 and celebrating her 40th year at CNN, was for a long time the face viewers were most likely to see reporting from the world’s hotspots. That has primarily, although not always, been left to others since she began hosting the studio show “Amanpour” each weekday.
That program airs at 1 p.m. Eastern on CNN International, a network that, as its name suggests, is seen mostly outside of the United States. The same show, renamed “Amanpour & Co.,” airs later in the day on PBS stations.
“I have always believed,
Honoree Christiane Amanpour attends Variety’s Power of Women in New York on April 5, 2019.
ever since I started as a foreign correspondent at CNN, that the American audience wants to hear about the world,” she told The Associated Press on Friday. “I’ve never believed that things are too complicated to put on American television. I’ve never talked down to an audience. I’ve never believed that they just want to know what’s happening in their backyard.”
On “The Amanpour Hour” — they’re running out of show titles featuring her name — she hopes to discuss what is going on in the world with a sense of history and context.
It’s important to project a sense of calm when talking about terrible news that might cause others on TV to hyperventilate, she said.
— The Associated Press