On a personal front, Amanpour has spoken openly about her 2021 diagnosis of ovarian cancer and two later recurrences, calling it “the invisible killer.” She has urged others to “get all the scans that you can.” <\/p>\n
Amanpour joined CNN as an assistant in Atlanta in 1983. In his own message Monday, CNN’s chief executive, Mark Thompson, wrote that at the time, her promise was not universally appreciated. “Famously, one of her bosses told her back then that she didn’t have what it took to become a foreign correspondent \u2014 or to hold any on-air role at all,” Thompson wrote. “Boy, did she prove him wrong!” <\/p>\n
Fame came during the first Gulf War <\/p>\n
Amanpour became a reporter and an international correspondent seven years later. She earned fame in the early 1990s, covering the Gulf War, conflict in the Middle East and many other hot spots. War reporting is “a sense of mission, it’s a sense of purpose, it’s a sense of being able to tell a story,” she said. <\/p>\n
She aimed to bring international news \u2014 including complicated stories \u2014 to American viewers. “I’ve never believed that things are too complicated to put on American television,” she told The Associated Press in 2023.<\/a> “I’ve never talked down to an audience. I’ve never believed that they just want to know what’s happening in their backyard.” <\/p>\n Amanpour also noted that her upbringing gave her a unique perspective. <\/p>\n “Because of my upbringing \u2014 I’m half-Iranian and half-British \u2014 I’ve had the great privilege of being able to see the world from two very distinct perspectives,” she said. “I’ve always spoken out about the need to bridge gaps. I know we can live in a world that’s not 100% tribalized.” <\/p>\n In her remarks Monday, Amanpour thanked her field crews and show teams. <\/p>\n “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,” she wrote, “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.” <\/p>\n Jocelyn Noveck, The Associated Press <\/p>\n