Playboy Interview: Christiane Amanpour

A candid conversation with the unbreakable newswoman on everything from immigration to #MeToo, the power of the press to the dawn of her “sexy 60s”

An impeachment scandal is in full swing, and attacks on the press erupt almost daily from the White House. The year, of course, is 1973.

In his Playboy Interview from that year, legendary CBS anchor Walter Cronkite was “visibly steamed” by a question about the Nixon administration — which at that time was halfway between the Watergate break-in and the president’s resignation — and its war on the news media. The fatherly newsman gave a strident critique of what he called a “well-directed campaign against the press, agreed upon in secret by members of the administration.”

In 2019, another American president has declared war on the free press and is facing impeachment. But today’s most venerated defender of newsmen’s rights is not a newsman at all: It’s Christiane Amanpour, the British Iranian war reporter turned CNN and PBS host. Crisp, elegant and unshakably poised, Amanpour uses her nightly CNN International show to delve into global affairs, interrogate newsmakers and occasionally rip to pieces the lies and obfuscations uttered by the world’s most powerful men. Amanpour began her reporting career in a world just introduced to 24-hour news coverage, and even in an age of fake news and overflowing Twitter time lines she remains our guide across borders worldwide.