Clarissa Ward
CNN Chief International Correspondent
What it takes to become a foreign correspondent
After graduating with distinction from Yale, Clarissa Ward began her journalism career in 2002 as an intern in CNN’s Moscow bureau. Ward then worked at Fox News, ABC News, and CBS News before returning to CNN in 2015. She was named their chief international correspondent in 2018.
Ward’s reporting has taken her to the front lines of conflicts in places like Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Ukraine. She’s also won some of the biggest awards in our industry: nine Emmys (among them for her 2020 coverage of Alexey Navalny’s poisoning), two Peabody awards, and two Edward R. Murrow awards, among many others.
By Tiffany Corr
For a long time, the nature of war reporting, because it was a very male-dominated industry, was a lot about facts and figures and weapons and strategy and military tactics and geopolitics.
All of that stuff is really important. But traditionally, there wasn’t a lot of time given to empathy, to compassion, to emotion, to trauma. It might be given lip service, but it wasn’t really given airtime. That’s changed a lot, and part of the reason is because there are a lot more women in this field.
We stand on the shoulders of giants, and there was a generation who came before us who had to fight tooth and nail to get their foot in the door and had to often pretend to be men, in a sense, in order to inhabit this space that really had been traditionally carved out for men.
I look at a lot of the conflicts I cover and I see more female than male reporters. There are a lot of women doing this job, which is tremendously encouraging. We still have more work to do, not just in terms of getting more women there, but having more diversity in the sort of voices who tell these stories. I’m encouraged by the progress we’ve made.
No Place for Judgment
When I left college, I’d had the best education and felt like I was super open minded, but there was a lot of arrogance there, there were a lot of preconceived notions. I hadn’t really tried looking at the world through somebody else’s experience.
Ultimately, the goal of telling these stories is for people half a world away to be able to find points of connection. Empathy is a huge part of achieving that: You have to be profoundly curious about how other people live and be open to the experiences of others.
We still have more work to do, not just in terms of getting more women there, but having more diversity in the sort of voices who tell these stories.
We live in a culture that’s very judgmental. We’re constantly naming and shaming other people’s choices. That doesn’t really have a place if you’re a foreign correspondent.
If you see a war crime, you’re gonna call it out. But other cultural mores, religious choices, whatever it might be, you’ve got to be open to it all.
Look at how much the attitudes have shifted toward the headscarf. In the context of Iran, it’s awful that a woman should be forced to wear a headscarf. But then in other contexts, it’s awful that a woman can be told she can’t wear a headscarf.
You also have to be willing to challenge the audience. TV audiences like clarity, black and white, good and evil. The longer you do this job, the more you realize there’s a lot of gray. It’s important to approach this kind of storytelling from a point of view of empathy, rather than saying “America’s position on this conflict is X, Y, or Z.”
For example, there were so many different groups in Syria with competing agendas; it really became overwhelming. We may be confused about 10 different Islamist groups, which ones are dangerous, which ones are freedom fighters, but what we do know is that gassing children is not okay. So let’s focus on trying to build up that part of the story, because then we can find consensus.
What It Takes to Be a Foreign Correspondent
When you’re in your 20s, you dream all these big dreams about life as a foreign correspondent, and then you realize it’s kind of not a great life in comparison to your friends who are going to parties, having boyfriends, going on vacations. You’re both working, but not in the same way: As a correspondent you’re likely doing the overnight shift or living in Baghdad.
It’s very difficult to break in to this part of the industry. I get messages every week from people who desperately want to be foreign correspondents asking me how.
There isn’t a path — everybody kind of forges their own path. You can go out in the field and try to be a freelancer. There are a ton of different ways to crack the code, but it’s incredibly difficult. I feel for young people who want to break down that barrier and have that opportunity, because I know how daunting it seems. It’s also such a unique and specific kind of work that requires a specific set of skills.
For example, I learned multiple languages because I lived in Russia for two years, the Middle East for three years, and China for two years. If I wanted to be able to get a beer in Beijing, I needed to work it out. Otherwise, it was a lot of time home alone.
But I know a ton of brilliant correspondents who don’t speak a word of any language, and that’s okay. I never want young people to feel intimidated, that if they don’t speak languages, they can’t be great journalists. That’s absolutely not the case.
The traditional trajectory of a correspondent isn’t quite the same as it was. Still, I love the fact that every day looks different for me. I would struggle to be an anchor, honestly. I don’t love being in the studio. You have to do lots of hair and makeup, which I find exhausting. It’s much harder to connect with ordinary people and get outside your own comfort zone.
It’s hard to know who you are in life. And I know who I am. I am not built for an office. Everyone’s always like, “Well, wouldn’t it be nice to have that routine at some point?” I’m like, “Yeah, not really.” I don’t have that muscle, or whatever it is.
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