CNN’s Candy Crowley On New Job: “Career-Wise, This Is The Height”

Mediaite: Martha Roundtree was the first moderator of Meet the Press, Lesley Stahl anchored Face the Nation in the ’80s and Cokie Roberts co-anchored This Week in the ’90s. How does it feel to join that group, and also be the only female Sunday morning show anchor on TV today?

Crowley: Amazing. I didn’t think of the woman part of it for a long time. If you could see my emails now from fellow female journalists and people inside and outside the industry, you get a sense of excitement. It came clear to me after reading the emails after the announcement. Obviously I’ve thought about it and recognized that not many people have gotten to do this in terms of females. All those females I’m totally in awe of. I think of myself first as a mother, second as a journalist, and somewhere thereafter as a woman. It wasn’t my first calculation. My first was, ‘Oh wow, what a great spot to land as a journalist.’

Mediaite: Can you talk a little about the cable news landscape in general? The competition seems to be getting a lot more partisan overall while CNN is sticking with news in prime time and elsewhere. What do you think about the changing cable news environment?

Crowley: I can only speak from my universe and what I have done. At CNN I’ve never had pressure to move this way or that way. I recognize that happens across the cable universe. It’s an audience, and people do it because you can get an audience. People watch if you take certain tilt one way or another, but I can’t change who I am as a journalist, if it’s not my cup of tea, and that’s why CNN is such a good fit…It is what it is – you can’t put the genie back in the bottle, but I’m really glad this is the place I’m going to be. It’s the spot you want to be if you’re a journalist.

Mediaite: As you said, you start next week, so let’s get right to it – if you had your choice of anyone in the world, who would you like to be your first guest?

Crowley: Sure, I’d like the President to be on. But there are so many fascinating people. It’s not just a political show. Often when international events occur they take over the course of our lives. I love those darker figures, and I try to get them. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and so many characters on the scene have information, have something to tell us, that’s interesting (or frightening). I could make a list and probably still keep going when I retire whenever that is.

(This has been edited for length and clarity.)

Here’s the announcement this morning:

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