KINGSTON, R.I. – Feb. 3, 2022 – University of Rhode Island alumna Christiane Amanpour ’83, Hon’ 95, chief international anchor at CNN, who earned a reputation as a fearless reporter while covering the Persian Gulf and Bosnian wars and as a staunch advocate for reporters to be “truthful, not neutral,” will be honored by the Arthur W. Page Center at its sixth annual awards for integrity Wednesday, Feb. 23, at 6 p.m.
The Larry Foster Award for Integrity in Public Communications recognizes integrity at the highest levels of public communications by honoring a diverse group of industries and disciplines including journalism, business, public sector, and public relations.
Along with Amanpour, the center will honor Ken Chenault, chairman and managing director of the venture capital firm General Catalyst and former chairman and chief executive officer of American Express, and Andy Polansky, chairman and chief executive officer of IPG DXTRA and executive chairman of Weber Shandwick.
All three will appear live at the Feb. 23 virtual awards presentation. The virtual event is free and open to the public. Registration is required.
Amanpour, chief international anchor of CNN’s award-winning flagship global affairs program, “Amanpour,” has become a trusted voice in journalism in her nearly 40 years in the field.
She joined CNN in 1983 as an entry-level assistant on the international desk in the network’s Atlanta headquarters and rose to become CNN’s leading international correspondent. In her years in the field, she reported from such conflict hotspots as the 1991 Gulf War, the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, and the Bosnian War. During the Bosnian War, Amanpour spoke out against the human rights abuses, massacres and genocide committed against the Bosnian Muslims, defending her reporting by saying, “There are some situations one simply cannot be neutral about, because when you are neutral you are an accomplice.”
As anchor of “Amanpour,” she has scored exclusive interviews with global leaders such as British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Her work has earned her every major broadcast award, including the inaugural Television Academy Award, 11 News and Documentary Emmys, four George Foster Peabody Awards, and nine honorary degrees.
She has also used her international standing to raise awareness of key global issues and journalist rights, including serving as a board member of the Committee to Protect Journalists, the Centre of Public Integrity, and the International Women’s Media Foundation. Among her many philanthropic endeavors at URI, she endowed the annual Amanpour Lecture, which has brought world-renowned journalists to the University annually since 2008. She is also an honorary member of the executive advisory board of URI’s Harrington School of Communication and Media, home of the Department of Journalism.
Located at Pennsylvania State University’s Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications, the Page Center is a research center that advances integrity in all forms of public communication through projects aimed at building a scholarly and public understanding of ethics in communication. The Center has founded more than 250 scholars and awarded nearly $1 million in research funding.
Previous honorees of the integrity award include Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, who has played a lead role on the U.S. response to the pandemic; Judy Woodruff, co-anchor of the “PBS Newshour”; Eugene Robinson, a 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner and associate editor of The Washington Post; the late Gwen Ifill, senior correspondent for “PBS Newshour” and the first Black woman to moderate a vice presidential debate, and Tom Kean, former New Jersey governor.