How Gilmore Girls Led Me to Christiane Amanpour

I discovered Christiane Amanpour long before I realized that I wanted to be a journalist. In fact, the first time I heard her name was not while she was interviewing a world leader or anchoring a news program. My first exposure of Amanpour didn't have anything to do with the news at all. Instead, I was introduced to her through Gilmore Girls, an American comedy-drama that my friends and I have been obsessed with for years.

Rory Gilmore: I want to go to Harvard and study journalism and political science. 

Christiane Amanpour with the stars of Gilmore Girls

Headmaster Charleston: On your way to being...?

Rory: Christiane Amanpour.

Headmaster: Really? Not Cokie Roberts?

Rory: No.

HeadmasterL Not Oprah, Rosie, or one of the women from The View?

Rory: No. 

Even though the majority of viewers were teenage girls who most likely had no idea who Christiane Amanpour was at the time, the brief conversation that Rory had with Headmaster Charleston in this episode let the show's audience know that Amanpour is a genuine, hard-hitting journalist, not the host of some talk show who's pretending to be a journalist. Amanpour continues to be an idol of Rory's throughout the entire series, and she even gets to meet her in the series finale (as pictured above).

Today, Amanpour is the Chief International Correspondent for CNN, host of CNN International's nightly interview program called Amanpour, and she's also a Global Affairs Anchor of ABC News. While this may not be noteworthy to some, I find it exciting (and certainly worth mentioning) that she studies journalism at the University of Rhode Island and worked for WBRU-FM in Providence, Rhode Island (and later NBC affiliate WJAR in Providence) while she was there. She graduated from URI summa cum laude with a B.A. in journalism. Why is this so thrilling? I'm from Bristol, Rhode Island. Being the smallest state, we're not usually the home (even temporary home) or celebrities.

Christiane Amanpour is a well-respected international correspondent who keeps our nation informed on a wide variety of controversial topics ranging anywhere from war in the Middle East to natural disasters. What makes her unique and sets her apart from all of her fellow journalists is her eager willingness to insert herself in the middle of a war-zone so she can show the public what's really going on instead of what other media sources want us to believe.

Amanpour with President Hosni Mubarak

Amanpour walked with Srebrenica victims during the Bosnian crisis in Sarajevo. She broadcasted her show, Amanpour, from Port-au-Princein only a few short days after the Haiti earthquake in 2010. When everyone else was interviewing Charlie Sheen about his dubious entirely obscene behavior, she was interviewing Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak. She's discussed growing authoritarianism with Paul Kagame, the war in Afghanistan with Nancy Pelosi, the aftermath of the Soviet Collapse with Michael Gorbachev. Most famously, however, is probably her heated phone interview with Yasser Arafat (who was a Palestinian leader) as his compound was being attacked.

And still, even after that rather lengthy laundry list of incomparable, essential displays of journalistic brilliance, Amanpour's accomplishments and noteworthy moments don't end there. But I digress.

The bottom line here is that had it not been for the life experiences and witty repartee of Lorelai and Rory Gilmore, I may never have come to realize how magnificent Christiane Amanpour is.