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“Madame” Amanpour and our Moral Courage Convo on YouTube

Posted in Irshaddering Thoughts, Announcements on Mar 02, 2009

Christiane Amanpour and I explore the need for moral courage in journalism.

(All photos: Joyce Culver)

Wait. Before anybody assumes that Christiane Amanpour insists on being addressed as “Madame,” let me explain the title of this post.

It’s Bill Clinton who — in icy tones —called Christiane “Madame.” She’d just challenged him on his administration’s “flip-flops” over the genocide in Bosnia. He denied any dithering, and made his displeasure with Christiane quite clear. For starters, the President refused to invoke her real name.

“Everybody called me ‘Madame’ for years after that,” she chuckled to me and the 1,000-member audience at the Moral Courage Conversations.

Christiane then tackled my own prickly questions about what journalists should do in an era when they — and their employers — face enormous pressures to avoid offending; when the spokespeople of religious and cultural groups routinely scream “discrimination!” if confronted with inconvenient facts; when journalism school profs increasingly chill the minds and spines of their young charges by preaching sensitivity to communal esteem instead of to the truth.

How did Christiane answer? Hell, I ain’t telling you. Watch for yourself. The entire event is on YouTube.

What I will give you are a couple of highlights, starting with how she feels about that tense encounter with Clinton:”You have to ask the rigorous questions. That’s what the audience expects, that’s what we [as journalists] expect of ourselves. You have to be willing to risk access, to risk people being angry with you, and to realize that you just have to do your job no matter where the chips may fall.

It wasn’t easy for someone like me, who grew up in a very sheltered and respectful environment. I grew up in the Shah’s Iran. You didn’t question authority. And I know, certainly, that my parents and many of their friends were quite horrified that I’d been so publicly rude to the President of the United States. (I didn’t think I was being rude, by the way.)…

If you’re not prepared to put yourself on the line for what you believe in, or for your profession, then it’s very difficult to do this job with any credibility or integrity.”

Speaking of doing her job, Christiane revealed that she entered journalism quite by accident:

“I thought I wanted to be a doctor but to be very frank, I failed the exams that would get me into medical school and I ended up in Iran during the [Islamic] Revolution. That made me realize I wanted to be part of the cataclysmic world events, but not as a participant or victim, but as somebody who could in fact try to explain those events to the rest of the world.

I’d come to London, England — my mother’s home country — as a way to get out of Iran. And my younger sister had joined, out of the blue (who knows where it came from?) a journalism college in London. After a few weeks, she decided that it wasn’t for her.

We were quite ’scint’ — that means low on funds — and I went there and asked for the [tuition] money back because we needed it. They said no. So I said, ‘Ok, well, I don’t like to waste money. May I take her place?’ That’s what set me on the road to journalism…”

See what wonders can unfold when you’re scint? It’s a scintillating lesson for these economically depressed times. Which brings me to the theme of my next event — “Moral Courage in the Money Industry: Pipe Dream or Key to the American Dream?” Stay tuned for more details.

Meanwhile, click here for the premiere Moral Courage Conversation, with my special guest Salman Rushdie. He ain’t no Madame, but he’s a fine Sir.

And to my Facebook fans: You’ve now got exclusive access to pix of me and Christiane backstage. Happy viewing!