Diversity in the Newsroom
Five journalists discuss how they got started in the business and offer advice to aspiring reporters
‘A Series of Happy Accidents’
Joie Chen, Correspondent, CBS News
Instead of aiming for a career in broadcast journalism, CBS News correspondent Joie Chen set her sights on becoming a newspaper reporter, studying print journalism at Northwestern University. Not finding a newspaper job upon graduation, she returned to Northwestern to complete a master’s degree in journalism.
One of her advisers, noting the lack of Asian television news journalists, suggested Chen try the broadcast program. The Chicago native gave broadcasting a shot and eventually landed a producer/reporter job at a Charleston, S.C., television station.
As it turned out, Chen’s on-air reporting talent proved far stronger than her behind-the-scenes producing skills. And so, less than a decade after graduating from Northwestern, she found herself being beamed into millions of homes as an anchorwoman on CNN International.
American audiences came to know and recognize Chen after she moved from CNN International to CNN in 1994. The Emmy award-winning journalist was named a CBS News correspondent in the network’s Washington, D.C., bureau in March 2002.
Chen’s parents, both scientists, immigrated to the United States before she was born. Her father is Chinese and her mother is Japanese. Chen remembers not being allowed to watch cartoons as a youngster because her parents didn’t want her to pick up substandard English and slang. Instead, they had her watch Walter Cronkite, the renowned CBS News anchor, every night.
“I think my watching Walter Cronkite from a young age may have helped lay the groundwork for journalism with me,” she muses.
Chen says her Northwestern education has helped her take advantage of opportunities that she had neither anticipated nor deliberately sought.
