The Making of Malveaux

CNN’s White House correspondent discusses the impact of having educators as parents and how higher education shaped her journalism career.

Title: White House Correspondent, CNN
Education: B.A., Sociology, Harvard University; M.A., Journalism, Columbia University
Experience: Reporter, New England Cable News, Boston; Reporter, WRC-TV, Washington, D.C.; Correspondent, NBC News, Washington, D.C., and Chicago
Birthplace: Lansing, Mich.

By Ronald Roach

Known to millions for her incisive and scrupulous reporting, CNN White House Correspondent Suzanne Malveaux has drawn considerable praise as a broadcast journalist throughout her career. For the past five years, Malveaux has covered the Bush White House and national affairs for CNN, making her one of the most visible women of color in American journalism.

Since joining CNN’s Washington bureau in 2002, Malveaux has broken a number of major stories for the cable television news network, among them the plea arrangement of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the retirement of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

Malveaux spoke recently to Diverse about her path from journalism student to White House correspondent. The daughter of former Howard University medical school Dean Floyd Malveaux and educator Myrna Malveaux, Suzanne and her twin sister, Suzette, both attended Harvard University, where they graduated with honors. Suzette is currently a law professor at Catholic University in Washington, D.C.

Malveaux’s early forays into broadcast media included internships and jobs in documentary filmmaking in the United States and Africa. Soon after earning her master’s in journalism from Columbia University, Malveaux landed in Washington, spending several years there with WRC-TV and NBC News before being reassigned to Chicago. She later returned to the nation’s capital with CNN.