Life
| Nov 1, 2020

Kaitlan Collins: The rise of a young American broadcast journalist for a new decade

Al Edwards

Al Edwards / Our Today

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Reading Time: 4 minutes
CNN White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins. (Photo: CNN)

CNN White House Correspondent Kaitlan Collins is now a mainstay on the news platform and has begun to participate in panel discussions with her contribution sought out on U.S. political issues of the day.

She brings professionalism and a straightforwardness to her craft and, at 28, should have a notable career ahead of her. Already she has made Forbes’ 30 under 30 Media List and her star is in the accession.

CNN must nurture her talent and allow her to assert her personality while showcasing her undoubted abilities. As an asset to the network, those at the top and her senior colleagues must see to it that she doesn’t get engulfed in corporate politics and extraneous distractions that raise eyebrows.

In her case, the fate of Megyn Kelly should be carefully avoided.

What is particularly refreshing about Collins, and should be heartening to many journalists, is that she started out as a journalist and blogger. So often these days you see people entering the profession from some other door.

She is a graduate of the University of Alabama where she studied Journalism and Political Science. The same year she completed her degree she joined the Daily Caller as an entertainment reporter. Three years later, in 2017, she was promoted to the Daily Caller’s White House Correspondent.

Kaitlan Collins covering the White House for CNN. (Photo: Business Insider)



With an eye for talent, CNN moved quickly to secure her services and she has been doing good work there for three years now, building a good reputation and is well regarded by the viewing public.

Kaitlan Collins never comes across as doctrinaire nor has a proclivity to pontificate or rush to editorialisation. One doesn’t get the impression that she has an agenda. She is intelligent, aware and covers a story well. Collins has been dedicated in her coverage of the Trump administration.

Feminism and the MeToo movement is very much having a moment in the public square and has gone on to redefine modern western societal practices and behaviour, particularly in the work place.

“Let this be a message to all the grown men out there, that the younger women who work for you, do not want to date you, they do not want to be your soul mate, they do not want to go to get ice cream with you, they do not want to be your partner.”

Journalist Kaitlan Collins

Ashley Judd and Jane Fonda have been vocal about what women have been subjected to and the Harvey Weinstein situation made that abundantly clear. What largely went unnoticed, but was penetrating and percipient, was what Kaitlan Collins had to say about men in power placing women in compromising situations.

“Let this be a message to all the grown men out there, that the younger women who work for you, do not want to date you, they do not want to be your soul mate, they do not want to go to get ice cream with you, they do not want to be your partner.

“When they start dating someone else, you cannot get angry with that and try to pay them money to cover it up. I am a 25-year-old woman and I shouldn’t have to say it to anyone, that when a woman goes to work, they don’t want to date the boss.”

What Collins said here three years ago on CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper should be printed and put up in every workplace and public building for all to see.

Kaitlan Collins speaking on CNN’s The Lead with Jake Tapper. (Photo: CNN)

She was responding to a letter that Republican Congressman Patrick Meehan wrote, calling his female staffer his “soul mate”.

At just 25, her realism cut to the heart of the matter without one having to scour through the tomes of the likes of Germaine Greer, Camille Paglia and Naomi Wolf to get insight and perspective of the male/female dynamic at work.

Let us hope that Collins remains true to the craft of broadcast journalism and does not deviate into becoming a social media darling or get enticed by marketing and branding enterprises. Good journalism and its practitioners are needed more than ever right now.

She can follow in the illustrious footsteps of fantastic journalists like Christiane Amanpour, Andrea Mitchell, Zeinab Badawi, Kay Burley, Anna Ford and Lesley Stahl in becoming one of the best there is over the next few decades. She’s already made a good start.

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