CNN Anchor Speaks to Persian Society

Ten years ago Rudi Bakhtiar came to a Harvard summer program for career advice. On Saturday, Bakhtiar—now the lead anchor on CNN’s Headline News Tonight—sat on the table in Sever 113 and spoke about her unorthodox career route as well as the situation in Iraq.

Bakhtiar, who was invited by the Harvard Persian Society, grew up in Iran. She said that she was uncertain of what career to take and had studied biology, psychology and even architecture at the Career Discovery Program at the Harvard School of Design, before taking a job at a pharmaceutical company.

“I just called up CNN one day [and they said], well you can be a non-paying intern if you pass a test,” she said. Bakhtiar, who Lycos ranked last August as the news personality whose name was most searched online, received the internship and said she “started getting promoted like crazy.”

She was soon noticed by the CNN CEO who, according to Bakhtiar, told her, “you’re too pretty to be behind camera—you should be in front.”

But Bakhtiar told the audience of about 75 that being an anchor has been challenging at times.

“The past few days [have been] a tough time to be a anchor,” she said, referring to the Iraq prison abuse scandal.

While she described the photos of abuse as “horrendous,” she said that she hoped that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld would not resign.

“I’ve read Donald Rumsfeld’s biography and he is an incredible human being,” she said. “He is a brilliant strategic planner. Being in the middle of war, I would imagine that Bush would want someone like Rumsfeld on his side.”

But Bakhtiar added that she would not be surprised if he were forced to resign.

Bakhtiar, who was on the air live during the Sept. 11 attacks, said she welcomed the ouster of Saddam Hussein but criticized the Bush administration for not having a post-war plan.

“It blows my mind that there was no game plan,” she said. “I think that the danger is that it will become another Iran, the Islamic Republic of Iraq.”

Despite the thrill of narrating the news, Bakhtiar said that she sometimes has doubts about being an anchor.

“I haven’t gone anywhere in a year and a half. [I’m] hoping I’ll go back into the field,” she said. “I feel pigeon-holed right now. I hope next contract I can be a reporter.”

And in a lengthy question and answer period following her 30-minute talk, Bakhtiar complained that she often lacked editorial control over Headline News Tonight.

“I have a reputation at CNN of being very hard to work with,” she said. “I don’t have editorial control. I fight every night with producers about what [story] should come first.”

But Bakhtiar also spoke frankly about mistakes she had made.

“God knows I’ve made a lot of mistakes on TV,” she said. Bakhtiar said that she had once mispoken and referred to a gay bishop as a gay bitch. The mistake made the Dave Letterman show.

“The funny thing is that every time you do something bad you get more famous,” she said.

In response to a question, Bakhtiar dismissed the notion that CNN was too liberal and said that the rise of Fox News was evidence that Americans like to see news that agrees with their viewpoint.

“Fox News has cornered the Republican market. I think what’s been done with Fox is great,” she said. “[It’s the] same way that People sells more magazines than the Economist.”

Throughout the discussion, Bakhtiar emphasized her Iranian roots.

She asked the Iranians in the audience what they thought about the prisoner abuse in Iraq and later asked them what they thought about her pronunciation of Iranian names with an Iranian accent.

“Some people don’t like it,” she said. “I feel like it’s my responsibility to say I’m Iranian. Occasionally we’ll get a couple [pieces] of hate mail.”

Bakhtiar said that being from Iran gave her a different perspective on the news.

“It’s amazing to be in a country—coming where we come from—seeing the secretary of defense being hammered for six hours. Democracy is alive here, maybe not well but alive,” she said.

“There is so much opportunity in America,” she said. “Even a five-foot nothing Iranian can have a prime-time show all over America.”

—Staff writer Joseph M. Tartakoff can be reached at tartakof@fas.harvard.edu.