Becky Anderson

'Honour the principles of honesty, decency and integrity'

Who: Becky Anderson
What: Managing Editor, CNN Abu Dhabi bureau and Anchor of Connect the World with Becky Anderson.
How do you typically start your working day?
A fresh juice and either a brisk 5km walk or a bruising session at the Thai boxing gym with my unforgiving trainer, Matt.
Describe your job in a sentence.
Presenting the news stories that matter in a compelling fashion, so that an increasingly engaged TV and digital audience is never left asking: “So what? Why do I care?”
What is your number one personal principle or success mantra at work?
Teamwork. We are only as good as the people we work with. Value your colleagues and share your success.
In your workday, what is the one thing you cannot do without?
The Nespresso coffee machine we clubbed together to buy for the newsroom! And a &decent story, but that goes without saying.
What has been your most challenging project to date?
Breaking news deployments notwithstanding, my biggest challenge to date has been my move to the UAE a year ago and splitting my responsibilities between anchoring my daily news show Connect The World with Becky Anderson — during what has been an incredibly busy news cycle in the Middle East — and my new role as Managing Editor of the CNN Abu Dhabi programming hub.
Who is your professional role model?
Role models are incredibly important. I’ve never had a personal mentor but I’ve aspired to strong, female champions. Award-winning foreign correspondent Martha Gellhorn was always an inspiration for me. She was prolific, but it was her compelling, compassionate reporting on the Spanish civil war that I most love. She once said: “The thing about war is that it has two sides: the first is the absolute horror of it. The other thing about it is you meet absolutely marvellous people — brave and extraordinary people.”
What is your favourite indulgence when you need a break from work?
You’d think for someone who spends much of her life away from home travelling to wherever the news is happening, a break from work might mean a rest at home. But I am completely bitten by the wanderlust bug. I’m forever planning trips with family and friends and the UAE is the perfect hub for travel, be it an Ayurvedic retreat in Kerala in south India, a long walk with friends among the Jebel Akhdar mountains in Oman, or a rummage through antiquities in a souk in Fez or Morocco.
What is your greatest dream, professionally?
To honour the age-old principles of good journalism: honesty, decency, and integrity.
As told to Mary Paulose