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Candy Crowley: Incoming Queen of Sunday Morning Talk

2 years ago

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This weekend, veteran CNN reporter Candy Crowley takes on a high-profile role in the often rough-and-tumble world of Sunday morning talk shows. As the new host of CNN's "State of the Union," Crowley will be the only female anchor in that time slot, and the first since Cokie Roberts stepped down as co-anchor of ABC's "This Week" in 2002.

Crowley has spent her adult life as a destroyer of heels and soles: a beat reporter and a political reporter, out on the streets, pounding pavements, getting on and off airplanes and spending nights in (some dingy, some palace-like) hotel rooms. From Bill Clinton's impeachment to Hillary Clinton's bid for the White House, Crowley has been in the front row asking questions.

Disclosure: I have known Candy for more than two decades -- since the time we covered Washington for two different radio networks. We worked as correspondents for NBC News back in the day, although in different bureaus and at different times. We've run into each other professionally on occasion (most recently last June, when we were honored with awards from the Women's Media Center ), but we have never socialized together.

After a half-hour phone conversation with Crowley this week, my impression is that she's up to her new task: She's a happy, smart, hard-working, well-grounded individual.

Is this your dream job?

You know, that would assume that I had dreamed of it. I didn't begin to dream of it until the opening came up. I said, "I'm going to call them up and say I want it." It was not in my sights.

Where was your career headed?

My whole career was not headed here. My career has been, well, organic. It's really good to have goals, but one shouldn't be so focused that you don't look right or left to see that there are other things out there. In many ways life has handed me many things I would not have expected, and this is one of them.

Do you feel like you're making history?

No, because I don't know what that feels like. In truth, I looked upon this first as a journalistic opportunity. It wasn't until Monday when my e-mail began to be flooded, that I realized this is something! I kind of expected that women might have written to me. But I didn't expect the outpouring from young women, strangers and people within and outside of our company. Then I said to myself: Wow! Well, good! If my new job is helpful to any young or old woman anywhere, then yay, I will raise the flag. But mainly I think of it as a journalistic challenge. At the same time, I'm clearly a woman. I'm telling the honest truth here. If you asked me: Who is Candy Crowley? I would say I'm a mother, I'm a journalist and I'm a daughter, a sister. I certainly am a woman and I would have gotten to that, but it's not my first self-identifier.

What was key to your rising in such a tough, competitive corporate environment?

Here at CNN we did a thing not too long ago that Dana Perino [former spokeswoman for President George W. Bush] suggested we do. She set up an event called "One Minute Mentoring." She brought together successful women and young women who were just starting out on Capitol Hill and at various media outlets. She asked the speakers to bring three top tips to give to these young women. My first and most important was to be who you are. Especially in journalism, which is about the truth. You also have to be lucky and I was enormously lucky. There is an enormous amount of being in the right place at the right time. But you have to stick with who you are and it's either got to work or it's not going to work. In the end, it was the most comfortable place for me to be. I guess if there's a secret, it's that I've been very, very lucky and I have an enormously supportive family.

Where has it not worked for you?

Oh, you know, there have been setbacks all along. Certainly you think to yourself, "I should have been given that job or beat or assignment, et cetera." "Nightline" was nirvana for journalism and I would have loved to have had a job there. But they had incredibly talented people there and they didn't need me. It didn't work out. I look at it now and I think back and it makes so much more sense if you look backward. Now I can say to myself that if that had happened, this never would have happened. And the truth is, if I got what used to be my dream job, I wouldn't be sitting here doing a dream job that I never dreamed of. So setbacks can be small things, like why I didn't get assigned a story, or big things, like why I didn't get a job. But you keep going and Jupiter aligns with Mars.

Do women have parity in broadcasting?

I would say no, I don't think so. But neither do minorities. Things are better but we are not there. It is a work in progress and it will get better still.

From what you do, from what I do, from what Andrea Mitchell does -- any time young women can take sustenance from that to keep going, then hallelujah!

Are women closer to parity in other fields?

I know they are, but I don't know in which fields. One of my sons is spending year in New Zealand and he took us to a dinner with a lot of doctors. He and my daughter-in-law are both doctors there. And we got into a discussion of whether it helps or hurts to be a female doctor versus female as journalist. My daughter-in-law thinks it actually helped her to be female in certain ways. And so in some ways, it can help. It can also hurt. Depends on who's making the selection.

Do you mentor young women, young journalists?

I try. In some official capacity? No. Do I address women young when they come in here? Yes. I answer young women's questions and try to help anytime I can. But it all comes down to time.

Are you or have you been called a feminist?

I don't know if I've ever been called it, but it depends on your definition. If it means being for equal rights and equal opportunity for women, you betcha! I think the term used to be disparaged, but I think that era is over frankly. There was a point when feminism was used as a pejorative term in the political world. But it's not a pejorative to me. And it's not a loaded word anymore.

Will the audience change when you take over "State of the Union"?

I haven't the vaguest idea. That's the biggest change for me: thinking about audience, because when you appear all over the network for short periods at different times, you think about audience in generic terms, not about specific demographics. I hope to not worry too much about it. My target audience is anyone who's interested in politics, and quite frankly I think that should be everybody, because their lives are affected by the outcome of politics. I want to know what they want to know, because that's what I want to find out and deliver.

As someone who's covered Washington politics, do you believe in bipartisanship?

Sure, it can exist where there's mutual agreement on something. But let's face it, bipartisanship generally is used as a term with one side when the other disagrees. On the other hand, that's why we have two parties. Or more, actually. Our system was set up to tolerate political differences. The majority also has to have a brake somewhere, and that's always been the minority [which can put brakes on programs backed by the majority].

Has the angry cross-talk increased in recent years?

I think sometimes when people refer to a lack of bipartisanship, I think they mean civility. If you look at President Obama last week [speaking at a Republican gathering] they didn't agree on much but they weren't calling each other names. I think that's what people are talking about. Politics has gotten uncivil and that's what people don't like. It's become like some awful kindergarten class.

How do you think Secretary of State Clinton is handling her job and and accomplishing her goal of offering special help for women and girls?

I don't know. I haven't watched that. But I will tell you this: Take a look at her approval ratings. They're way higher than the president's. People think she's doing a great job and she's one smart woman who works very hard, and it's hard to fail with that combination.

What's your favorite story that you have covered?

Oh, they are all my children. So many times throughout my career I've thought that this is the best story I'm every going to cover. You think: Oh, this is such a big story and you're there and this is going to show up in a history book somewhere. You cover the impeachment of former President Clinton and you say this is the story of my life. Then you roll into the political campaign of 2000 and by December we still don't have a president. Then you roll into 9/11 and I was on the streets of New York thinking this is the biggest story of my lifetime. After the Kerry campaign I thought, "I don't think I can go on and off the bus, and the plane and in and out of hotel rooms anymore." Then Hillary ran for president. Then Obama won and I stood in Grant Park that night and I said I'll never cover anything as big as this again. As I said it, I knew it wasn't true, for good or for bad.

Any tips to young parents on juggling career and family?

I can only tell you that for all the mistakes that I made in the juggling game, like dropping a ball, you never get over the feeling when your kids are young that you are in the wrong place if you are away from them, or if you're with the kids that you should be out covering a story. So there's always going to be discomfort and worry that you're doing right by your kids and your job. As long as that is your goal, and you know where your priority is, and that's your kids, you're going to be OK. I have spectacular adult children, and not because I didn't make mistakes but because they knew I loved them. [Candy has four children: two biological and two from a blended family.]

Filed Under: Barack Obama, Education, Bill Clinton, Obama Administration, Culture, News Media, Jobs

Tagged: candy crowley, CandyCrowley

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