Desi Making Waves

By Ambika Behal

CNN Correspondent Zain Verjee: Climbing the Television News Ladder to Success

“I really started by accident…I never intended to be a journalist, never intended to work in journalism,” CNN Correspondent Zain Verjee told ABCDlady, sitting down for a chat at the network’s Washington, D.C. bureau. “I was actually more inclined to academia,” Verjee reveals.

And so begins the story of how Kenyan-born Verjee, recently relocated to D.C. as a correspondent for CNN’s early-evening news program The Situation Room, hosted by Wolf Blitzer. She started on a climb through the ranks of venerable old faces, to become one of the few young female South Asian faces on national television news today.

After growing up in Nairobi, Verjee attended Canada’s McGill University in Montreal, where she spent five years studying English Literature and International Development Studies. After McGill, she attended York University in Toronto to complete a two-year Master’s degree. “It was an Environmental Studies degree, and I did a certificate looking at Refugee Studies—which was interesting even though it doesn’t sound like it,” she attests.

Having chosen to complete a thesis on women’s access to natural resources, Verjee returned to Nairobi in the mid-1990s to collect data. Upon completing her thesis case studies early and following her father’s advice, she started volunteering at Nairobi’s then-new radio station: Capital 98.5 FM.

“They said, okay, you’re here for a couple of weeks, why don’t you help us with the traffic update. So I started out reading traffic,” laughs Verjee, who says she moved up from traffic to the nighttime music show, and then onto social awareness campaigns for radio. “I enjoyed it so much I decided to go back [to school] a little later than planned. And then later got pushed back to even later, and then it became four years.”

Her thesis has yet to be completed.

In 1998, the United States Embassy buildings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam were bombed. Around the corner from the embassy, at Capital 98.5 FM’s station, Verjee reported the events, which later led to a stringing job for BBC Radio.

“And then I made what I thought was a natural transition to television after that,” says Verjee, who moved onto a stint as a prime-time news anchor on Kenya’s state-controlled KTN channel.

In 2000, she joined CNN International, moving to Atlanta where she co-anchored CNN International’s Your World Today with Jim Clancy. Now, having recently moved to D.C., Verjee covers domestic and international news stories for The Situation Room.

Media in a Shrinking World
“I learn something new everyday, and I’m constantly interacting with different people that have different experiences [than] myself that are quite enlightening,” says Verjee of her chosen profession. “And I think I really enjoy the detail of history and looking at the present and how the past informs the present and also how critical people at different junctures of time are at different positions of power and influence.”

The self-professed lover of all things academic enjoys being in a position where she has access to a variety of information. “You know, this morning I didn’t know what I know now, so that always keeps it exciting and stimulating,” she laughs.

The slightly homesick Kenyan native is still in awe of working in the technologically-advanced media environment of the United States. “People here have a much broader experience in terms of television production and newsgathering, so the level of information that we deal with all the time is much more significant here,” she says. The technological ability to access different studios around the country and interview different people live is a positive factor in a constantly-changing environment, she adds.

“The media industry [in Kenya] was just beginning to blossom and find itself—and it has established itself now at least with a much more greater degree of competition, which forces better quality and professionalism too,” she adds.

However, Verjee notes that good journalism is the same everywhere: “You care about a story, you want to report it accurately—it’s a fair and balanced portrayal of the situation in a professional and sometimes creative way.”

The inevitability of changing forms of news dissemination across the world “puts the onus on the consumer and the viewer to be more responsible for finding out what the truth is or what different perspectives are on a situation,” she says. In Verjee’s opinion, one source is not enough to learn effectively about what is happening in the world.

“Reading and learning about different things give you a more rounded view,” she says. According to Verjee, online newspapers empower people to be more efficient and effective at being informed. “I think that it doesn’t dilute the news…or reality in any way. It gives the viewer more choice and the reader needs to be more discerning about what they read and why.”

Advice to Budding Journalists
“I think, practically, I would say, number one, read as much as you can and everything you can,” she says. “Don’t just read The New York Times and The Washington Post. While they’re esteemed and prestigious and important to read, to get a more rounded world-view, read for example, the wires from United Press International (UPI). You need to read The Times of India, The Jerusalem Post.”

Getting perspective is the most important aspect of journalism, Verjee explains, no matter how different the trajectories of goals are for each individual.

Second on her list is volunteering “anywhere that you can get your foot in the door,” which enables a better sense of learning. “Sometimes I meet people that say, ‘Oh but I don’t really want to photocopy and carry coffee or the lights or anything.’ I think that shouldn’t be the case. I think once you have your foot in the door, and even if it’s in a voluntary capacity, you stand to learn a lot more,” she says. Verjee adds that degrees are not necessarily the way to go about becoming a journalist: “What is looked for is experience.”

The Situation Room
Being a minority female in television has never bothered Verjee. “I found through my personal experience…that what really matters is how professional you are and what you know and how you do it,” she says. Her experiences having lived in Kenya and knowing a bit about Indian culture have helped her, but merit and quality are key terms in her philosophy.

“People like Wolf [Blitzer] are just amazing to work for—he’s very motivating, very professional—and the show is very fun, very good,” she says of The Situation Room, which she officially joined just a few weeks ago.

Blitzer, host of The Situation Room, enjoys having Verjee work on the show. “Zain has brought a terrific new dimension to The Situation Room. She is very smart and a serious hard-news journalist who always wants to be on top of the story. She works very hard and studies very hard. She really knows the world—and that comes through when she is on the air. Our viewers have responded very positively to her reporting. In short, she has a huge future in this business,” he said in a statement to ABCDlady.

“It’s been a challenge, the whole six years,” admits Verjee, a rare exception who made it to CNN based on a series of cold-calls she made from Kenya, never thinking they would actually hire her. “But I’ve loved it,” she says. Verjee plans on staying with the network for the long run.

Verjee’s own passion constantly keeps her motivated as she climbs through the various stages of being a television news journalist.

“It’s also a question of persistence too. When one is really persistent, really passionate about something.”

Ambika Behal is a freelance writer based in Washington D.C.

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