Clarissa Ward has made quite the name for herself in the news world. She’s
fearlessly traveled all over the world and has been on the ground to properly
cover many international stories. Here's the untold truth of the prominent journalist.
Clarissa Ward is CNN's Chief International Correspondent,
but she worked hard to get where she is today. In 2020, Ward dished to NPR
about what led her to journalism in the first place nearly two decades prior.
"I was a senior studying comparative literature at Yale [...] And suddenly,
like a sledgehammer, I was hit by 9/11. And I became completely addicted to the news."
She explained how that changed her acting and
magazine publishing plans while in college, saying,
"It suddenly dawned on me that I felt I had a calling — that I wanted to contribute to this
broader effort to try to act as some kind of a translator, almost, between different worlds."
According to Ward's CNN bio, she then became an intern for the network's
Moscow bureau in 2002. From there, she got a correspondent job at Fox News,
where she reported in the Middle East on Saddam Hussein's 2007 execution. After
landing a job with ABC News, where she was first based in Moscow and Beijing,
before traveling to Japan to cover the earthquake and tsunami of 2011. She became a regular presence
on CBS News' "60 Minutes," before heading back to where she started — CNN. She joined as a foreign
correspondent in 2015 and was promoted to the Chief in just three short years.
It's clear that Ward has followed that call to journalism and worked her way up to the top,
though she admittedly had very little idea of what that would actually entail back in 2001.
As part of her job as a foreign correspondent, Clarissa Ward has had to travel to dangerous parts
of the world where her life was frequently put at risk. According to her CNN bio,
this even included a Peabody Award-winning "undercover" assignment. This was in 2016
in rebel-held areas in Syria — where almost no Western journalists had visited in over a year.
"Syria is definitely the first conflict that I covered where I became deeply personally
involved [...] You get into the trap of finding it difficult to separate once you go back to your
normal life and feeling that you need to be somehow altering the course of events."
Yet, Ward has continued her work for CNN, reporting from the front lines in countries like
Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Ukraine, Georgia, and Iran. It appears that if there's somewhere that's
deemed unsafe to be, Ward will probably show up there to tell you about it. But when it comes to
her journalistic work, she explained to NPR that the lessons she's learned have been humbling.
"[...] it's important to have good intentions [...] When you set the bar that high for yourself,
it becomes a little bit soul-destroying when you realize that there are huge,
powerful forces at work in the world, and you are limited in changing the
course of history. [...] And that's OK because your job is to bear witness."
Although Clarissa Ward has quite the impressive resume, she has often been accused of being a
"parachute journalist." For those unfamiliar with the term, it describes an outside journalist,
who is unlikely to have a sufficient feel for the area's political and cultural landscape,
arriving within an area just long enough to report on a story before leaving.
Ward was criticized in particular for her 2021 reporting from Myanmar, which was made possible
by the nation's controversial military junta. What rubbed people the wrong way, according to
the Thai Enquirer, was CNN's promotion of what it called, quote, "exclusive access." That,
combined with Ward's claim that she was the only international correspondent reporting
on the ground. The latter apparently felt dismissive to the local journalists,
who were also facing grave danger to report on the situation. Additionally, Thai Enquirer blamed
Ward for the arrest of 11 Myanmar nationals, who then possibly faced torture or execution. It was
claimed that their detention was a direct result of her and her crew's interactions with them.
CNN later claimed that at least eight of those 11 had been released,
with the Toronto Star reporting days later that all 11 eventually were released. Meanwhile,
Ward headed to Twitter to defend the trip, slamming her critiques, saying,
“Very striking that I am being absolutely inundated with positive, heartfelt messages
from people in Myanmar, while a handful of white male academics/ commentators (none of them in
the country) write endless screeds about how offensive my trip is to the people of Myanmar.”
In August 2021, CNN's Clarissa Ward was back in Afghanistan
to report on the Taliban's control of the country in the wake of U.S.
troop withdrawl. Ward described to Slate that for the people in Kabul,
"One of the most pronounced [reactions] is fear. I've spent a lot of time today
talking to people who are petrified, who are in hiding, who don't want to leave their houses."
Ward also revealed how reporting there had changed since the Taliban took control. She explained,
"Before, when you were operating inside Kabul, you have the government,
and you knew the Taliban was in the background and they were dangerous.
Now there's one sheriff in town, and it's the Taliban. And for this brief moment in
time [...] the Taliban says that they are open to journalists doing their work and being here."
Yet Ward did emphasize that there's a consistent stream of gunfire near the
airport where U.S. troops are stationed. She added,
"It's very dicey, it's very dangerous, it's completely unpredictable. There's no order,
there's no coherent system for processing people."
Ward shared how the experience in Afghanistan has impacted her, writing on Instagram,
"Reporting on the streets of Kabul in the wake of the Taliban's takeover has
been one of the most extraordinary experiences of my career. I am too
sleep deprived to begin to do justice to it with words but let's just say that
every once in a while as a journalist, you get a front row seat on history."
The danger of reporting in Afghanistan wasn't just theoretical, either. Ward actually experienced a
close encounter with a Taliban fighter. Via the New York Post, she detailed a particular
dangerous situation that happened outside the Kabul airport. She explained how a Taliban
fighter armed with a makeshift whip approached her while shouting at her to cover her face.
Ward also shared a scary incident that happened right after that to one of her
producers who was attempting to take a video of it. She told "New Day's" Brianna Keilar,
"Two Taliban fighters just came up with their pistols,
and they were ready to pistol whip [our producer]. We had to intervene and
scream [...] I've covered all sorts of crazy situations. This was mayhem. This was nuts."
“It was absolutely stunning shock, honestly.”
Ward continued to explain that she and her producer managed to escape serious harm only
when another insurgent stepped in because he realized that they were journalists. She added,
"Honestly, to me, it's a miracle that more people haven't been very, very seriously hurt."
Although Clarissa Ward is often traveling the world with her CNN team, she does have a man
waiting for her back home. And even though Ward is clearly a well-known TV personality,
her husband, Philipp von Bernstorff, is pretty well-known himself since he's a
German count and a businessman. According to Town & Country,
their meet-cute happened at a dinner party in Moscow in 2007. As Ward recalled in "On
All Fronts," after he learned what she does for a living, von Bernstorff said,
"I think war correspondents are egomaniacs."
And how did she take that? Well, apparently she laughed out loud. She added,
"It was immediately clear to me that there was something different about Philipp."
In November 2016, Ward and von Bernstorff tied the knot in a quaint affair at Chelsea
Old Town hall in London, where they reside. The reception was similarly unpretentious,
consisting of lunch at their Notting Hill home for just 46 guests. At the time,
Ward admitted how her job made her not stress the big day. She shared,
"Perhaps covering war does give you a slightly different perspective.
In the grand scheme of things to freak out about, this is not one of them."
She did gush though how emotional it was for her to marry von Bernstoff. She said,
"I was weeping so much, but in a beautiful way.
I mean not that I looked beautiful but that it was a happy kind of weeping."
Clarissa Ward isn't just the Chief International Correspondent for CNN,
she also has the super important job of being a mother. Ward has two sons, Ezra von Bernstorff,
who was born in March 2018, and Caspar von Bernstorff, who was born in July 2020. According
to Ad Week, during Ward's first pregnancy she still reported from places like Yemen, Bangladesh,
St. Maarten after Hurricane Irma and Greenland, where it was -27 degrees. She told Elle,
"I didn't want pregnancy to change the way I worked or lived."
But she did recall whispering in Greenland,
"Dear God, please let my baby be okay. Please don't let the cold or the altitude hurt him."
Ward revealed to NPR how becoming a mother has changed her work after all. She explained,
"There's this intense emotional connection that I cannot turn off now. It was always
upsetting to see a child in pain in any kind of a conflict arena. Now I find
it borderline unbearable [...] I will weep. I hope there is more compassion in my reporting."
While it's clear Ward's career of traveling the world is important to her, it appears she's always
happy to be reunited with her family. In June 2021, the CNN correspondent posted a photo on her
Instagram of her snuggling in bed with her husband and children, where she wrote in the caption,
"No better feeling in the world than being back with my boys after a big trip."
While Clarissa Ward is usually the one reporting the news,
she made headlines in August 2021 after being criticized by Texas Senator Ted Cruz.
He tweeted a controversial eight-second clip of Ward reporting on the ground in
Afghanistan during the Taliban takeover. In the video, she tells the camera,
"They're just chanting 'death to America,' but
they seem friendly at the same time. It's utterly bizarre."
With that clip, Cruz then wrote,
"Is there an enemy of America for whom @CNN WON'T cheerlead? (In mandatory burkas, no less.)"
The CNN communications team apparently decided to stick up for their Chief
International Correspondent. They responded to the senator, tweeting,
"Rather than running off to Cancun in tough times, @clarissaward is risking her life to
tell the world what's happening. That's called bravery. Instead of RTing a conspiracy theorist's
misleading soundbite, perhaps your time would be better spent helping Americans in harm's way."
The tweet seemed to be a dig at Cruz's Cancun
scandal where the senator was criticized for traveling to Mexico with his family,
while his constituents went without water or heat for days during a deadly storm.
Ward won't let his tweet get to her, telling Slate she just wants to keep the focus right
now where she’s supposed to be. That is, in Afghanistan and with the Afghan people. She added,
"Anything that's a distraction from that,
or that minimizes that in some way, I try not to pay it too much attention."
Unfortunately, like a lot of other women, even Clarissa Ward has had to deal with misogyny in
the workplace despite being a leader in her career field. Ward explained on NPR,
"I can't tell you how many times I'll be feeling that,
I know my trade. I know my craft. I know this story [...] It's this very subtle condescension.
And it is enraging because you're like, wait. But I'm the one who's actually been to Aleppo, guys."
And it sure sounds like it is something that Ward has dealt with in her career
for a long time. As she recalled in "On All Fronts," a female anchor at Fox News
once offered her some unsolicited and questionable advice. She said,
"You're gonna be a star. And trust me, I know Roger Ailes [...] He loves girls to wear
their hair down [...] I know he'd prefer it. Gotta look out for you sexy girls!"
As NPR pointed out in their review of the book, that is the same Roger Ailes who would
be hit with multiple sexual misconduct allegations and resign from the company.
She's also faced sexism while out in the field. In August 2021,
she shared on CNN's "New Day" an incident while outside the presidential palace in Kabul.
"They’ve just told me to stand to the side because I'm a woman."
Yet, Ward doesn't seem to let anyone stop her from covering a story,
making her a truly remarkable journalist.
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