Kaitlan Collins: CNN White House Correspondent
Before Kaitlan Collins was one of the most topical news reporters in the country, she was a college student at the University of Alabama, following in her sister’s footsteps with plans to become a chemist. After her freshman year, Collins quickly realized that chemistry wasn’t for her, and decided to try journalism on a whim. After a couple classes, Collins fell in love with the fast-paced nature of journalism, and all of the different avenues that came along with it.
“That’s what I think is really the fun part of journalism, it’s that even when you’re in this industry you can constantly be evolving and changing, and while you’re still a journalist doing all of those jobs there’s so many mediums that you can do that you can do whatever fits your talents.”
After Collins graduated, she applied to anything and everything that was remotely related to journalism. Although Collins always knew that she wanted to move to a bigger city and out of Alabama, D.C. was never on her radar until she landed an internship with The Daily Caller.
When her parents first dropped her off in her new city, Collins was nervous and unsure of what the future held. Her parents even thought that she might move back to Alabama. According to Collins, her work at The Daily Caller wasn’t her passion project or her dream job, but she treated her colleagues with respect, developed personal relationships with the people in her office, and most importantly, she worked hard.
“The best way to succeed in life is to show up and outwork everybody around you.”
A few years later, Collins landed her job at CNN, with the help of her colleagues at The Daily Caller. Collins had a short break over Christmas time between her last day at The Daily Caller and Trump’s inauguration, during which she decided to study up on any and all information related to the White House. Collins ordered stacks of books written by past administrations and reporters to be as prepared as possible for her first day at CNN. Despite her qualifications and extensive preparation, she still felt like she didn’t know enough, didn’t deserve her new job, and didn’t belong; all aspects of imposter syndrome.
Although Collins doesn’t exactly endorse the “fake it ‘till you make it” saying, she does believe that, oftentimes, women, and people in general, don’t feel like they deserve a lot of the opportunities that they’ve earned. In order to gradually push this feeling away, Collins said that for her first few days at CNN, she gave herself a bit of a learning curve, and most importantly, she acted like she belonged. According to Collins, once people act like they belong in a new setting, eventually they will start to realize that they actually are deserving to be in the position that they worked so hard to earn.
Balancing a social life and work can be tough with a job like Collins’s. Fortunately, her friends understand the gravity of her work so they don’t get too upset when she has to miss a dinner or even a bachelorette party. For Collins, work comes first. Despite that belief she also feels that it is important to have friends that have different interests or jobs than you. When you’re with your friends you should be able to not focus on work, especially when her work covers one of the most important political figures of the decade.
According to Collins, no two days are ever the same when you’re covering one of the most unprecedented administrations in history. However, despite the chaos that comes with being a White House correspondent, Collins still begins each day the same way. Collins wakes up at 5:30 a.m., and immediately goes to Twitter. Why? Because as all White House correspondents know, you have to “get up before the president starts tweeting”. After Collins briefs herself on all of the latest global and national news, she’s in for a long day of tracking down sources, watching the news, and scrolling through Twitter.
Although traveling overseas, chasing the President around, and constantly staying up to date on global events can be exhausting, Collins never takes her job for granted. She takes the time regularly to step back and acknowledge and appreciate the fact that she has a front row seat to history being made.
“You’ve got to step back every now and then and realize you’re covering this campaign and this president who really is unlike any other president ever and it’s going to be something we talk about for decades to come, whether you like or dislike the president.”
According to Collins, with Trump, a lot of the rules and regulations that former presidents have stuck to have been thrown out the window, and the press pool is no exception. Last July, Collins’s press pass was temporarily revoked after she asked the President “inappropriate” questions about Michael Cohen. Since Collins was representing the entire network pool at this press conference, she was simply asking questions about the news of the day, something that any other reporter would have asked. After Collins had learned what had happened, she discussed with her bosses if CNN should go public with the incident. In the end, Collins and her colleagues decided to explain what had happened to the public, in order to send a message to the administration that they could not tell anyone what questions can or cannot be asked.
https://twitter.com/CNNPR/status/1022239404910411776
Collins could not have been more pleased and inspired by the reactions from other news sources when CNN went public with their statement. Every news station, conservative and liberal, rallied around Collins in order to make it clear that journalists have the right to ask the President whatever questions they want, no matter how uncomfortable, so they can best inform the American people.
“It wasn’t because they liked me personally, some of them didn’t even know me, it was because they realized it was a bigger threat to all of us.”
Another difficult part of Collins’ job is having to deal with people constantly criticizing her reporting and her station because they might not have the same ideals. Collins has come to despise the term “fake news” because she feels that people don’t think about the implications that the term has when they use it. Everyone she works with, behind the scenes or in front of the camera, works so hard to give their audience accurate information and that hard work is diminished when people call it “fake news,” just because they don’t agree with it. Collins has found that the best way to cope with these comments is to brush them off, continue to stand her ground, and stay unbiased.
According to Collins, the best piece of advice that she can give is to develop personal relationships with everyone, in and outside of the office, outwork everyone, and to ALWAYS travel with a mini-steamer. According to Collins, the best feeling is proving someone wrong when you know that you’ve worked hard.
“One of my favorite things is to prove people wrong… when people either underestimate you or they misjudge you, I think instead of pushing back on that, I think it’s important to let people think what they think, and then in the end, when you outwork them, or you show up, or you break a story, that’s one of the most rewarding things that can happen.”
https://thewomensnetwork01.wixsite.com/syracuse/post/kaitlan-collins-cnn-white-house-correspondent