Debra Kocher, Atlanta-based vice-president, CNN International
What I love about being a journalist is that I get paid to learn new things every day … interact with interesting people, see new cultures and travel to farflung countries and create something special every time I work at my computer.
For me, every day is a new day - challenging as well as exciting! Rain, sunshine or snow, it doesn't bother me. I enjoy my work and am always ready to face the unforeseen.
I have never planned anything in my life - (that includes) working in CNN too. I don't plan because this, I believe, narrows down an individual's vision. This forces you to concentrate, perhaps, on one area and strive to achieve the set goals.
I have seen many youngsters sit down and plan, but what I feel is then you miss the great big opportunities that lie outside your area. It might be surprising to you, but that was how life was for me - and still is.
I had never ever thought of becoming a media person … it just happened.
I was completing a degree in Russian studies at Tufts University (in Massachusetts). I was in Russia in my final year and was desperate to find out what was happening in the world. It was the fall of 1980.
I used to go to the American Embassy to read the wires and get caught up (in the news) and I realised that if I became a journalist someone would actually pay me to be curious!
I had done my bachelor's degree in Russian studies and then I jumped on to media studies. I completed a Masters of international affairs from Columbia University (in New York), where I majored in communications and minored in business.
If not a journalist what would I have been?
Mmm … perhaps a sports photographer! I like sport and I like photography. So I like to combine both of them - and I do. Even now I do a lot of photography. I take a lot of pictures of my children and family. I have even developed a few snaps by myself.
Me and my big break
I was interning in the summer between my two years of graduate school in New York City and was sent on an errand to deliver a book to the CNN New York bureau.
I had never heard of CNN but when I arrived at the studio the lights were on, the cameras were rolling and the anchor on the set was live, and I was smitten with the immediacy and power of broadcast news.
After delivering the book to the appropriate person, I asked the receptionist if they ever used interns and was directed to one of the technical directors, who told me to send my resume.
A month later, I was a technical intern, learning to (work the) camera and the teleprompter, edit, get water for the guests - anything and everything they needed to have done. That was September 1982.
In January, I switched over to the editorial side and interned for Myron Kandel (who was part of CNN's original launch team in 1980), (handling) his mail, learning about the stock markets and writing scripts.
By May, I was going out on shoots to interview people and writing segments of the weekend taped programme Moneyweek. I was offered an entry level position in the business news department in Atlanta on the basis of my internship.
Initially I was assigned to opening the incoming mail and replying to it. I had to work on weekends, but I felt tired. It was a very thrilling experience for me. I wanted to learn more and more. I took the opportunity to spend more time in the studio and learn new things.
I will be completing 25 years with CNN in May.
All these years working in CNN have been exhilarating! Yeah … I have had my ups and downs while working in CNN too; I have also had very frustrating moments. But these are passing phases in life. Like others, I too have overcome them. And I am happy I am still with CNN and have seen CNN growing.
I still remember the days when I did the Moneyline interview with US President Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office, special reports on the junk bond crisis and London's Big Bang.
The network earned the George Foster Peabody Award for the coverage of the stock market crash in 1987 and I was then the supervising producer for this programme.
I am now responsible for the general newsroom management in the network's Atlanta headquarters.
I am also the executive producer of landmark programming for CNN International, which includes the network's weeklong Eye on series and CNN Connects, the network's signature global panel discussion programme that showcases the world's top political and business leaders.
Launched in 2004, the Eye on series and CNN Connects travelled to New Delhi, India to debate outsourcing. Since then the unit has done weeklong programming cycles from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Beijing, Mumbai, Beirut, Shanghai and Johannesburg.
I was born in Amman, Jordan but I am, and always have been, an American citizen.
My father was working for the US State Department and was assigned to Amman. We also lived in (then) Yugoslavia, Washington DC, Texas, New Jersey and New York.
Now I am a single mother of three daughters: Jordan, 15, Blake, 12 and Lindsey, 10. I often find it quite difficult to juggle the responsibilities of my job and my family with my own needs and priorities.
What I find sometimes is that the job gets top priority and the family has to take a backseat, while at other times the family needs to come first (soccer tournament weekends, for instance) and the job must wait till later at night.
And, of course, I squeeze in my own needs in between: whether it's personal travel, seeing friends, exercise or dating!
What gives me satisfaction
Very obviously, for a media person, it can be a big scoop or exemplary work on a breaking news story. But it can also be finding the humanity in a story that appears to have no humanity.
It can be helping a colleague who is struggling, or hiring a young and passionate student and helping him or her achieve his/her professional goal of becoming a writer or reporter.
I would be proud to think of myself as a role model for my children, colleagues and employees in the way that I care deeply about my work, hold on to high personal standards of integrity and ethics, never take myself too seriously and try to find fun and joy in the work I do and the people I come across each day.
