#7 CNN SVP Mitra Kalita: a day in the life
Pod with Hamilton's Ari Afsar + 2020's South Asian candidates
Welcome to Trailblazers! We bring you trailblazing by and for South Asians every other Monday. Visit our IG, FB, and LinkedIn, and archives.
Catching Fire 🚀 your news roundup
👑 Vaccine’s unexpected poster child: Indian Queens
As Pfizer concludes its vaccine trials, questions around efficacy are emerging. Politicians have preemptively rejected a Trump-endorsed vaccine. Over 50 percent of Americans have expressed weariness over the speed to market (the fastest vaccine ever created to date took four years).
Over 220 years ago, vaccine treatments for small pox were only widely-accepted after Indian monarchs apparently endorsed immunization. Three women served as poster children for public health in 1800s colonial India, as revealed by the painting below. It’s possible similar endorsement campaigns will be launched in service of a Covid vaccine. Read about the faces that launched a thousand shots from BBC’s Aparna Alluri.
🇺🇸 South Asian voters lean left
Unprecedented studies of South Asian voters are being released: from the New York Times, NBC, and research from Carnegie. The highlights:
72 percent of Indian Americans will vote Biden-Harris; Harris has served as a mobilizing force for Asian Americans
The partisan divide in SA families cuts across generations: with younger gens having liberal leanings
Healthcare and economic policies take priority; concerns about U.S.-India relations factor in but not as much: it’s unclear if Harris alone outweighs preferences for Trump’s friendly relationship with India
📺 Binge-worthy: Bad Boy Billionaires
South Asian representation in TV: the 2020 gift that keeps on giving. The Netflix hit, Bad Boy Billionaires, covers the explosive rise and dramatic fall of three Indian tycoons. Originally intended to premiere over a month ago, the show’s antagonists — a few of whom are imprisoned — filed lawsuits that delayed the release. One episode, focusing on Ramalinga Raju remains unavailable, as Netflix continues to fight the courts.
If you love almost-contraband replete with diamond magnates, offshore Cayman accounts, and extradition escapades, this is the show for you.
Hot off the Pod 🎧 Arianna Afsar, Hamilton Star
Subscribe to know when the pod drops tonight. Arianna is a singer-songwriter best known for her starring role as Elizabeth Hamilton in the Chicago production of the award-winning musical. You don’t want to miss out on hearing her story.
In episode six, we dive into Ari’s journey on stage, from American Idol to her original musical that honors Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to Congress in 1916. She shares the ins of working with icons like Lin-Manuel Miranda and the outs of a Broadway shuttered by the coronavirus. Most significantly, Ari presents a career that intersects her passions: women’s rights and the theater. From hosting musical fundraisers for progressive candidates to opening for Michelle Obama at the United State of Women, Ari’s trailblazing a path forward in activism through the arts.
Fireside Chat 🔥 S. Mitra Kalita, Senior VP at CNN
Mitra is a media veteran who currently serves as Senior Vice President at CNN Digital. Mitra has served as Managing Editor of the LA Times, Executive Director of Quartz, and Founding Editor of Mint, an Indian newspaper. Under her stewardship, the LA Times won a Pulitzer. While at Quartz, she oversaw the launch of Quartz India and Africa. She also spent time as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and other esteemed outlets. She recently announced her forthcoming departure from CNN to pursue community media ventures.
What does your day-to-day at CNN look like?
It changes every day — which is why I became a journalist. I oversee the national news team which is all news outside of Washington D.C., so not the White House but rather working with our bureaus in Los Angeles, Atlanta, and Chicago.
We work with our news-gathering operations around the country which covers domestic news, as well as breaking news, which very much is the White House… and hurricanes, protests, and the national reckoning on race. Breaking news is basically the bread and butter of CNN and my teams run a digital tool that chronicles stories in real time. That's probably one of the things I'm proudest of launching: it’s essentially the digital version of what you see when you turn on CNN. I run the Features team which is travel, style, wellness, health, and science. It’s been a huge pivot in Covid because we've shifted that to news people need to know right now to live their lives and be safe.
I also run the Opinion team and our Programming team. I daresay most important to the modern era of journalism is programming: the distribution of our work. That's our homepage, our alerts, Twitter, Facebook, all social media. It’s the world's most powerful news homepage in the world. We make sure news gets to people, no matter where they are.
My day-to-day is what I’m describing. I wake up and and I try to get a sense of what is trending. What are the angles? What are the obvious questions? What are we not saying that we might want to dive into to help our readers understand the news around them.
On a recent panel, you said, ‘If we see ourselves as oppositional to the President, we are failing.’ How have you tried to reconcile the work you're doing with an administration that literally calls CNN ‘fake news?’
I lean into why I am doing this. I'm not doing this to counter the President's words with retorts. The best way to counter the President's attacks are with the truth, with facts, and with a legitimate representation of the will of the people. If we lose sight of who we are doing this for and who we represent, whether it's at a White House press conference or the CNN newsroom, that would be a disservice. We have to understand the faith that people have in us, the trust that they have in us to give them the truth over anything else. The failure would be to be combative versus doing some truth-telling or truth-seeking, if you will. Because sometimes things will be said and the response is, “Is that true?” And it’s like, well, we can go find out. We can go commit some journalism. That’s the lens I encourage teams to put on. There's more in your control when you approach it that way.
Stay tuned for Mitra’s media takes: the pod drops in the next issue!
Campaign Trail🇺🇸blazers
We’re back with a break down on South Asians running for office in 2020, based on our study of 77 candidates. Credits to our Fellows, Shubhu & Aashna. Details on races to watch: Sara, Sri, and Hiral!
Opportunities and Events
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