Ralitsa Vassileva was one of the first journalists from post-communist Europe to thrive in international media. The former CNN International anchorwoman talks to Transitions.
When I first met Ralitsa Vassileva, I had no idea who she was. Well, that’s not exactly right. It was on a recent visit to the University of Georgia to meet with members of the school’s Solution Journalism Hub of the South. I had sat down with the other co-directors of the program, Amanda Bright and Kyser Lough. Ralitsa arrived a little late from other commitments so there was no time for a proper introduction. Throughout the meeting, I had an inkling that we had met before – the voice seemed familiar, she looked familiar. It was only later that evening, during dinner, that Kyser informed me that this was the Ralitsa Vassileva, whom I had watched on CNN International, off and on, for the better part of two decades until she left the network.
Ralitsa was a real pioneer – one of the first in a tiny group of journalists from Central and Eastern Europe to hit the big time after the end of the Cold War, and thrive in international broadcast media. During her years at CNN, she reported on stories ranging from the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and the Middle East to 9/11, the Arab Spring, and major U.S. elections, while interviewing prominent political and business leaders from around the world.
Her presence on CNN carried strong symbolic significance, representing a new wave of voices from the region and inspiring local journalists that they, too, had a chance beyond their countries’ borders. For Bulgarians emerging from communist rule, those feelings were multiplied many times over.
I recently met a Bulgarian journalist/academic that told me that Ralitsa was a true legend in her country, a point repeated by Boyko Vassilev (no relation), our longtime columnist and himself a prominent figure as producer and host of the weekly political show Panorama on Bulgarian National Television since 2000.
As Boyko told me, “Ralitsa was always considered as ‘one of our own’ at CNN – proof that a Bulgarian journalist, professional, and woman could succeed on the global scene. Everything around her, including the Ian Anderson song mentioning her name … were widely commented on and covered. In other words, Ralitsa Vassileva was one of the early success stories of the Bulgarian transition.”
Today, Ralitsa is a senior lecturer in journalism at the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, where she brings that international newsroom experience into the classroom. She teaches television and digital journalism, breaking news, social media, environmental reporting, and travel writing, with a particular interest in AI in the newsroom, solutions journalism, and sustainability reporting. She also serves as co-director and teaching lead of the Solutions Journalism Hub of the South.
Our interview, slightly shortened and edited for clarity, follows.
JD: Let’s start at the very beginning. When did you begin thinking about a career as a journalist? Was it something you wanted to do from the age of five, or did it develop gradually that this was something you wanted to do?
Ralitsa Vassileva: Well, I have to disappoint you. It wasn’t something I wanted to do at the age of five, and the reason was that I grew up in a communist dictatorship where there was no freedom of the press, so it never even crossed my mind that I wanted to be a journalist until I was in college and Gorbachev started the reform process. He was trying to save the communist system by reforming it and letting some press freedoms, and then very interesting things started to happen.
When I was graduating with a degree in English language and literature, I heard on Bulgarian Radio that they were looking for a “translator announcer,” a very strange profession, so I applied for that job. There were 50 people who were interested, and they just tested our voices, how we spoke English, and how we translated the news. The job was to front the news – that is, you would translate somebody else’s copy, an established journalist, and read it out for the English-language service of Bulgarian Radio.
There were two openings, and I happened to get one of them, and that’s what started my interest in journalism. I kept translating other people’s words, but I thought “I really want to do this myself,” and so one thing led to another. I asked if I could start learning how to do this. Somebody couldn’t go on the weekend to take an interview, so I asked them to teach me how to use the recorder, and I went and recorded [the interview] and started doing some of my own stories, and the rest is history.
What was your educational background? You obviously hadn’t studied this stuff, but what had you studied?
I went to an English-language high school in Sofia, Bulgaria, and then I graduated. I got a masters in English language and literature. I love literature – it wasn’t a big stretch to learn how to write, and I really found a passion for it.
So how did the CNN opportunity come about?
I was in the right place at the right time. The biggest story then was the painful transition of former communist countries to democracy and a market economy, and I knew English well, had started writing my own copy in English for Bulgarian Radio, and Ted Turner [the founder of CNN] had signed a contract with Bulgarian TV, which needed somebody like me, again, who would translate copy and front it. At first I only translated other journalists’ scripts but I learned and started doing my own reporting. That’s how CNN got to know my work.
Ted Turner had signed contracts with many, many countries around the world for a show called World Report, and I used to do those stories for that show. He had heard from people during UN conferences that all they were getting was American news on CNN, that their point of view – what was happening in their countries – was not getting on CNN. So he said, “OK, I’m going to give two hours of CNN airtime on Sundays, and each country that wants to do this will have two minutes to report in English.”
CNN started endorsing my work [on World Report], encouraging Bulgarian TV to let me do it myself, and that’s how I learned how to do reporting, and that led to an internship for three months [at CNN]. … I was delighted to be invited because there were only around 10–15 people from so many countries. We came in and we observed how CNN did things. For me this was eye-opening because we were trying to figure out how to do freedom of speech and free media in Bulgaria [in the early 1990s].
We were allowed to go and shoot a report with the CNN crew and have a CNN editor edit it, and that was a learning experience. … While I was there, the producer of CNN picked me out of the group and said, “I would like to experiment and see how the show would look with two anchors, and I want you to be that anchor.” I said “I’m sorry, I’m really honored, but I’m not an anchor. I don’t know how to do this, so please pick somebody else from the group.” She said “No, no, I’ve seen you do standups, I know you can do that,” and so I said well, then, if a CNN producer tells you that you could do something, I guess I’ll give it a try.
It was a recorded show, so the next question was “Do you have clothes to wear on air?” which I didn’t, so she borrowed [them] from her friend. So that was my debut as an anchor with borrowed clothes.
There was very good feedback from World Report viewers that were delighted to see one of the reporters anchor the show. Bulgarian TV was shocked that somebody from Bulgaria would be put into a studio to anchor a CNN show – that was just unheard of. And [when I came back] they said, “We want you to do [live] primetime news,” and I said, “I’m sorry, I’m honored, but I really cannot do this. I have [only] done a recorded show – I’m just not ready.”
They thought I was crazy – who would turn down prime time news? – but I knew that I was not prepared. So they insisted, and I said, “Well, give me the lunchtime news, which is 10 minutes. Let me learn how to do this.” Because in Bulgarian TV you don’t just anchor the show, you have to work with reporters, write your own rundown [master time schedule], write your own leads – you wrote the whole show, and you produced it yourself. And so I learned how to do that, and eventually I started doing the primetime news on weekends, but I insisted on continuing to report for both CNN and for Bulgarian TV. To me that was really important, and so that’s what eventually led to a job.
How much time had passed from when you first visited Atlanta, and did the trial shoot?
A year later, I continued to work for them, and I still remember that phone call. I was living with my parents, and they [CNN] called, and said, “We are looking to expand CNN International with international anchors, and we would like you to consider a one-year contract. We guarantee for one year that we’re going to give this a try – it’s never been done before – so we can only offer a one-year contract if you would come. You would be an anchor for World Report, and then eventually we want you to start working for CNN International as a regular CNN international anchor during that year, and you can continue reporting also.”
I said “yes.” I didn’t even ask what they would be paying me. And that process took a while, they had to get a special visa, had to prove that I had exceptional abilities that no American had for that specific kind of job. They arranged everything properly … and I was all set to go. And I remember I was supposed to leave on the 25th of September [1991]. In the middle of August, Gorbachev was deposed by hardliners, and so for a few days I didn’t know if I would ever go to CNN. If communism came back to the Soviet Union, then it would come back to Bulgaria, so for two days I thought, “Well, that’s the end of that dream job [even though] I have the ticket, I have the visa.” And then I thought, “Oh my goodness, I’m now in deeper trouble. I would be branded an enemy of the state for agreeing to work for a foreign enemy TV station.” I thought of all the reporting that I had done which was critical of communism, so not going to CNN was the least of my problems, and so for two days I didn’t know what would happen. Then Gorbachev clawed his way back to power, and a month later I was able to leave and go to America.
There was another hurdle also, just to give you a sense of how uncertain those times were. In order for me to get the visa, I had to hand them my international passport. You had two different passports in those times. The international passport was never in your hands, you gave it back to the [Bulgarian] Foreign Ministry if you were not allowed to travel.
So I go to the Foreign Ministry, and they say, “Sorry, we can’t find your passport, we don’t have it.” I didn’t know what to do, I was nearly in tears. “What, how can you not have my passport, what do I do?” And they said, “Well, we don’t know.” And then I talked to mentors, and they said, “Go and ask to speak with the person who’s in charge,” and so I went, and he recognized me as a reporter from Bulgarian TV, and he talked to me, and he said, “Come tomorrow, and I will have your passport.” So just to tell you how difficult it was to get to Atlanta, and so I got there and thought it would be one year, but Bulgarian TV said, “We’ll keep your job. Come back and bring all that experience.” But CNN offered a three-year contract after the first one, so I accepted. And then I ended up staying for 23 years.
I want to get to that, but I was also curious how you felt right after you got there. Was there any kind of imposter syndrome?
I did have the imposter syndrome, because I was plunged into such important global news, earth-shattering news, and I had to quickly learn a lot. But on the other hand, I was welcomed very warmly, with a lot of curiosity, by everybody in the newsroom, and the reason was because of the standards and the ideals that Ted Turner had. The reason why he created CNN International with people like me was because he believed that if he was going to serve an international audience, that audience had to feel like there were people there who understood where they came from. And a lot of the journalists who were working with me were very curious. They felt that they didn’t know enough, and they constantly questioned me about how it was [back home]. … We had been divided for so many decades by an Iron Curtain – information did not flow both ways.
CNN International was an opportunity for us to say “Hey, hello, who are you?” and I think that was my role, to introduce what Eastern Europe was to the viewers. And just to give you an example of how little people in the West knew about us because of that Iron Curtain. I had invited an American journalism professor to come talk to people at Bulgarian TV, and he was shocked when he came to Bulgaria. He expected babushkas, women with scarfs, because that’s how [local] women were portrayed in the Western media, and then he saw them dressed in miniskirts, and just a modern kind of society. I felt also that people looking at me also saw that I was just like them, but I was also curious about them, because I had been fed a lot of misinformation, disinformation, even though I was listening to the Voice of America, which was very difficult to listen to because they [the Bulgarian government] tried to interrupt the signal. But to me also, I felt like I was going to a society in which there was high crime, things were going to be dangerous and risky, so both ways [the misconceptions] worked.
The reaction from Bulgaria was very supportive, I am guessing, or was there any sense of jealousy?
It was very supportive from the beginning, and I remember coming back and a lot of people saying, “Why didn’t you stay there?” At that time it was almost impossible to get a visa. I said, “Why stay, and do what? What we’re doing here is revolutionary, my heart is in changing Bulgaria, changing the way people get informed.”
This was after your first visit to CNN?
Yes, and people were just shocked. I shocked them several times by returning, and by refusing to do prime news when I knew I wasn’t ready, but I’m glad that I did it my way, because then that eventually led to respect and to the job at CNN. So yes, I did not feel any jealousy – those were just amazing times, and they got very complicated later, and I really felt for all my colleagues, when I was at CNN, what they were dealing with in Bulgaria as pressures grew on the media.
They are true heroes to me, the ones who managed to do journalism the right way.
When you were at CNN, in those early years, how much was it a learning process? Was that a long adjustment period, or did it just come to you naturally and you picked it up?
The most difficult thing was really doing breaking news, ad libbing, live events, conducting interviews, live interviews. What I did was just read and read and read as much as I could every single day, and learned and worked. I took notes about all the major crises in the world. I didn’t feel I knew enough, and I prepared very diligently for every single interview that I had to do. Also, I had a nightmare, a recurring nightmare, that somehow I wouldn’t think of the word in English when I was doing live breaking news, where nobody could help me, but it never happened.
Any favorite interview that you remember?
Certainly, interviewing Gorbachev, which to me was personally so moving and important, because this man had changed the world in a way in which I was able to be where I am.
Did you do it in English or in Russian?
I asked the questions in English, he answered in Russian, and his translator translated simultaneously, so I was hearing both English and Russian. … I was very emotional and had to keep it together and to ask fair questions, and to also focus on his answers, because it was so distracting to hear the two languages. I think it went well, but that was one of the most memorable interviews on a personal level, where I had to keep it together and be as objective as possible, as fair as possible to the viewers’ expectations.
Another interview that was challenging, but also gave me a sense of the personality of a politician who is influencing global affairs, was Netanyahu, his earlier stint as prime minister. He was in Atlanta, and we were sitting next to each other, so I got a feel for who he was, and we talked about very sensitive issues. I pushed him on many, many things, and then we went to a break. He shook my hand and he said, “You were tough, but you were fair, and I respect that.” I thought that spoke a lot about him as a politician, having [personally] grown up in a country where you could not ask the tough question to a politician and not get in huge trouble for that. That was another thing I had to let go of, that fear, to be able to freely focus on asking the difficult questions. The way I did it, I had my facts right, I quadruple checked them, and so anytime I would ask him a tough question, I had quadruple checked that fact. So yes, that was quite an interesting insight into who he was.
I would say even ordinary people [were also memorable interviewees], like children with disabilities, who taught me how to treat them just the same way that I would treat a child without a disability, not to feel sorry for them. That was just eye-opening and so humbling to me. Or a little girl in India, where there wasn’t even a paved road to reach the hut where she lived with her parents to do a story.
You also mentioned obstacles adjusting to American life.
The biggest challenge was just how to live in an American city. I had to learn how to drive a car and rent a place, and then being told “You need a credit card to pay your utilities, because we can’t turn on your lights or heat before you do that,” and I didn’t have a credit card.
When I went to get a credit card, they said, “Give us your credit history.” I said, “But I never owned a credit card. I was paid $50 a month [in Bulgaria], cash.” “But you never had an account?” they asked. I said I didn’t need to have a bank account, I spent every single penny. And so I remember one bank decided to give me a credit card, where I put in $200 and I could borrow $200 to pay my utilities, so different things like that, going to the mall, and getting a headache, because there were so many choices, or going to a restaurant. I could not order anything because there was just too much choice.
Watching local news – where most of it was about crime – I didn’t know what to make of it. So I started sleeping with a chair against the door so if somebody broke into my house at least the chair would wake me up. And then I talked to my friends at work, and they said, “Don’t worry, it doesn’t happen every day, it doesn’t happen in every neighborhood, you’ll be fine.” I couldn’t put things in perspective, and it took a while to become comfortable just living.
You mentioned Ted Turner a couple times. It sounds like he was an inspirational figure as well. Was he around?
Yes, I remember the first time, after I was hired, coming to work. I worked in the same tower as he did, and so I went to the elevator, and there came Ted Turner, and I thought, “My goodness, I have to be in the same elevator with Ted Turner.” And so I decided that I couldn’t handle that, so I pretended that I was waiting for the next elevator. But he held the door – he said, “Elevator’s here,” and I had to get into the elevator. He asked, “What floor?” I said, “seventh.” He pushed the seventh for me, 14th for him. Then he turned to me and said, “You, young lady, are doing a great job.”
I didn’t even think that he knew who I was. I said, “Thank you so much, Mr. Turner, for this amazing opportunity,” and he said, “No, we’re all in this together.” That’s how he looked at this whole thing: we’re all in this together, we’re bringing the world together, bringing different viewpoints, and letting nations and people be what they are. He had this big vision that he wanted his journalists to be open-minded and curious, and that’s the curiosity and open-mindedness that I encountered when I came from Bulgaria.
You’ve had a long successful career, now you’re in academia. What would you advise young journalists, people just starting off in their career or thinking about being a journalist?
Having a passion for the profession first, that’s really important, because it takes a lot out of you. You have to sacrifice a lot of your personal life, family life. To what degree are you comfortable with that? Having a curiosity for the news and why things are happening, being very committed to fairness. We all have our own biases, but we can be fair, and try to give every voice that needs to be in the story a place in your story. Also, you can manipulate people by the voices you don’t give a chance to, the voices you amplify, so be fair, work hard, and respect your audience, and never forget that it’s a privilege that people let you into their lives, sometimes at the worst moments. And take that privilege very seriously and present those people’s situations in the fairest way that we possibly can.
For a lot of young journalists from the region, I think you were probably a signal that they could make it in high places as well. I don’t know if you ever got that feedback when you went back to Europe, but it must have been inspirational for a lot of people, because it was very rare.
Eventually, there were a few that came to CNN, and they worked in the newsroom. Every time I went back to Bulgaria, people recognized me and told me that me working at CNN gave them a sense of dignity and the confidence that they could do and be anything that they wanted to be, regardless of where they came from, whether they were Eastern European or not, and that meant a lot to me.
Jeremy Druker is the executive director and editor in chief of Transitions. Ralitsa Vassileva is a former CNN news anchor who is currently a senior lecturer in journalism at the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.
